Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 97525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
"Get back to his mansion, Lucky. I'm sure he's waiting."
"He's not."
He grinned again, this one less playful, harder, cynical. "You always fuck strangers within five minutes of meeting them?"
"Did they leave that fact out of the article?"
"I guess high-class bitches like cock just like any other."
"I guess lowlifes don't know how to take a girl on a date."
A catch in those eyes. A slow nod, the corners of his mouth turned up a tad, a dimple breaking through. Brant had a dimple, though I hadn't seen it in months. "Then let me take you to lunch."
I glanced at my watch, the Tag sparkling brilliantly against the afternoon sun, framed by California-kissed skin. "A little late for lunch."
"Then beers. Unless that's too lowbrow for you."
I shrugged. "I can fuck in a parking lot, so I think I can down some dollar wells."
His face darkened, and I had already seen more emotion from him in thirty minutes than in the last month with Brant. Ever since my rejection of his proposal, he had withdrawn into his work and into himself. It was the first time I’d seen his feelings hurt, and the result was a prickle cactus in a frozen desert. This man, on the other hand, was a ball of fire. I couldn’t step away from the flame.
We got in his vehicle, a Jeep with an attached trailer that was full of mowers and tools. My eyes skipped over the contents, inventorying everything, and his eyes caught the movement.
"Sorry. Left my Ferrari at home."
He drove with one wrist resting on the steering wheel. The seats were vinyl, and I ran my fingers over a crack in the seat. It was maddening, the urge to pull open the glove box and check the registration, to put a name and some bit of understanding to the man who sat beside me. The Jeep hitched, then jerked, throwing me against the door as he tore out of the parking lot, past my white Mercedes.
"What's with the tools?" I had to yell over the music, some country song about broken hearts and Texas, and his hand left the shaky shifter to turn the dial down. It shouldn’t have been a sexual movement, the easy way his hand gripped the shift knob—but it was. I forced myself to look away and tried to figure out what the hell I was doing and where this would go.
"I do landscaping. Cut, trim, edge, plant. Hard manual labor." He glanced over. "That work for you?"
"It doesn't need to work for me." I gripped the seatbelt. Hoped his next tight turn didn't tumble us into the ditch. Whoever decided on pulling the doors off of this vehicle was a lunatic. Wasn’t the safety rating and rollover risk of these through the roof?
"You always such a bitch?"
I laughed. Shook my head. "No." Brant would never call me a bitch. Didn't use words like that. Thought of them as unintelligent, a waste of syllables when there were so many more appropriate terms.
"So, I'm just special?"
"You're ... different," I mused, unsure how to say all of the things I didn't need to say.
"I'm just ordinary, Lucky. That's not necessarily a bad thing."
No. A piece of us all yearned to be ordinary. I'd like to escape into it myself sometime.
He pulled up to a bar I had never seen, in a part of town I have never visited. Toasty's was sandwiched between two larger bars that probably served food and had waitstaff and a sanitation rating above a D. But we walked into Toasty's, and the bartender looked up with a familiar smile and greeted him by name. Lee. Wouldn't have guessed that. Lee fit strangely on him, would take some mental adjustment. Guess we’d missed introductions in our romantic rush to the back lot.
The first stool I sat on wobbled badly and an attempt at stool #2 was also a failure. I accepted my fate and hooked my feet on the rungs and looked over into the bored face of the bartender.
"Whatcha want?"
"What do you have?"
"Millers, Buds and Pabsts."
Super classy. "Miller Lite, please. Bottle."
I got a draft two minutes later, the glass looking less than clean, a plastic cup more welcome, had one been available. I took a strong chug of the beer, happy to find it cold, then set it down, feeling his eyes on me. I glanced over at him and damn…
His smile was my kryptonite. It was shy in the way that only a confident man can pull, a slow drawl of a mouth that asked you for permission to step inside and fuck your mind.
I took another sip of beer, and he studied my mouth. Even when his smile stopped, it continued in his eyes. He fucked me with those eyes. I felt them pull off my clothes and push me back, climb on top of me and make me his. I couldn't look away; I couldn't help but smile in return. I should be confident, I should hold the cards, but instead I blushed and lost track of thought. This man, he could be the death of me. The risk pounded through my mind. I should stand up, leave—but I couldn’t budge. With everything with Brant so off-kilter, it might be worth losing our war for time in the battle with him.