Need You for Mine (Heroes of St. Helena)(72)

“Wait, you bake?” Emerson asked, face wide with shock.

He smiled. At Harper. “I can cook too.”

“How is that possible? If it isn’t on a grill, Dax burns it.”

Adam shrugged, then took another bite of the cookie. The big jerk. “You picked a cop. They think it’s all about the size of the gun. Real men, like firefighters, don’t have props to rely on, so we have to be the real deal.”

“Real men fight fires?” Emerson asked.

He winked at her and she rolled her eyes and went back to the couch, but not before snagging a cookie from the bag, which she sniffed and licked before tasting. And if her dreamy eyes meant anything, then those cookies were the real deal.

And Harper was beginning to think Adam was too.

“Why aren’t you at work?” she asked.

“One of the guys needed some overtime, so I gave him my hours,” Adam said. “I told Roman I wanted to help you get ready for tomorrow. You know, loading up the cars, lifting heavy objects, lending a hand with the face painting.” He looked down at Harper and grinned. “Anything you need.”

Her friends’ brows perked up in question at Adam’s offer, and Harper’s nipples did some perking of their own.

Adam looked at Shay’s face mask. “I see you already got started.”

“I’m Cleopatra,” Shay said, turning her face side to side, modeling it.

“I know. Mark Antony was at the station helping me organize the tents for tomorrow when you drunk-texted him.”

“I’m not drunk,” Shay slurred.

Adam looked at the three empty bottles and lifted a brow.

“Okay, maybe I’m a little tipsy.”

“Which is why Jonah is on his way.” He shifted those blue pools to Harper. “And I came here to make sure you got home safely.”

“I’m still on my first glass and I live across the hall.” She pointed at the door two feet behind him to prove it.

“Then I guess the cookies will still be warm when we get there.” He picked up her backpack from the entry table and flung it over his back. “Oh, and sunshine, don’t forget your paints.”



“Take your shirt off.”

“That’s not how this works, sunshine. Fair is fair, so if I lose mine, you lose yours.” Adam sat back on her couch, making himself comfortable. Arms behind his head, legs stretched out so that they were brushing hers, he said, “Ladies first.”

“That’s the problem,” Harper said, picking up her paintbrush. “If I take my top off then you take off yours, it will be ladies first and I will never finish your face mask.”

“Ladies first is never, ever a problem.”

To prove it, he sat forward and rested his hands on her knees, slowly sliding them up her thighs—and higher until Harper’s body wept to give in. And what was wrong with giving in? She’d had a particularly long day, he looked like a tall drink of exactly what she needed, and the bulge in his pants said he felt the same kind of need.

Her eyes wandered down his body and he flashed her a knowing grin, pure badass and challenge. It matched the positively naughty look in his eyes. His lips twitched higher and his hands were back on the move. She allowed this for a moment, long enough to feel her body tingle, her eyes slide closed, and—

“Stop.” She gently snapped the back of his hand with the brush. “Unless you want me to get paint all over your shirt, lose it.”

“I like it when you’re bossy.” Reaching back with a single hand, Adam lost the shirt in an innately male, testosterone-fueled move that had her imagination spiking—along with her pulse.

Sinking her teeth into the wooden tip of her paintbrush, Harper focused on his masculine jawline, shadowed stubble, and strong, full lips. The lips of a man who knew how to kiss a woman. She allowed her eyes to follow the lines of his body, across his broad shoulders, over his perfectly sculpted pecs, and down every succulent ridge of his stomach, to the happy trail leading into the promised land.

He was impressive.

The body of a fighter, the air of a leader, and the mouth of a lover. A powerful combination that was impossible to resist. And exciting to paint.

Dipping her brush into the metallic gray paint, she placed the bristles on the curve of his neck and followed the ridge of his collarbone.

“I thought you were making me into some kind of firefighting superhero,” he said, and she noticed that he flexed his muscles.

“I changed my mind.”

“Is this where you tell me you’re making me a bunny?” His pecs bobbed up and down every time she tried to paint over them. Her body tingled.

“Stop doing that.” She laughed. “And no, I’m making you more you.”

He looked down as she worked. “Well, I can promise you that the real me doesn’t wear glittery gray.”

“It’s chainmail. Is that manly enough for you?” She didn’t stop to hear his response. She just let her instincts take over. “Body painting is an artistic representation of the real person inside. It’s supposed to enhance all of the hidden qualities, as well as the obvious ones, to give a visual voice to the subject.”

“Do you believe that?”

Harper looked up at Adam, and given the vulnerability in his eyes, he wanted her to believe, because he wanted to believe. She hesitated, because when she finally put the brush down, and he realized how she saw him, there was going to be no more hiding. Art was about expression and truth, and maybe Shay was right. Maybe it was time for Harper to put herself out there.