Free Stripped Down by Emma Hart

pinning my own arms down, that I couldn’t do a thing but bend forward to get away from him. Of course, that meant my ass wriggled against his cock.
    It slowly hardened against my ass, and I froze.
    “I promise not to throw any more flour at you if you let me go,” I whispered, cutting through the tension that had quickly descended. “Pinkie promise.”
    He lightly wrapped his other arm around my waist and touched his nose to the side of my head. “I’m deciding whether or not letting you go is a good idea.”
    His cock was getting harder.
    “It’s a great idea. Best you’ll ever have.” I swallowed, pushing against his arms.
    Surprisingly, he let me go, and he didn’t move when I stepped away from him and turned, batting flour off my face. “You look like an idiot,” he remarked, his lips pulling into a grin.
    “You are an idiot,” I shot back. I shook my head and ran my fingers through it to dislodge most of the flour he’d dumped on me.
    I couldn’t believe he’d done that. Seriously—how ridiculous was he? He was almost thirty and he was having a flour fight with me.
    In my defense, I was much younger and had a child I had to be an idiot around on a regular basis. That was how I kept my sanity. I acted her age.
    “Feisty.” He grinned, leaning past me and grabbing a dishcloth. He ran it under the tap. Then he grabbed the bottom of his shirt and wiped most of the flour off. “You’re covered in flour. Need some help getting it off?”
    I stared at him. I couldn’t decipher the glint in his eyes—I didn’t know whether he was genuinely asking or not. “Is that a trick question? If I say yes, are you going to dump water on my head or suggest you help me in the shower?”
    Beck squeezed out the last of the excess water from the cloth and ran it down my nose. I didn’t know what I looked like, but I imagined that my face was pretty much white, now except for that one line down the middle of my nose.
    I probably really did look like an idiot, actually.
    “Is helping you shower an option?” His grin was stunning. And sexy. And it totally hinted to the dirty things that had run through his mind as he’d asked.
    I didn’t want to think about the dirty things we could do so I could get clean. Thinking about Beckett Cruz naked and in the shower was not a good idea—ever.
    “No,” I said firmly, straightening my back as if the action would put more resolution into my answer. “You can’t help me shower. We’re supposed to be getting rid of our mistake, not complicating it.”
    “Honestly, I don’t see how soaping you up in the shower would complicate anything. My cock is in rehab until we get this over with, so it actually seems like the perfect plan.”
    I took the cloth out of his hand and wiped it over my face. “Really? Your cock is in rehab?”
    “Mistakenly married or not, I’m behaving myself.”
    “Perhaps you should have tried behaving yourself in the first place.”
    “You came and sat on me, as I remember it.”
    “And you fed me tequila and kissed me!” I clamped my lips shut as I realized we’d both raised our voices. I dropped my gaze to the cloth I was holding tightly.
    Pinning blame on each other wasn’t the answer to this. Yes, he’d given me tequila, but I’d taken it. Yes, I’d sat on him, but he’d let me. Yes, he’d kissed me, but I’d kissed him right back. We were both guilty of being careless idiots.
    I sighed and slammed the cloth into the sink. “Look,” I said, lifting my gaze to his. “Yelling at each other isn’t going to solve this, and neither is your being in my house. Unless there are papers for me to sign or a hearing to be at, quite frankly, I can’t stand to be around you.”
    Beck slowly raised his eyebrows, his gaze never leaving mine. “I’m not sure you can insult me any more this evening.”
    My expression matched his as I leaned against the wall opposite him. “I’m certain I can. I have a whole vocabulary of words for you I