had ever had.
* * *
Cameron finished the last bit of code for his current client’s site and sat back. There were still tests to run and scenarios to play out to ensure he’d filled every nook and cranny with the proper protections and hadn’t left any back doors accidentally open, but they could wait until tomorrow. He rubbed a hand over his head and then stretched. He was past overdue for a massage—he usually kept regular appointments to prevent the kinks in his back from getting too bad—but Aaron’s pending fatherhood had kept his partner out of the office more and more as his woman’s pregnancy got further along, and more work had landed on Cameron as a result.
He didn’t mind. His friend was happy, and that was enough for Cameron. He liked the work, liked keeping occupied with it. All he had was an empty apartment waiting for him, so it wasn’t as if he missed much by spending more time in the office.
As he pushed to his feet and stretched more fully, he frowned. What’s that smell? Another deep inhale had him checking his watch. It was well after eight in the evening, so who the hell was painting?
Cameron stalked out of his office, already calculating where the vents could be sending the scent from. It was probably the floor below theirs. The woman who ran the consulting business down there liked revamping her office with startling regularity. Saying shit wouldn’t accomplish anything, and it was after-hours. He was just tired and hungry and overreacting.
He reached the front office and stopped cold. White cloth covered the floor and blue painter’s tape marked off both the ceiling and trim. Half the white walls were now a soothing green, but that wasn’t what set him back on his heels.
No, that was reserved for the barefoot woman teetering on the top of a stepladder—above the sign set into the step warning not to stand above that point—her curly blond hair tied back in a haphazard knot that looked like a bird’s nest. He started forward, belatedly realizing she still wore the outfit she’d had on earlier, a simple black skirt that hugged her hips and ass and a loose pink blouse in the same startling shade as the heels she’d worn.
This is Aaron’s little sister. Get your eyes off her ass.
It was a great ass, though. As she went onto her tiptoes, the muscles in her lower half flexed and he had to bite back a groan. At least until she wobbled and overcompensated. Cameron jumped forward and caught her. He was a bastard and a half because he let himself enjoy the feeling of her in his arms for several seconds before he set her back on her feet.
Trish shoved the cloud of curly blond hair that had escaped its knot back and gave him a blindingly bright smile. “Thanks! I thought I could do this without scaffolding, but those nine-foot ceilings are no joke.” Her smile wobbled. “Crap, I’m sorry. I got paint on you.”
Cameron looked down to the streak of green marking his shoulder and then back at her. “You just took a nosedive off a ladder and you’re worried about my shirt?”
“Well...yeah.” She shrugged and leaned over to set the paint roller on the tray perched precariously on the ladder. “I fell. You caught me. Thanks again, by the way. But there’s no reason to dwell on it.”
He stared into those guileless blue eyes. She truly looked more worried about his shirt than any injuries she would have suffered if his timing had been a little off. “What would you have done if I wasn’t here and you broke your leg?”
“At that angle, I’m more likely to break an arm.” When he just glowered at her, she huffed out a breath. “My phone is right there, within easy reach.” She pointed at the ladder. “If I didn’t topple the ladder when I fell, and for some reason I wasn’t able to stand, I would have kicked it over, retrieved my phone and called for help. Happy?”
Fuck no, he wasn’t happy. The woman was obviously crazy, because she didn’t seem the least bit concerned with that scenario. Cameron crossed his arms over his chest. “If I leave right now, you’re going to climb right back up that ladder and finish painting, aren’t you?”
“No?”
He growled. “If you’re going to lie, at least try to pretend you’re not fishing for the right answer.” He gave up his happy thoughts about the pizza place down the block from his apartment. There was no way he could leave this woman unsupervised. He’d spend the rest of the night worried that she’d fallen again and he hadn’t been there to catch her, and there would be no rest and a whole lot of indigestion in his future. Cameron stalked around the ladder, testing its stability. Should be fine as long as no one stands on the top of the damn thing. He pointed at the untouched brush near the paint can. “You’re on edges.”
“Actually, I—”
“You’re on edges,” he repeated, staring her down. “I’ll handle this.”
Trish opened her mouth, drawing his attention to her pink lipstick. He’d never had a thing for painted lips before, but the bright pigment made the sharp Cupid’s bow of her top lip stand out against her skin and... For fuck’s sake, she’s got freckles. She was downright adorable, and that should be enough to banish any thoughts of getting his hands on her perfectly rounded ass or kissing her until she forgot about whatever argument she was obviously debating delivering.
It wasn’t.
He wanted her, and hell if that didn’t complicate things.
Cameron hadn’t bothered to date in longer than he cared to think about. It was so much goddamn work getting to know another person. Most of them ended up storming off before the second date because he said something wrong. Or he didn’t talk enough. Or he talked too much about work because, God forbid, that wasn’t a safe subject, either. It was exhausting just thinking about it, and he hadn’t met anyone tempting enough to make him want to run that particular gauntlet. Easy enough to scratch the itch in loud bars where talking was the last thing on either his or his prospective partner’s mind, but even that had gotten tiresome recently.
If he’d run into Trish on the street, he might have asked her out. Might have let her obvious enthusiasm and sunny attitude wash over him.
But she worked for him. What was more, her big brother was one of the few people in this world who not only put up with Cameron’s bullshit without expecting him to change but also was a genuine friend.
He might want Trish, but she was the one woman he couldn’t touch.
TRISH DIDN’T KNOW what to think of Cameron, but after looking like he wanted to give her a blistering lecture, he just picked up the paint roller, glared at her and got to work. She watched him climb the ladder and gave herself a shake. Staring at her boss’s shoulders was not going to get this room painted before midnight. He obviously wasn’t willing to listen to reason or let her do the job she was hired for, so she might as well take advantage of the extra set of hands.
Unsurprisingly, Cameron wasn’t much of a chatterbox and every time she tried to talk to him, she only got grunts or one-word answers in response.
She gave up. Not forever. But it was kind of nice to just paint and not have to worry about being chipper. There was no relaxing, though—not with Cameron taking up too much space in the front office. Every time she moved, she caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of her eye. He moved with perfect precision, each roll of the paint even and uniform.
It took two hours to finish up, and part of Trish was almost sad to end the companionable silence. She stood back and pushed her hair away from her face with her forearm. “Oh yeah, this is the right color.”
Cameron surveyed it as if he were a color expert. Hell, maybe he was. His brows furrowed. “It’s strangely pleasing.”
“That’s the point.” She placed her brush in the paint tray and started gathering up the various supplies scattered