Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 83167 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83167 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
She stopped four from the bottom.
“If I can rinse my face without you in the next room, why can’t you shower with me somewhere else in the house?”
“I’m vulnerable when I shower. And unarmed. I’m not when you rinse your face.”
Another big, blurred smile and an, “Ah.”
Then more jiggling and dancing down the steps.
He’d lived a good life.
Clean.
Taken care of his mom and sisters.
Put up with them even after the taking care of them part was no longer needed (and they were a lot, every one of them).
Enlisted and was honorably discharged.
He did right by Hawk, never wheedled out of a mission (something that would get his ass canned, but that wasn’t why he didn’t do it), always followed orders, never fucked up.
The two long-term girlfriends he’d had, he’d treated them like gold. Living with five women, you learned a lot of shit. And he’d given it all and then some to the women he’d claimed. It had been them who’d scraped him off for something better.
So no cheating. No excessive gambling or drinking. Absolutely no drugs. No nights out carousing with his boys and not checking in. No getting up in their shit about how expensive their handbags were or why they couldn’t rinse a damned plate and put it in the dishwasher rather than leaving it in the sink.
How he’d earned this punishment with Lottie, he did not know.
Maybe it was beating the shit out of his sonuvabitch dad.
Yeah, that had to be it.
He followed her back into the kitchen and she did her thing, in her nightie, while he watched, and it was while she was sautéing the mushrooms, and he was taking a sip of coffee, when she asked, “What do you think about my tits?”
He nearly did a spit take.
To avoid that, he swallowed hard, not like he was swallowing coffee, like he was swallowing a boulder, and he stared at her.
She was at the stove, wooden spoon in her hand, but twisted to look at him. “I’m going natural. Next month.”
He tried not to look at her tits.
Swear to God he did.
He couldn’t not look at her tits.
He then forced his eyes to her face.
He knew her tits had to be fake.
Still, they were fucking awesome.
“Your body, your choice.”
“Do you think I’ll lose customers?” Do you think I’ll loth cuthtomerth?
Christ, she was too much.
He really should not have beaten the shit out of his dad.
“No.”
“That’s what I think.” She turned back to the stove and fussed with the mushrooms.
“You want me to make you coffee?” he offered to have something to do that was not looking at her ass, her legs, her hair, her neck, her tits or her at all.
“Yeah. By the time it’s done, strips will be about ready to come off. Splash of cream.”
He moved to where he’d seen she kept all the stuff for coffee.
It was done brewing and he was sliding her mug on the counter by the stove next to her when he made mistake number five in his job protecting Charlotte McAlister.
“You don’t need the strips, the goo or the tits, Lottie,” he told her.
There was more to that message, he just didn’t verbalize it.
She was beautiful and would be beautiful without all that shit.
She got the rest of his message and he knew it when her head slowly turned, tipped back (and then back some more) and she stared into his eyes looking shocked AF.
“You gotta know that,” he continued.
And she did. For shit’s sake, her living was her looks and her body.
“Maybe,” she said in a sweet voice that played all kinds of havoc with his crotch. “But it’s nice to hear it.”
“Just sayin’,” he muttered, moving away from her again.
She turned to face him. “You want toast?”
If she was going to ask him to make it, and it meant getting close to her again, the answer to that was a big, fat no.
“No.”
“Good. Bread is bad,” she declared and shifted her attention back to the stove.
If she thought that, did she even have any?
He’d learned therefore he didn’t open his mouth to ask.
Mushrooms done, she got rid of her whitening strips right there in the kitchen before she started on the omelets, all this while the fresh potato hash browns from a bag were sizzling in olive oil next to turkey sausage.
Mo was a doer so he couldn’t stand still for long.
This meant he got out the plates and cutlery, opening and closing doors and drawers to find it, and brought them to her.
She served up and he took his plate and fork all the way (which wasn’t a long way, and that sucked) across to the opposite counter from her.
Lottie put the sole of her foot against the ankle of her other leg and tucked in at the counter.
Mo did the same, without the foot action.