I saw Bane's socked feet run toward me and then he was pulling the big fluffy thing off of me.
"I know this dog," Bane said as he held it by its collar.
I sat up and brushed some grass off of my legs. Bane lifted me back onto my feet while Harold pulled out his taser and pointed it at me.
"Don't worry, I'll take the suspect in. I already called for backup."
"Backup?" Bane growled. He swept my hair out of my face for me. "This is my wife! That's the prowler."
He pointed to the big white dog that looked familiar. In fact, he looked very much like Ian and Tori's big white dog, Mumford.
"Could you go drop him off where he belongs?" Bane asked.
"But it's one o'clock in the morning," Harold protested.
"And it's not our dog! That’s Ian’s dog."
"I'd be breaking the noise ordinance to knock on their door!"
"You're already breaking the noise ordinance; and stop pointing that thing at Nola!" Bane angrily shoved down Harold’s hand that held the taser pointing at me.
"This wouldn't happen in the army. When I was in the army—"
"Just take the dog home," Bane ground out. "We want to get some sleep."
Harold grabbed Mumford by the collar and led him out of the yard.
Bane grabbed my hand. "You okay?"
"Yes. Besides smelling like a dog who's been digging in all the neighbors’ trash."
Bane leaned closer to me and sniffed. "Hmm, you do smell a little."
I smacked him on his bare stomach. "Come on. Let’s go inside before your intruder comes back."
"Hey now. You don't have a lot of room to talk, miss I'm-being-followed-by-an-ax-murderer," he said with a chuckle.
"I wish you suffered from memory loss."
"You can be a little evil sometimes, can't you?" Bane asked as he led us back inside, locked the door, then replaced the iron curtain rod. His lean, muscular legs tensed when he leaned forward to rest the pole back on the braces.
"I'm—" I licked my lips. "I'm going to go jump in the shower if you've got everything handled in here."
He gave me a weird look over his shoulder, and I disappeared into the bathroom to try to wash away any sign of Mumford tackling me to the ground, as well as the fact that I'd been swinging a toilet plunger around. Maybe I should wash in bleach. I wondered if there would be any ill effects. Probably.
Regular soap would have to do.
I finished scrubbing down and jumped out of the shower, toweling off with the oversized large, fluffy towel. Dad had been thorough when he stocked this house. My heart twinged at the thought of fluffy towels. It was one of those strange conversations we’d had with my mother growing up. She wanted to replace all the towels with microfiber towels. Dad and I went on strike, because we loved the big fluffy ones.
With a sigh, I opened the door to the laundry room and opened the dryer I knew was full of my clothes.
Except it wasn’t. It was completely empty.
All the baskets were empty, and there were no clothes in sight. Bane the folding-fiend had struck again.
That was okay. Bane was likely already asleep; I could sneak out wrapped in the big towel, grab myself some pajamas and he would never be any wiser.
Wrapping the towel tightly around me, I tiptoed from the bright bathroom into the dark bedroom. As my eyes tried to adjust to the darkness, I stumbled into the dresser, the ottoman, then the shoe chest.
I paused, waiting for Bane to say something. I didn’t hear anything. I could see his form laying on top of the covers, but he didn’t move.
Finally, certain that he was still asleep, I made it to the second dresser where Bane kept his t-shirts. I didn’t feel like walking all the way across the house. I was tired, and I couldn’t wait to get snuggled into that comfortable bed again. All the excitement had exhausted me.
Resting a hand on the dresser, I counted down two drawers, finding the drawer I’d seen Bane pull a T-shirt from yesterday. I couldn't see much; my eyes still weren’t adjusted. But it shouldn’t be that difficult to find a shirt in the dark. I pulled the drawer out—too far; it turns out.
I tried to catch it, but it tumbled to the ground with a loud thump as it hit the carpet. A grunt came from the bed as Bane leapt up. He stood beside the bed, tense, looking for whatever had made the sound. His eyes landed on me.
"Holy..." I could see his eyes go wide—and they weren’t looking at my eyes.
I glanced down and gasped. When I’d tried to catch the drawer, I’d dropped the towel. I dropped to the ground in a frantic search for the missing towel. There was a distressed sound coming from Bane.
I smacked my hand against the drawer that sat on the floor. "Ouch!"
Cradling my throbbing hand against my chest, I shuffled around on my knees as I tried to find that towel—it was somewhere amid the spilled T-shirts.
Something that sounded like a gurgle sounded behind me, but I couldn’t stop to find out what it was. I was buck naked in front of Bane, and I swear that towel grew wings and flew off.
A set of hands grasped my arms, pulling me up to a standing position. Bane spun me around and threw something over my head.
"What—" I squawked.
But he yanked the T-shirt down over my head. His face looked strained as he frantically grabbed my left arm and shoved it through the hole, then repeated the action with my right.
"Thank—"
His quick jerk on the hem of the T-shirt cut off what I was going to say. He kept pulling it down as if he could make it longer.
"Bane, would you stop—"I tried to take a step back, but that was the exact moment he gave an extra hard tug at the back of the T-shirt.
Didn’t he know he was going to stretch it beyond repair? It was my last thought as I tumbled backward. The soft carpet was forgiving. The hard body that landed on top of mine was not.
"Oh no," Bane groaned. His hands were trapped beneath me. His head rested against the crook of my neck, his warm breath fanning over me. I held my breath, trying to not sniff his hair—hair that smelled like man-shampoo. I didn’t know if there was such a thing, but whatever he used didn’t smell floral. It was cedar tones and a rich—
"Are you sniffing me?"
One last long drag before I answered him. "No?"
He lifted himself off of me, yanking his hands from beneath me. He hurried to the set of drawers, opening one and pulling out an article of clothing that he tossed in my direction. It was a pair of athletic shorts. I stood quickly and pulled them on. They fell down around my ankles.
I tugged them back up and pulled the drawstring until it was tight around my waist.
Swallowing audibly at the look on Bane’s face, I apologized. "Sorry I woke you up, the laundry fairy had already put away all of my clothes."
Bane still looked stunned. "Naked. So naked."
I snorted and leapt onto the bed. "I’m wearing clothes now, thank you very much."
Bane stood there staring down at me, rather than climbing back in bed. "You’re wearing clothes. My clothes."
"Yes..."
He shifted his weight onto his heels. "Yup. I’m going to go sleep on the couch tonight."
"What? Why?"
He just grunted—he seemed to be doing that a lot this evening, grabbed his pillow and ran from the room as if Mumford was hot on his heels.
I felt bad about waking him up—I was always grumpy whenever I was unexpectedly woken up, but it didn’t mean he had to throw a tantrum about it. He could have just laid back down in bed and called it a night. Instead, he was out in the living room pouting about it. I mean, if I were going to pout, I’d at least do it in the comfort of the extra queen bed in my old room. It’s not like Dad was using it...
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Homeowners Association Rule #43:
Lawn ornaments are strictly forbidden.
"Why is there a plunger in the backyard this morning?"
I sat at the barstool with my cup of coffee and s
tared at Sally, where he was busy peering through the blinds into the backyard.
"Probably just a practical joke or something," I mumbled against my mug. As if I wanted to explain why I'd forgotten the bathroom plunger outside.
"Good morning." Bane's gravelly morning voice made me straighten my shoulder and brush my hair behind my ears. Our late-night shenanigans meant I felt like death when I woke up. I hadn't looked in the mirror yet either, which meant it probably wasn't good based on the way Bane was staring at me.
"Sally, can I get you a cup of coffee?"
"No, I had mine an hour ago. I've got to get going. I can't laze about like you young folks on a Saturday."
I rolled my eyes and watched as Bane's face remained stoic. "Suit yourself."
Dad patted my shoulder on his way out the door.
Silence stretched in a measurable distance between Bane and me. The buffer was gone. I was alone in a room with a man who had been given every chance to like me but didn't. Instead, it didn’t even bother him to share a room. He probably only viewed me as a pesky roommate he felt obligated to keep safe.
Bane rocked from foot to foot. "I’m going to sleep in the queen room."
"Wait, what?" I looked up in surprise.
He cleared his throat before he turned from the window to face me. He shoved his hands in his pockets.
"Nola. I need to be perfectly honest with you. I couldn’t forgive myself if I’m not."
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. Honest. Such an uncomfortable word. Especially when I was sitting in a house of lies of my own making while Bane had no clue.
"I like you," he finally said.
"I like you too." I smiled encouragingly even while I tried to think of a scenario when I told Bane the truth and he didn’t hate me for the rest of his life.
"No, Nola, I want to date you."
My breath paused somewhere in my throat. I didn’t want the moment to move on. I wanted to take the time to sit in that truth. The truth that he wanted to date me. He wanted a relationship with me. I think.
"Wha—what? I thought I was driving you crazy."
He smiled. "I’m pretty sure that’s what happens to anyone who’s ever been attracted to someone else."
He wasn't annoyed at me. He liked me. He'd made the first move. I didn't have to hide my crazy or my attraction to him anymore. "Are we going to do this? I mean, we’re already married. I guess it makes sense that we should date."
He sat down next to me. "I know this is backward, but I’m really hoping you feel the same way about me, and that pretending to be married hasn’t been the most miserable thing in your life."
I batted my eyelashes at him. "Bartholomew, you have such a way with words."
An embarrassed duck of his head only made me want him more.
"Bane, I like you too. And I lied."
He scowled. "What did you lie about?"
"Remember the first day we moved in and I told you I wasn't attracted to you anymore?"
He nodded slowly.
"That was a lie. I was still attracted to you. The more I was around you, the more I wanted to get to know you."
His scowl slowly turned into a big grin as I spoke.
"This is going to be fun."
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Homeowners Association Rule #16:
Lawns must be mown at an angle.
I turned around to find Nola standing directly behind me—her hair in a messy bun, my shirt hanging loosely on her shoulders. It shouldn’t have been a big deal to see her wearing one of my shirts, but it was.
Now that we weren’t staying in the same room, it felt as though an entire night was as long as a month. I couldn’t wait to see her in the morning now and seeing her like that made me want to quit my job and spend all my spare time with her.
Something came over me—something that felt oddly similar to a toddler who doesn’t want to share their chair—a toddler who gets possessive over their preschool mat. I didn’t want to share Nola.
She was mine.
This may have started as a fake marriage, but I didn’t want to let her go. She looked at me with her wide green eyes and placed a slender hand on my chest—it wasn’t to push me away either. I leaned closer.
"Do you know the quickest way to a woman’s heart?" Nola asked.
"I’d like to know the quickest way to your heart," I replied honestly.
"Making me coffee every morning. It’s the sweetest thing a person could do."
"But I’ve already been making you coffee every morning..."
"Exactly. I feel like I owe you."
"You don’t owe me." My fingers skimmed the edge of the soft T-shirt.
"I could try to think of a way to repay you," she said, tapping her slender fingers against my chest. Her other hand came up to rest next to her left hand.
"When someone does something nice for someone else, they don’t expect repayment." My voice sounded gravelly, even to my ears.
"What if that person is looking for an excuse to repay them in some way?"
"What kind of repayment did you have in mind?" I asked.
Her hands sneaked up to rest behind my neck. "Maybe a kiss?"
"That does sound promising. But when I kiss you again, I don’t want it to be a form of payment or about you owing me. When I kiss you, I want it to be because you want it just as much as I do."
I leaned closer until her nose was nearly brushing mine. Her warm breath fanned across my chin. I tried to think of a single reason to stop myself from kissing her right then. Her eyes fluttered closed.
I whispered, "Don’t forget to add sugar."
I set the coffee cup down on the counter behind her and turned away, fighting a smile when I saw her disgruntled look.
"What?" She sputtered. She glanced behind her at the coffee. "Was that an innuendo?"
"I don’t know, was it? I told you I didn’t want you to owe me anything. I didn’t want to kiss you unless you really want it." I shrugged. "It didn’t seem like you really wanted it."
She grumbled under her breath, grabbed my arm, and spun me around to face her.
I grinned.
"Shut it—" she cut herself off as she slammed her lips on mine with surprising force. I pulled her hands from my arms, placing them around my neck. She softened immediately, allowing me to lead the kiss.
I grasped the nape of her neck as I tasted her lips, slowing her kisses. She wasn’t the woman I wanted a rushed kiss with. Not like the last time. She was someone to savor.
She sighed and melted against me as I kissed her, taking my time to explore her lips. She was the perfect height—I didn’t have to bend down at an awkward angle, merely tilt my head down to meet her upturned face. Her arms tightened around my neck.
I tugged on her bottom lip as she moaned quietly.
I pulled back just enough to speak against her lips. "Do you even know what you’ve been doing to me these past few weeks?"
I didn’t give her a chance to answer. I dropped my hands to her hips as I kissed her again. This time my tongue swept gently between her lips.
More.
I needed more of her.
Enough.
I would never be able to get enough of her.
Her kindness. Her ability to love and protect. Her transparency. Her acceptance. She didn’t make me feel less than for my quirks. Instead, she built me up, reminding me of my strengths.
I wrapped my arms tightly around her, lifting her a couple of inches off the ground. She surprised me by wrapping her legs around my waist, her hands tightly fisted in my hair.
I spun around and pressed her against the pantry door, shifting my hands below her thighs to hold her up.
"Bane, you make me feel—" her glazed eyes blinked slowly at me before she dove forward again, kissing me like I was the last man in the world.
Hopefully, I’d be the last man in her world.
Chimes rang in the background.
Even the heavenly chorus approved.
<
br /> Nola pulled back. "Bane, I—"
I leaned in, kissing her again. The pantry door creaked against our weight.
"Bane, the doorbell!"
I fought the urge to take her lips with mine again.
Not a heavenly chorus. It was that ominous doorbell. I should have disconnected it before I began kissing Nola.
With a frustrated groan, I slowly lowered her back to the ground.
"There had better be a wildfire and we’re being told to evacuate," I growled.
She smiled lazily at me. "It’s probably Carol."
I frowned at her before I opened the door.
Jan stood on the other side.
I sighed happily, glad that it wasn’t Carol. "Jan, good morning. What can I do for you?"
"Marcia’s added more singing gnomes."
Straight and to the point. And it didn’t make sense at all.
"What do you mean singing gnomes?" I took a slight step back at her angry expression.
"She has a singing gnome collection that is filling her front yard. It’s hideous and creepy. They’re motion sensors! They sing anytime someone walks by." She shuddered.
"I’m pretty sure that’s a code violation. There’s something in the manual about lawn ornaments."
"Please fix it."
I was going to have to quit more than my day job if I wanted time to spend uninterrupted time with Nola...
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Homeowners Association Rule #3:
Garbage service is required.
"Sally’s out fixing the lawn mower," Nola said as I helped her put the groceries away in the fridge. "I’ve been dying to talk to you."
I shoved the milk jug into the fridge then slammed the door. "What’s wrong? What happened? Are you okay?"
She looked at me in surprise. "I just meant that I missed you. I’ve missed talking to you."
I grasped her hand in mine, tugging her closer. "I’ve missed you too. I have been worried about you."
"You have?" She asked softly.
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