Dirty Work: A Bad Boy Romance by Sophie Brooks

Chapter One

    COULD THERE BE anything better than a hot, naked man in my shower? And not just any man. I’d always liked the way Jake looked. Six foot two, with honey blond hair that a comb couldn’t tame. A sexy goatee and a trail of stubble lining his strong jaw made him look like the bad boy he was. He’d spent years working construction, so he had plenty of muscles in all the right places. His powerful arms were made for wrapping around me.  
    I could go on about his chest for several days. Impossibly smooth, tan skin covered his hard pecs and abs. He also had the most piercing eyes I’d ever seen, deep pools of blue that were currently focused on me. Only me. “Let’s make this happen,” he said.
    And I wanted to. I wanted to tear off my clothes and join him in there. I knew he wanted me to also, because he got a commanding look on his face and said, “Did you hear me?”  
    I took a step forward. He was still looking at me so intently it made me melt. His perfect lips opened and I wanted to kiss them, but then his actual words finally got through to me as he repeated them: “When did this happen?”  
    What? Reality came crashing down on me as the hot, pulse-quickening image faded away.  
    There was a sexy guy in my shower, but he was fully clothed and looking at me like I was crazy. “It isn’t a hard question,” he said. “When did the window break?”  
    Oh! “Sorry, I was thinking about something else,” I said, trying to appear as if I were fully vested in this conversation and hadn’t been imagining anything even remotely inappropriate. “On Monday. I opened the window to let the steam out after my shower and the crank broke. Now it won’t close.” My house wasn’t exactly new, and things often went wrong. Which was why Jake was here in the first place.
    “Can you fix it?” I asked.
    He rolled those baby blues. “I can fix anything, Red.”  
    The last trace of the delicious fantasy vanished completely, and I sighed. We were back to this again. “My hair is red. My name is Fiona.”
    “Got it, Red. I’m gonna have to get a new crank from the hardware store.”  
    “Is that expensive?” The thought of spending yet more money I didn’t have to fix this house drove all thoughts of the annoying nickname from my mind.
    “It’s a hand crank for a sixty-year-old casement window. I don’t think it’s going to break the bank.”  
    “Well, how would I know?”  
    He glanced at me and then turned back to the frosted glass window. It was the old-fashioned kind that opened outward like a small door. It was usually controlled by a small crank that turned to open or close it. When it worked.
    Jake let his gaze travel from the open window back to me. His mouth settled into a wicked grin. “If you’re low on cash, you could sell tickets to watch you shower.” His gaze fell to the street beyond my front yard. “Looks like there’d be a pretty good view.”  
    “Don’t be an ass. I taped a trash bag over it.”
    “Then I’ll cancel my plan to camp out on the sidewalk tomorrow morning.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and swiped at it as if he were changing his schedule. Such a comedian. But his act was made less convincing by the way his eyes weren’t on the phone at all, but instead sweeping up and down my body, pausing to linger on my straight skirt and tight t-shirt. His eyes moved upward, and he could have been looking at my face, but I knew better. He was focused on my shoulder-length wave of auburn hair. He’d always loved my hair. Said it made me look as Irish as my name.
    Jake stepped over the edge of the bathtub and suddenly it was very crowded in the small bathroom. He brushed past me as he exited. I was tempted to accuse him of trying to cop a feel, but truthfully, it was a very tiny room and he was a pretty big guy. Well, pretty tall, anyway. He wasn’t huge, like a body builder, but he was definitely ripped. His tight black jeans and white shirt showcased