Chapter 1: The Leaky Pipe
The doorbell chimed, a sound almost swallowed by the aggressive thump of bass from Eva’s studio speakers. She swore, dropping her brush into a jar of murky turpentine. The studio—a converted sunroom—was a glorious catastrophe of stretched canvases, each one a riot of color and bold, slashing lines. She’d been chasing a particular feeling all morning, a memory of heat and saltwater, and had shed her paint-stained kimono an hour ago. Clothes, she found, were often just distractions.
The bell rang again, insistently.
“Coming!” she yelled, her voice hoarse from singing along to the music. She padded through the cluttered living room, her bare feet slapping against the dusty hardwood. A glance in the hall mirror made her grin—a wild woman stared back, skin dappled with cerulean and cadmium red, her riot of damp red curls leaving darker patches on her freckled shoulders. She looked like a wood nymph who’d fallen into a paint factory. Perfect.
She yanked the front door open.
A young man stood on her porch, a heavy toolbox in one hand. He was short, maybe five-foot-six, and slim beneath a clean, gray company polo shirt and dark work pants. His hair was buzzed close to his scalp, emphasizing sharp cheekbones and watchful brown eyes. His gaze, practiced and polite, started at her face, then dipped—and froze. A faint, almost imperceptible twitch jumped in his jaw.
“You the plumber?” Eva asked, leaning a shoulder against the doorframe. A droplet of water from her hair traced a path down her chest.
“Uh.” He cleared his throat, wrenching his eyes back up to hers. “Marcus. From ValveMax. You called about a kitchen leak?”
“That’s me. The sink’s declaring independence. Come on in, it’s a disaster.”
She turned, not waiting, knowing the full view she was presenting as she walked away. The air in the house was warm and thick with the smells of oil paint, old wood, and that underlying metallic hint of decay. She heard the soft thud of his toolbox being set down, the hesitant click of the door closing, and his footsteps following her.
The kitchen was, as advertised, a labyrinth of benign neglect. Dishes were stacked precariously in the sink, some still holding the fossilized remains of meals. A bowl of oranges had given up, one growing a spectacular coat of blue fur. The single bulb overhead cast a pitiless light on the sticky table, the half-finished crossword, the forgotten mug of coffee now a science experiment.
“The culprit,” Eva announced, waving a hand at the sink cabinet. She crouched down, her movements unselfconscious, and opened the creaking door. “It’s been dripping for days. I put the bucket under it, but it’s started singing this… pathetic little tune. Drip-drip-tinkle. Drove me mad at three a.m.”
Marcus knelt beside her, his movements efficient. He had to angle his body in the cramped space, his shoulder close to her thigh. He smelled like soap and faintly of clean sweat.
He smelled like soap and faintly of clean sweat. He focused on the U-bend with an intensity usually reserved for brain surgery. Eva watched, amused, as a faint pink flush crept up the back of his neck. His hands, though, were steady and sure as he felt along the pipe.
“Yeah, see here,” he said, his voice deeper than she’d expected. He tapped a spot near a connector. “Corrosion. Seal’s completely gone. It’s an easy fix. I just need to replace this section.”
“A man who knows his way around a pipe,” Eva said, her tone dripping with playful innocence. “A rare skill.”
Marcus swallowed, keeping his eyes on the plumbing. “It’s just a job.”
“Everything’s just a job until it isn’t,” she murmured.
She stood up then, the movement fluid and unhurried. The action brought her body right in front of where he knelt. Her breasts, full and heavy, swayed lightly with the motion, the paint-flecked skin just inches from his face. He went perfectly still, a statue of a man trying not to see.
“Well, you’re the expert,” Eva said, looking down at the top of his head. “If you need anything else—a wrench, a beer, a philosophical debate—just holler. I’ll be down the hall.”
She turned and walked away, her bare feet silent on the linoleum. Marcus’s eyes, against every professional dictate in his brain, lifted and followed. He watched the deliberate, confident roll of her hips, the full, soft bounce of her ass with each step, the sway of it all a kind of hypnotic rhythm. She disappeared around the corner into the hallway’s shadow, leaving behind the scent of turpentine and something warmer, like ginger.
The kitchen was suddenly, oppressively quiet save for the relentless drip-drip-tinkle into the bucket. Marcus let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. It shuddered from his lungs. He blinked at the corroded pipe, the image of her retreating form burned onto the back of his eyelids. His pulse was a frantic drum against his ribs. He squeezed his eyes shut for a second, trying to summon the diagram of a standard P-trap, the torque specifications for the compression nut. Anything.
From down the hall, the music started again—a throbbing, rhythmic bassline. He could hear her humming along, the sound mixing with the distant clatter of what might have been a paint tube hitting the floor.
His hands, usually so dependable, fumbled as he reached for his hacksaw.
His hands, usually so dependable, fumbled as he reached for his hacksaw. The metal felt foreign, slippery. He forced a long, slow breath, the air tasting of mildew and that metallic tang. Focus. It’s a ten-minute job. He positioned the blade against the aged pipe and began to saw, the gritty rhythm gradually steadying his nerves. The bite of metal on metal was a grounding, familiar song. He lost himself in it, in the simple physics of fracture and replacement.
The distant music stopped. Her footsteps approached, soft and deliberate on the floorboards. He didn’t look up, pretending intense concentration on the pipe, but every nerve was tuned to her movement. He saw her bare feet stop just beside his knee.
“Thirsty work, I imagine,” Eva’s voice floated down, light and amused.
He glanced up. She held a chilled bottle of beer, condensation beading on the glass. She was still gloriously, unconcernedly nude, a few new smears of emerald green paint across her ribs.
“Oh. Thanks. You really didn’t have to,” Marcus said, his voice tight. He reached for it, but she was already bending at the waist to set it on the floor beside his toolbox.
It was a mundane, simple action. But the world seemed to slow, then snap.
Her body curved over him. The full, heavy swell of her ass was right there, inches from his face, a landscape of freckled skin and soft curves. The intimate scent of her—warm skin, clean sweat, and that hint of ginger—filled his senses, wiping out every rational thought, every professional rule. Two years of composure, of polite smiles and fixed eyes, evaporated in a white-hot instant.
A raw, hungry sound escaped him. It was pure instinct, a years-deep loneliness and shock finally boiling over.
He didn’t think.
He shoved his face forward, burying it firmly between her cheeks. His hands came up to grip her hips, anchoring her, pulling her against him. His tongue found her, hot and intimate, lapping at her with a desperate, starving intensity. He ate at her with a single-minded fervor, a man coming up for air after drowning in decorum.
Eva jolted. A sharp, shocked gasp tore from her throat. Her body went rigid for one suspended second, her hands braced against the sticky cabinet door. Then, a low, shuddering moan melted from her, and she pressed back against his mouth, her fingers curling into fists against the wood.