Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 143842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 719(@200wpm)___ 575(@250wpm)___ 479(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 143842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 719(@200wpm)___ 575(@250wpm)___ 479(@300wpm)
She actually had the nerve to mouth, You’re welcome.
Only it gave the hulk of a man the time to turn on his heel and start striding up my driveway like he owned the place, all fresh tee and damp hair and ridiculously sexy bare feet.
Wearing clean jeans and smelling like cedar and soap and every bad idea that’d ever been had.
I snapped into action, hurrying behind him in an attempt to sway what I was sure weren’t close to noble intentions, while my daughter started to trot alongside him, too, having no clue the devil was in our midst.
Because that’s what he was.
Tossing out all those smirks and smiles.
Madison clapped her hands as she skipped along and sang, “Yay, we get our couch! That’s really good news because the only thing we got to sit on is the floor, and we don’t even have a TV.”
“Well, you’re in luck, Button, because you’re about to have one.”
Button?
Was he serious?
I increased my pace, growling under my breath, “I told you last night that I do not need your help, Mr. Cooper.”
“Who said I was helping you out? I’m doing it for Lolly and Madison. They’re the ones who asked nicely.” He tossed it out from over his shoulder, that smirk riding on those ridiculous lips, the man dripping sex and salacious schemes.
He rounded to the back of the truck and tossed up the rolling door. Metal grated as it lifted, and he hopped into the high bed like it was nothing.
Exasperation kneaded beneath my skin. Flustered, I tried to think of a solution. How to get this man out of here without disappointing my daughter, but unfortunately disappointment was an inevitable part of life.
“Maddie, go inside with Lolly and make sure nothing is in the way of where the couch is going to go.”
How I came up with that as a valid solution, I didn’t know. Conceding to him bringing in the couch was a treacherous disloyalty.
But I needed to get her out of there because I didn’t want her bearing witness to what was boiling inside me right then.
“On it, Mommy!” She gave me a salute before she turned to Lolly who was slowly making her way up the drive. Excited, she grabbed her hand. “Come on, Lolly! We got to make sure the house is super clean for the couch.”
“Good plan, little one. I’ll even whip up some tea.” Lolly glanced at me, gray eyes gleaming.
God, she was such a schemer.
But she didn’t know. I couldn’t expect her to. She thought she was nudging me in the right direction when that direction was riddled with potholes and dead ends.
I silently counted to ten while they ambled up the walkway, and I waited until I heard the front door slam before I turned my attention to the man who was currently moving boxes out of the way to get to the couch.
I inhaled a shaky breath, trying to form some semblance of cool when I felt like the foundation I was trying to build was already crumbling beneath me. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, Mr. Cooper.”
He lifted a box over his head to place onto the top of five others he’d already stacked against the wall. The movement caused his tee to ride up over the waistband of his jeans. It revealed a swath of packed, chiseled abdomen, hip bones peeking out.
It should be a felony for one single man to be that hot.
Me even noticing was the true crime.
“Helping out a neighbor, is all.”
I huffed as I hoisted a leg up so I could climb into the bed of the truck. “And I keep telling you I don’t need your help. I have movers coming this weekend.”
“That’s not for four days.” He kept moving my things around, freeing the couch that three minutes ago had been buried.
“Which is not going to hurt a thing. We have our beds. That’s all we need,” I said as I edged deeper into the truck.
He turned on me faster than I ever could have anticipated.
His proximity froze me to the spot. The man towered, so tall his head nearly touched the top of the trailer.
Nothing but a heaping stack of muscle and brawn and cruel intentions.
Only right then, he wasn’t sporting that smirk, and something intense dimmed his grin just like it’d done when he’d touched my chin last night.
The same as I’d thought I’d sensed in his voice when he’d been talking to me in the stables.
He angled down, too close.
My stomach twisted and my knees quaked.
“I’m not sure about you, Ms. Wagner, but I’d prefer to keep that smile on your daughter’s face rather than disappointing her. Especially when it doesn’t cost me a thing to put it there.”
I warred, my voice haggard with the way the air had gone dense, the oxygen too thick to breathe.