But if she wanted that to be true, she was going to have to be a lot more active about seducing Rill to the obvious.
Nineteen
Rill felt good and tired by the time he reentered the house later that afternoon. After he’d fixed the posts on the porch, he’d found half a dozen things to do around the property. He must have been in a deep depression, never to have felt the urge to pick up a hammer or a pair of pliers. Rill had always liked doing manual labor, sometimes even pitching in on carpentry on movie sets when an extra pair of hands was needed and they were on a tight filming schedule. His uncles had taught him how to be handy with tools. Ray and William Pierce—Rill was named after a combination of his uncles’ names—had learned how to be fine carpenters in prison. Too bad learning a decent trade had never dissuaded his uncles from gambling, womanizing, stealing and scamming.
Never kept them out of jail, either.
Rill set his newfound toolbox on the front porch and hesitated before entering the house. He knew what was going to happen when he went in there . . . what he’d been avoiding ever since Everett had accused him of possibly having twisted reasons for having sex with Katie.
After twenty-four hours of thinking about the matter, Rill came to the definite conclusion he didn’t possess any twisted reasons for lusting after Katie. Not unless one considered feral horniness as a twisted motivation, which it may very well be, to the degree he was taking it.
Everett’s accusation may have made him think twice about what he was doing, but his spurt of morality was already wearing thin as he worked around the house and thought of Katie in there, alone.
In the distance, he heard music and the sound of bells tinkling. Katie walked into the kitchen wearing some kind of flowy magenta skirt that rode low on her hips and fell to her calves. She was barefoot and Rill could see ten perfect toes tipped in pink polish. Around her right ankle, she wore a gold anklet adorned with what looked like tiny bells. She wore a top—of sorts—that tied between her breasts and fell in loose sleeves around her wrists. Her belly and curving hips were left bare. She’d pulled her long, waving hair back in the front, but the back of it fell around her shoulders. There was a slight sheen of perspiration on her face and in the valley of her breasts.
His already translucent moral conscience vanished into a puff of vapor. She looked like something that ought to be illegal.
His cock agreed wholeheartedly.
He glanced up from where he’d been gawking at the luscious curves of her breasts in the little bra-like top she wore when he heard a clear, precise ringing sound. Katie stared at him with a friendly smile and one arched eyebrow. He realized dazedly that the sound he’d heard had been Katie attempting to draw his attention off her breasts by tapping the little metal cymbals she wore on two of her fingers.
“Hi,” she greeted him. “I was just working out.”
“In that?” Rill asked in a choked voice, nodding at the sexy little gypsy costume she was almost wearing.
“Yeah. I have lots of belly-dancing costumes. It makes the workouts more fun.”
“Don’t tell me you go out in public like that,” Rill muttered. Yeah, he was a guy, and yeah, he definitely had his uncles’ genes, because his gaze had returned to her body. He realized that the eight-inch-wide panel of her skirt that encircled her hips and crotch was made of magenta see-through mesh. He could see a minuscule pair of black panties beneath it.
“Sure, I wear this one at dance class. I do have one number
that I’ve never worn to class, though. Never worn period.” She walked toward him. More like sashayed. Why hadn’t he ever noticed before what a sexy walk Katie possessed? Her hips moved in a fluid, tight roll. Rill blinked when he heard the ring of the bells on her ankle and glanced up curving hips gloved in pale gold skin. When he finally got to her face, he saw her light green eyes shining with merriment and mischief.
“Would you like it if I put it on?”
“What?” Rill asked stupidly.
“The costume I mentioned. The one I don’t wear in public. I could show you the routine I learned in my last class. It’ll only take me a minute to change.”
“Katie—”
She took another step, close enough that Rill became hyperaware of the short distance between the tips of her breasts covered in the scanty little top and his rib cage.
“Do you want to know something, Rill?” she asked quietly. “You are far, far too uptight about sex. I have to admit, I’m stunned about it. Could this be the same man who had Citizens for Morality picketing his last film in five states?”
His nostrils flared and he caught her scent: flowers and sweet sweat and just a hint of something Rill immediately identified with sex. Or his cock did.
“I’m not uptight. I’m trying to rein myself in. There’s a difference.”
A curious expression crossed her beautiful, flushed face. “So if I were someone else, someone different from your friend, you wouldn’t be so uptight?”
“If you were someone else, I wouldn’t feel the need to be.”
She blinked, and he realized too late how harsh he’d sounded. She licked her lower lip in an anxious gesture. He resisted an urge to pick her up and ravish her on top of the kitchen counter.
“But you like sex . . . right?” she asked.
“Sometimes, I think, too much.”