Total pages in book: 18
Estimated words: 16911 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 85(@200wpm)___ 68(@250wpm)___ 56(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 16911 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 85(@200wpm)___ 68(@250wpm)___ 56(@300wpm)
And that was me.
“I don’t know what I need exactly… just my place cleaned by someone who knows what the hell they’re doing. Half the time, I’m stumbling around, because I’m damn clueless.” He chuckled deeply, and I felt that tingle race through me, felt myself become hot, flushed.
I laughed softly at his clear lack of housekeeping skills. “Well, I either have by-the-room cleaning rates or hourly rates if you’re looking for more of an entire house cleaning situation. I could come over and see what we’re dealing with, and we can go from there.”
Most people who called me knew what they wanted. Their kitchen scrubbed down, appliances deep-cleaned. They wanted their bathroom squeaky clean or just their beds turned down and their rugs washed. It sounded like this guy wanted everything done but didn’t know where to start.
I had a feeling he was a bachelor, probably hadn’t really cleaned his house in a long time, because he just didn’t have the time or didn’t know where to start.
I could picture he was probably some aloof mountain man, had some acreage, maybe even a cattle farm or a horse ranch. I doubted he lived in town, but I could be wrong. Then again, my radar for these things was pretty spot on.
“Yeah, that’ll work,” he finally said and cleared his throat again, and I wondered if it was a nervous habit.
He gave me his address, and we arranged for me to come by tomorrow morning, but before I could ask for any other information, such as his name, he was off the phone.
I pulled it away for my ear and stared at the screen, knitting my brows, wondering if I should even go there. He seemed kind of strange, even if no warning bells were going off in me.
So, I typed in the address he gave me into the search engine on my phone, and when the results came up, my heart plummeted to my stomach.
It was Big’s address.
My mouth dried and my throat tightened. His address was linked to his cabinetry company, which was why his name even came up.
My hands were shaking as I set my phone down and contemplated canceling. I would be nervous as hell if I went over there. Hell, I was already starting to sweat, and my heart was racing. But actually going to his house, being that close with him... speaking with him in person?
No doubt, I’d make a fool of myself.
Chapter Four
Big
I’d been up since four in the morning, not that that was unusual, given the fact that I was usually up at the ass-crack of dawn getting work done, but today I was up this early, because I knew Landry was coming over. Although she wouldn’t be here until eight, just a couple hours from now, I basically sat on the couch drinking coffee and staring at my fireplace. I wasn’t able to concentrate on anything, because all I could think about was her, how I was going to react having her in my home, being able to see if she smelled sweet or floral.
I’d imagined this moment so many times, fantasized about it… jerked off to it. And my plan was to tell her how I felt, to be honest. I’d just been a chickenshit going about it, using the guise of needing my house cleaned to get her over here. Not that my house couldn’t use a deep scrub, but that wasn’t why I wanted her here, and she’d find that out today.
I finished off my third cup of coffee and stood, walking over to the sink to rinse the cup out and put it in the drying rack. I braced my hands on the edge of the counter and stared out the window, seeing the thick forest that was my backyard, a couple squirrels racing up a tree.
In the past five years, I’d envisioned a lot of stuff, like what it would be like to have a woman—Landry—in my home… in the home we created together. She’d put her little touches on the place, extinguishing the bachelor pad feel to it. I was a minimalistic man by nature; hell, I didn’t even have a TV. Not that I got decent reception where I lived anyway. And I hadn’t been lying when I said technology really wasn’t my forte.
I worked with my hands, building things, creating objects. I left all the money and technology aspects of my company to the people who worked for me, worked with me. If not for them, I’d have to rely on word of mouth, which spread just as quickly as if people had found me through an Internet search. In fact, it was word of mouth that brought me the majority of my business, people who trusted my craftsmanship, who knew my cabinets would hold up, weren’t cheap and shitty.