by Nashoda Rose
I bit the bullet. “Where did you sleep last night?”
He nodded toward the living room. “Couch.”
“Oh.” Relief settled over me that he’d been a gentleman and hadn’t crawled into bed with me, yet there was a sliver of disappointment that I quickly squashed.
He picked up his mug and sipped again. “I told you I don’t fuck girls who don’t know what they’re doing.”
“Or sleep with a girl more than once,” I said. Why did I say that?
“True,” he replied, and walked with his mug past me into the living room like he owned the place. “Like I said, you’re rare.” He snagged his cell off the coffee table and tapped on the screen with his thumb.
Rare. God, why did he have to make me coffee and call me rare first thing in the morning?
I leaned my hip against the counter and cradled my coffee between my hands as I watched him. It was hard to not watch Deaglan. Every movement, even just tapping on his phone, had confidence, and it was impossible not to be drawn to it. To him.
And probably why he could easily find girls to sleep with just once.
He slipped his phone in his back pocket and looked at me. “Have shit to do, pet.”
I tensed as the same words barreled into me. Except, this time, at least, he was the one leaving. I wondered why he stayed at all. He could’ve put me in bed and locked the door behind him.
He approached me, and I set my mug on the counter. I wanted both hands to be able to push him away if need be because, with his determined stride and scowl, he had something on his mind that didn’t look friendly.
He placed his mug on the round kitchen table between the couch and the kitchen island, or as I liked to call it, the islet, because it wasn’t much of an island.
I straightened as he continued his approach. “Thanks for making coffee.” His scowl deepened, and I added, “And for bringing me home.”
He stopped in front of me, and my eyes dragged up the front of him until I met his eyes. My heart skipped a beat.
He smelled amazing. How that was possible after sleeping on my lumpy couch, I had no idea. There was a lingering scent of his cologne, but it wasn’t that. It was him. Deaglan’s smell, and it did all sorts of things to my body. I may have been on his radar, but his scent was on mine. Not that I wanted it. But controlling my body’s reaction to him was like trying to control a wild mustang.
“You’re still on that,” he said, getting into my personal bubble.
“On what?”
“The ‘I have shit to do’.”
I was a girl. I didn’t let things go so easily, even if I wanted to. I shrugged, glancing away from him. “I’m over it, Deaglan.”
“No, you’re not.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “I am.”
“You’re not.”
I totally wasn’t. But I didn’t want him to know that.
He sighed and shook his head. A few strands of hair fell in front of his eyes. He didn’t bother to shove them away; instead, he moved past me and walked into the kitchen and snagged whatever he’d been fiddling with earlier off the counter.
He walked back to me. “You need a new one. This one’s had it.” He placed the can opener on the island next to me.
Why had he been using my can opener? I knew it was shit because the thing didn’t go anywhere when you turned the handle. I had to continuously unclamp and re-clamp the wheel into the can all the way around. I hadn’t gotten around to getting a new one with working at the hospital four days a week and working on my house the other three days.
He headed for the front door and slid off the chain.
“What were you doing with my can opener?” I asked.
“There was a cat at your side door screaming half the night. I gave it a can of tuna.” He undid the bolt and opened the door. “You working the afternoon shift?”
I nodded, unable to speak.
“Vic is on his way over. He’ll put in a security system for you. I’ll text you later. Lock the door.”
He was gone.
I stood staring at the door.
He fed Mr. Cavendish’s cat tuna.
A knock sounded on the door twenty minutes later. I had just climbed out of the shower and was drying off. I yanked on my panties, then hopped around on one foot while tugging on my jeans, which weren’t cooperating because they were snug and my skin was damp. Wet and denim did not go well together.
Another knock. Louder this time.
Shit. “One sec,” I shouted, and grabbed my pink, long-sleeve shirt I’d set out on the bathroom counter and pulled it over my head. I still had a towel turban on and it caught in my top.
Another knock.
Impatient much. I headed for the door while pulling it out of the bottom of my shirt.
Pounding.
“Jesus. Give me a sec.” I slid off the chain and flung open the door.
The towel dropped from my hand. My jaw fell right along with it and my stomach was somewhere underneath both the towel and my jaw.
I slammed the door again and leaned up against it. Holy crap. Who was that guy? He was huge, and not just in all six-foot-five of him, but broad and seriously built.
“Eva,” the rumbling voice said through the door.
Should I answer? He knew my name and was likely this guy Vic, but he didn’t look like some tech guy who installed alarm systems. Not that I should know as I’d never had an alarm, and I was pigeonholing a type of tech guy, and that was obviously wrong. But he was seriously huge.
I noticed my purse on the coffee table and slid the chain across before running over and dumping everything out on the table. I found my phone and pepper spray.
Another knock and then a few curses. “One second, please,” I yelled.
I scrolled through recent calls and found Deaglan’s that I ignored yesterday.
“Eva.” He answered on the first ring.
“Uh, yeah. Hey. The guy installing the alarm?” I peeked out the living room window and saw a black Range Rover with tinted windows, not a white van with a logo. “What does the security guy look like exactly?”
“Is Vic there?”
“I think so, but when I opened the door, he was pretty pissed and big and scary, so I shut the door again.”
Silence, then, “You shut the door in Vic Gate’s face?”
I huffed. “Well, it’s your fault. You have me paranoid that it wasn’t some random mugger and some not-so-nice guys might be after me because of you.”
“And you think that cardboard door with the flimsy lock and chain would stop that guy standing on your front porch from coming in?”
No. Definitely not. “Vic is The Rock?”
He chuckled. “Don’t call him that to his face, babe.”
I walked to the door and slid off the chain. “And he installs alarms?”
“No. Vic’s specialty is extracting information from bad motherfuckers.” What? “Open the door, Eva.”
Did I trust Deaglan? I obviously trusted him enough to get in his car—twice.
“Eva. Open the door.”
“Okay.”
“Okay, baby.”
The phone clicked and I lowered it and opened the door. “Uh, sorry about that.” I offered my best smile, but he didn’t return the gesture. “I’m Eva.”
Vic jerked his chin up in greeting, accompanied by some kind of gruff sound. I stepped aside and he walked inside with a toolbox in his hand.
Huh. I hadn’t seen the toolbox when I’d first opened the door. But then seeing a cement wall in front of me that could easily crush me with a pinky finger had drawn all my attention.
Vic was taller than Deaglan by an inch or two, and broader. He had thick, tree-trunk arms and rock-hard legs outlined by black cargo pants.
“Would you like coffee?” I offered, as he walked around the house checking windows.
“Nope,” he replied.
Okay.
He checked the lock on the back door that led out onto a sma
ll deck that held my barbecue and two chairs I’d picked up at a flea market Ally dragged me to one afternoon.
He crouched as he examined the bottom of the door. “You have an inch space under the door.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I put a towel there in the winter to stop the draft from coming in.”
He stood and faced me.
I was in the kitchen ten feet away from him, but I still felt like moving back a few steps.
“Do you own this place?” he asked. I shook my head. “Then the landlord needs to deal with this.”
I laughed. “That won’t be happening.”
When I called the landlord about the fridge making a loud humming sound, he said it was a fridge and hung up. When I called about the rotting boards on the deck, he said weather will do that and hung up. And when I called about the crack in the wall, running from the living room window to the ceiling, he said the house was fifty years old and hung up. My father fixed the boards and the crack. I lived with the fridge sounding like it was on steroids.
The landlord certainly wasn’t going to do anything about an inch space under the door that caused a draft in the winter and skyrocketed my heating bill.
“Give his number to Deaglan.”
I frowned. “Why?”
He didn’t respond.
He slid his hand along the top edge of the window as he continued to check the house. I poured myself another coffee and texted Ally to ask how she was feeling. She had the morning shift at the hospital today, and from the way I was feeling, she had to be suffering.
My phone rang and I smiled, seeing Ally’s picture of her sticking her tongue out pop up on the screen. “Hey.”
There was no ‘hey’ back or ‘how are you’. She went straight into it. “What happened with you and Deaglan last night?”
I glanced over my shoulder at Vic who had a tape measure out as he measured a window. I moved into the living room and sat on the couch. The second I did, Deaglan’s scent wafted into me and my pulse spiked. Jesus, his scent was going to be my downfall.
I propped my feet up on the coffee table and crossed my ankles. “Deaglan was here this morning,” I whispered into the phone.
Her screech of “What?” vibrated through the phone.
“Nothing happened,” I clarified. “He slept on the couch.” That was when I noticed the knitted pink and blue throw blanket folded neatly over the arm of the couch. I never folded it because it was a throw and I casually threw it over the back of the couch.
“Drunk sex is the best,” Ally said.
I lowered my voice as Vic measured the kitchen window. “I was way past the ability of drunk sex, Ally.”
“Jesus Christ,” she yelled. “Get out of the fast lane, asshole.” Her pet peeve was people cruising in the fast lane. I didn’t like it either, but Ally was vocal about it. “I think you should do the fling thing. He’s Navy SEAL biker hot, protective, and that accent is pussy tingling.”
“I’m not doing a fling thing. And he doesn’t want a fling thing. I don’t want a fling thing.” I heard a grunt and my eyes darted to Vic in the kitchen. He wasn’t looking at me, but he shook his head.
Shit. It was obvious he heard me.
“Why not?”
After Curran, there’d been a permanent roadblock on sexual desire. Even my toys developed a layer of dust in the back of my nightstand. Deaglan bust right through that roadblock.
He was protective and sweet, when he wasn’t being bossy.
“Which door do you normally come in?” Vic asked.
My gaze shifted to Vic. “Ally, I have to go. See you later,” I said.
I heard her yell, “Who is that?” as I lowered the phone and pressed End.
I stood. “I use the front, mostly, but if I’m driving the side door.”
“Two panels,” he said. He walked out the front door and went to his SUV.
I dragged my sopping wet hair back over my shoulders and glanced down.
Shirt. Wet. No bra.
Crap. My cheeks burned.
My nipples were clearly outlined like two headlights.
Shoot me now.
Vic walked back in and I ran into the bedroom and slammed the door.
“You want the toilet upstairs or downstairs,” the delivery guy asked.
“Upstairs, thanks,” I replied, and the two guys shuffled by me.
“Dad?” I called up the stairs. “The toilet’s here. Can you show the guys where it goes?”
“Sure thing,” he hollered.
He was upstairs installing the new showerhead, which cost a fortune, but I always wanted the overhead rain shower, so I splurged.
I closed the front door and leaned against it, my mind instantly shifting to Deaglan, where it annoyingly went every time I stopped for a second and why I tried to keep busy all week.
But it didn’t help that Deaglan texted daily. They were short, abrupt texts asking if I was good and he definitely wasn’t an emoji kind of guy, but every time my phone vibrated, my heart skipped a beat, which pissed me off.
Last night, after I’d jumped in the shower, he showed up at my place because I forgot to activate the alarm after work. When I came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel, Deaglan had been standing in my bedroom, leaning against the wall, arms crossed, and of course, looking absolutely mouth-watering in a black tee and snug dark jeans sitting low on his hips.
That’s when I discovered he had a link on his phone to my alarm that alerted him when there was activity at my house.
A confrontation ensued because I didn’t like being spied on, but Deaglan was calm and stubborn, and told me that until he knew who’d attacked me, he’d have eyes on me.
But this house was Deaglan free. He didn’t know about it and I had no intention of telling him.
I picked up the sandpaper and continued working on the bannister in the foyer. Why would anyone paint a beautiful walnut bannister purple?
My dad had been here since seven this morning and it was nice being able to spend time with him working on the house. Growing up, he hadn’t been around much as he’d worked two weeks on, one week off, but he didn’t come home every week that he had off, so sometimes I wouldn’t see him for six to eight weeks.
I didn’t blame my mom for eventually leaving him. I think she didn’t know who he was anymore after so much time apart. Once I went to college, they officially separated.
My phone vibrated in my back pocket and a parade of goosebumps popped. I snorted and placed the sandpaper on the stair and took it out of my back pocket. ‘Kendra Calling’ lit across the screen.
I tapped answer. “Hey, you.”
“Are you at the new house?” she asked, her tone higher than normal and bubbling with excitement.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Okay, good. I’m five minutes away and have coffee. Is your dad there?”
“Yeah,” I replied.
“Hmm, okay. I better pick up donuts, too.”
I laughed. Ally and me met Kendra at the gym in college five years ago. She was taking journalism courses. She hated the gym just as much as we did, and we ended up bailing on spin class and hitting the pub instead. We’d been friends ever since.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
“I can’t tell you over the phone,” she said. “See you soon.”
Ten minutes later, she flew into the house like a whirlwind, carrying three steaming coffees and a box with colorful pictures of donuts all over it. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were bright and beaming.
She hugged me, then called to my dad at the top of the stairs who was plastering a crack in the drywall. “Hi, Doug. Coffee and donuts have arrived.”
He waved with a smile. “Kendra. Good to see you. How’s the sports world?”
My dad was into hockey, and since Kendra was a sports reporter, they always had lots to chat about. She was still working her way up the ladder, but she was determined to be one of the best female sports reporters on the air.
They
chatted a few minutes about the possibilities for next season, but I could tell from her fast speech and the fact that she was virtually dancing on her tiptoes, that she itched to tell me something.
“You girls go out back and chat. I’m going to finish up here. We really need to get those pipes done, Eva,” my dad said. “And pick out a fridge.”
I smiled. “I know, Dad. But the excavators are booked for months.” They were scheduled to dig up my front yard to get to the lead pipes that had to be replaced. “And I’ll get a fridge soon.”
He made a gruff, grunting sound and went back to plastering.
I grabbed a coffee and a sugar twist donut, Kendra just a coffee, and we walked outside onto the wraparound front porch to the two-seat swing—so far, the only thing in this house that didn’t need repairing.
I sat and sipped the coffee. Kendra leaned against the railing, her hands wrapped around the coffee. She was like a loaded spring, ready to be sprung at any moment.
“Guess what happened?” she said.
I squished my lips together. “Well, it’s something good.”
She nodded with a broad smile.
“So, it’s either you met someone or you were promoted.”
She nodded again, smile broadening and showing off her perfect white teeth. Kendra was exceptional on camera, relaxed, and her natural beauty was soaked up by the lens.
I set my coffee on the porch. “And since you can’t contain yourself, I’m guessing you got promoted?” Because Kendra had guys asking her out all the time and even if she’d met a famous hockey player, she’d rather interview him than date him or have sex with him.
Her motto was “a player on the field was a player off the field” and that included the ice rink. Kendra had no interest in a player unless it involved a camera and a microphone.
“I got promoted,” she squealed, and jumped up and down, her chin-length, blonde hair bouncing with her.
Yes.
I let out a loud woot and leapt to my feet, yanking her into a bear hug. “Oh my God, that’s amazing. I’m so proud of you. Wow.”
We separated, and she picked up her coffee and leaned against the railing while she told me all about it. From the moment her boss called her into his office to when she ran to the roof of the building and screamed “I got the job” as loud as she could.