If Only You (Bergman Brothers, #6)(17)

Staring at him, I tell my heart to stop speeding up. “Can I help you?”

“Yes. By standing still.”

And then he kneels. My stomach plummets at the sight.

“Step in,” he says, holding the jeans open for me.

“Step in?”

He peers up. “To wear them while I do this. Unless it’ll bother you too much. Having you wear them will help me figure out where to cut them, but I can hold them up against you instead and figure it out that way, too. It’s less accurate, though.”

I just need him not to be down on his knees in front of me anymore, his head right at my pelvis. I’d suffer a dozen jeans that feel weird at the ankles to get this over with before my libido hijacks my brain again and makes my thoughts devolve into a full-on fantasy about what it might be like for Sebastian Gauthier to kneel in front of me for a very different, much more pleasurable reason.

“I can do it.” Clutching the counter, I step into the jeans quickly, then take over from him when he lifts them past my knees. Our fingers brush, and I jolt. Sebastian drops his hands away sharply, pressing them against his thighs as he sits back on his heels. He looks away, staring at my bookshelves.

Waiting for some snide comment about my reading preferences, I tug the jeans up higher, under my robe, before I get them zipped and buttoned.

“Okay,” I tell him.

He lifts his eyes, sharp silver. His throat works. “Can you part your robe over your jeans, so I can see where to cut—”

I lift the robe, bunching it at my stomach.

He clears his throat. “Pen?”

Reaching past him, I open the small drawer in my kitchen where I keep pens and pencils. “Pen.”

He doesn’t say anything, just takes it and starts to draw a line across my thigh. A yelp jumps out of me, which sends the pen zigzagging down the fabric. He gives me an exasperated look. “This is going so well, with you wiggling.”

“It tickles!”

Sighing, he grips my thigh hard. The heat of his hand seeps through my jeans. “Be still, and I’ll be quick.”

I bite my cheek while he drags the pen around my leg, hand holding me tight, before he switches and does the other one.

“All right.” His gaze dances up to mine from where he kneels. He clears his throat again, then glances away. “Take them off.”

I start to shimmy the jeans off, but they stick as I roll them down. Sebastian brushes my fingers away, wraps his hand around my ankle, then yanks away one jean leg, then the other, in two swift, efficient tugs.

Oh boy. He’s very good at removing clothes.

I scrunch my eyes shut and tell my lusty brain to can it.

Sebastian stands with my jeans, holding them in front of him, but this kitchen is small, and once again, we stand close. Too close.

I feel achy and flushed.

“I’m just going to go, uh—” Clearing my throat, I throw a thumb over my shoulder. “Brush my hair.”

Sebastian makes a noncommittal grunt, focused on my jeans. He turns so he’s right up against the kitchen counter and lays them out, before making the first cut with the scissors.

Safely distanced from him in the bathroom, I get my hair untangled, swearing foully in Swedish while I comb out every wind-induced knot. By the time my hair’s smooth and freshened up with dry shampoo, tugged into a sleek high ponytail, there’s a knock on the bathroom door.

I ease it open. A pair of shorts hits me in the face. “Thanks?”

He doesn’t even answer me as he tugs the door shut.

“Somebody’s moody.”

“Hungry!” he calls. “Hurry the hell up.”

Muttering to myself in Swedish, just in case Sebastian can hear me complaining about him, I yank on the shorts, then whip open the door, storming past him for the bra and top he picked out and left on my bed. I yank the curtain around me, change into the bra and shirt, tug on socks, then wedge my feet into the black-and-white Nike high-tops that he must have set out, too, before I tug back the curtain. “Was that fast enough for you?”

Sebastian turns from where he’s been standing with his back to me, arms folded across his chest. The tiniest pull at the corner of his mouth, a flicker of light in those cool, gray eyes, is all the change in his expression. But it’s something. And it makes me feel good.

Taking his sweet time for someone who was just harassing me about hurrying up, he strolls my way, somehow still graceful, even with that air cast boot thudding on the floor.

“Well?” I ask. “How’s it look?”

He’s quiet for a moment, his gaze roaming my face, trailing down my body. Then he says, “Turn around.”

“Why?”

“Sigrid. Just turn around.”

Sighing, I do as I’m told and face my reflection in the wall-mounted mirror. I look…exactly how I wanted to. Me, but with an edge.

The tank is threadbare, but not too sheer, the shadow of my black bra hinted beneath it. Sebastian not only cut the jeans into shorts but also managed to mildly distress them, the occasional slash across the fabric but not cut clean through, the bottom edges frayed so they’re soft but not ticklish. They’re short, yet not too short, enough to show off my legs without making me feel like my butt’s going to pop out when I sit. My white high-tops with their black accents and laces match my bra and top. It’s perfect.