Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 67553 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 338(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67553 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 338(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
“I wouldn’t go that far. Grams was a bitch. She fell over because she was drunk as a skunk. Grandpa was just as drunk and had no clue he’d wrapped her up in a hay bail until six months later when they found her dead body after one of the cows ate the bail down far enough that she was exposed.”
I opened my mouth, then closed it.
“I don’t know what to say,” I admitted.
She burst out laughing then said, “I’m just lying. Both of my grandmothers are still alive. I just don’t talk to them because they’re assholes.”
I shook my head, amusement lighting my features despite my attempt to stop it.
“You’re hilarious,” I drawled.
“I know.” She shrugged. “My brothers say that I’m a sarcastic asshole. Same thing, right?”
“Right,” I said. “Back to why you were trespassing today…”
“Technically, I’m a part of the construction crew. I had every right to be there today,” she pointed out.
I’d never felt the kind of amusement that I did right then.
“Is that right?” I asked. “Should I expect you to be there more?”
“Yes,” she said. “Until I get my answers.”
“I’m afraid that you might not ever get those answers,” I drawled. “I have to protect myself, after all.”
“I’ll do what I have to do to get them,” she countered.
Interest spiked inside of me.
“Do you know who I am, Brecken Sweat?” I asked, trying not to be amused by her name.
“If you have any humanity at all, please, please, please don’t ever call me that again. If you have to address me by my full name, please make sure to add my middle name—Navy—in there. I can’t stand my name,” she begged, placing both of her hands together in a praying position.
I’d never been a very religious man.
In the line of work I was in, it was kind of impossible to think there was a god, or people like me wouldn’t exist.
But in that moment, I realized that if anyone was sent from heaven to tempt me, it would be this woman.
I didn’t allow my face to break, however, despite her cuteness.
When she realized I wasn’t going to say anything more, she sighed and leaned back in her chair.
“Other than hearing that you were a dangerous man from my brothers, and knowing that you dropped a freakin’ whack on your house because of my brothers building it? No. I know nothing,” I said. “Though, I suspect you’re someone dangerous.”
If she had any clue…
“We’ll allow your eyes to continue looking out of those rose-gold glasses then,” I murmured.
Her eyes narrowed, and just when I suspected her to get upset or lash out in anger, her features smoothed out. “Do you know the term ‘rose-colored glasses’ originated in the nineteenth century and that the glasses themselves had a calming effect?”
Of course, she wouldn’t answer how I suspected her to.
Of course.
Before I could say anything, the waitress arrived with our food and placed it in front of us.
“Thank you so much,” Brecken breathed.
She dug in with gusto, and it was such a pleasant change from the usual women I went out to eat with—women who were so worried about their figures and what I might think about them eating real food—that I sat there and watched for a few long minutes instead of eating myself.
Lifting my water glass to my lips, I idly wondered what it would be like to live with this woman. What it would feel like to know that she was at home, waiting for me to come to bed. What she would do when she found out she was pregnant with our child…
I swiftly shut that thought down.
That was definitely something that I didn’t want to think about right now.
Or ever.
My world was too dangerous for a wife, let alone a child.
And, though women and children were sacred in my world, they weren’t sacred in the rest of the criminal underworld’s world.
I would know.
My mom had been a victim right along with my father.
Hell, my own sisters had to walk around with a fucking bodyguard twenty-four-seven. How would Brecken feel having to take a bodyguard with her to work?
She would hate it.
I knew it.
I knew it because my sisters hated it, but at least they’d been raised with the knowledge that having a bodyguard was a necessity.
Not to mention the complications that would arise if we did start dating, and her brothers found out.
I wasn’t a dumb man.
Sweat Construction consisting of Ryler, Bronc, Holden, and Tibbs might be small, but they were mighty.
I’d watched them put up the framing on my house in a span of twelve hours.
I had a feeling, if they put their minds to something, they would make it happen.
Meaning, if they didn’t want me in the picture, I wouldn’t be.
All of them retired military—Air Force like my brother, Dima—they were all fully capable of killing me.