Excerpt of Good With His Hands by Alexa Darin

When Pepper looked up, her cheeks burned, and it wasn’t
from the sun. Jake had taken his shirt off. She swallowed
hard.

With him sitting there half-naked and looking absolutely
delicious, concentration became near impossible, but she
managed to complete a few more scales. She continued
working, scraping away excess sand, leaving plenty for the
mermaid’s head and hair, and finally, it was time to start
with the details on the upper body.

Pepper stopped for a minute to give her back a
break. “It’s your turn,” she told Jake.

He held up his hands and shook his head. “I’m not very
creative. I don’t think you want me to get my hands into
your sand.”

That was for sure. She wanted Jake’s hands elsewhere.
Everywhere, in fact. His fingers were large. Manly. They
looked as though they’d seen a lot of hard work. Pepper
took one of them in hers and squeezed. It was firm and
strong.

“Liar,” she said. “You’re an architect. You wouldn’t be in
business if you weren’t creative.”

Jake gave a nervous laugh. “I guess what I really meant is
that I haven’t had much experience using sand as a
building material.”

“It’s easy once you get started.” Pepper looked him
squarely in the eyes. “And I’ve got everything you need.
Don’t be afraid. I’ll help you.”

“I’m sure that’s true.”

A smile tugged at the corners of Pepper’s mouth as an idea
formed in her head. She crawled around the base of the
sculpture and sat close to him. “First,” she said, “we
need to finish these two small mounds.” She added a small
nob of sand to the top of one and told Jake to do the same
to the other.

He gathered a small bit of sand between his fingers and
set it on top of the mound, rolling it and tweaking it
just so, until it closely resembled the one Pepper had
finished.

Oh, how Pepper wished she were that mermaid right now.

When Jake finished his assigned task, she sat back and
gave it her appraisal. “Perfect,” she said.

Jake nodded and smiled. He’d just gotten the
joke. “Breasts.”

“You’re very perceptive.” Pepper looked up at him through
long lashes. “Shall we continue?”

Jake leaned back onto his forearms, his biceps and chest
glistening in the morning sun. Dark brown hair fanned out
from the center of his chest, with a thin line running
halfway down his stomach. Pepper hadn’t seen muscles
ripple like that in, well, forever. It’d be awfully nice
to have a few clients like him in her kickboxing class.

She offered him the melon baller. “Want to, um, try making
some scales?”

“I’d rather work on her hair.” Jake reached up and tugged
playfully at the lock of hair that hung alongside Pepper’s
face.

“Um, maybe we should stop for now. Go inside, get cleaned
up.” Pepper knew that if she didn’t get away from Jake’s
bare chest in the next few seconds, she might do something
very enjoyable...like dive on top of him...