“I never thought of that.” He pushes the huge door in, and the lights immediately come on. I’m sure he didn’t do that. There must be motion sensors or something. “It’s a good idea, though. Maybe I should invent it. The roof is heated, so the snow melts off, and the pool is heated too. Why shouldn’t the grass be?”
“You have a pool?”
“Yes. And a hot tub, a home gym, and a home theatre in the basement.”
“And in the kitchen, your oven probably takes your orders, cooks the food itself, and spits it out. And you have a robot that looks like a lady who wears a pink frilly apron to clean your house for you.”
“How did you know?” Philippe starts unbuttoning his shirt before I even have the door closed. Panic claws wildly inside of me.
“What are you doing?”
“Changing. My shirt’s soaked. It’s uncomfortable, and I probably stink. I’m embarrassed you had to share a cab home with me.”
“Yeah,” I respond sarcastically. “The poor cab driver. My nose just about dropped off along the way. Not sure how he handled it.”
Philippe’s slender and strong fingers pause on the third button. A gap of creamy skin shows through just below his throat. I swallow hard. Or at least I try. It’s kind of impossible seeing as my throat is entirely closed up. Philippe has a nice olive undertone to his skin. Over the years, I’ve noticed how he gets very tanned during the summer, but right now, the bronze hue adorning his skin is getting lighter by day as we get less sun.
He keeps working at the buttons as he walks through the house. I basically have to run to keep up. I bypass the living room, which is expansive and filled with black accents and expensive-looking leather couches. There’s a fireplace built into the wall and a huge TV above it.
The hallway opens up into a kitchen that could seriously fit a family of thirty in it. Maybe more. Who needs a kitchen this big? The fridge could probably fit at least five bodies if Philippe were so inclined. I really hope he’s not, though. Because I’m here alone.
“Make yourself at home. Raid the fridge. See if there’s anything edible in there.” Philippe punctuates that statement by turning around.
He’s done unbuttoning his shirt, and it hangs open, exposing a chest that more closely resembles titanium than actual human skin. I mean, it looks like skin. And acres and layers of muscle. It looks like he’s the robot, and whoever designed him did a really good job of making him look real. All that creamy skin is real, even the carved in eight-pack abs and smattering of dark hair that circles his naval and trails lower like an arrow pointing straight down to his family treasure.
Good god, did I really just think that?
I realize I’m staring, and I might have a drool trail dribbling out of the side of my mouth, down to the floor. My eyes are probably bulging. I might look like I’ve never seen a half-naked man before.
I definitely feel like I haven’t. Not like this. No one can compare to this. Philippe without a shirt is as close to a perfect ten as it gets. All the feminine parts of myself really appreciate his eight-pack. I’m starting to wonder how it would feel pressed up against me. The whole washboard abs thing definitely applies here, and I’d like to be scrubbed like dirty sheets…
Stop. Seriously. Dirty sheets? And you thought you’d reached new lows before…
“I’m going to take a shower. You’ll be okay until then?”
“You mean, am I going to burn the place down? No, I don’t think I will. I mean, I’ve never operated an actual range grill-looking thing like that, but I think I can figure it out. If I go wrong, I’ll be sure to throw water on it, especially if it’s a grease fire.”
Philippe’s eyes narrow.
“Kidding,” I mumble. I wish I could tear my eyes away from those abs. God, who needs abs like that? He could seriously share some of them with the rest of us. He has abs to spare. Abs for days. Abs for years.
“You could always join me.”
“What?” I’m not sure if I dreamt it up in my own mind or if he really just said that.
“Also kidding,” he snorts. “Obviously. Although, if you change your mind, the shower does have two showerheads. One at each side. It’s quite a luxurious experience. It might be the best shower you’ve ever had in your life.”
“Two? That’s overkill.” I roll my eyes just so I can tear them away from those rippling, delicious, lick-worthy abs. “And it’s a hard pass. Granny was right. It’s how babies get made, and this is supposed to be fake only.”
“Babies don’t get made by showering. That’s nonsense.”