Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 80986 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 405(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80986 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 405(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
It took me less than an hour to clean the fridge. Not much in the freezer was expired, but most of the food in the fridge was old. I threw most of it out and scrubbed the shelves. The smell of bleach filled the air. Then I put back the condiments and other unexpired things.
I took a short breather and filled a glass with chilled ice water from the refrigerator door. When I was a kid, I’d always thought those were so cool—like having your own drinking fountain in your home.
Then I pulled open the stainless-steel door of the second fridge.
Yep, this one was definitely for drinks. There were a dozen or so bottles on different shelves, organized by type There were only two or three of each kind, so I could see why it needed to be restocked. But lugging bottles of beer up and down the stairs didn’t sound like a very fun task to me, so I stalled by cleaning a spot on the back wall of the fridge where something had spilled. I had to get on all fours and duck my head to see it clearly. It was hard to reach, so it took me two or three minutes to get it all.
And in that time, two people entered the kitchen. I discovered this fact when I pulled my head out and sat back on my heels. Something large loomed over me, and I yelped. My hand, the one holding the rag, flew to my chest and I felt the cold spread of dirty water on my shirt.
“Sorry,” Grant said with a smirk. He was on the right, Bennett was on the left. They were both peering down at me, and from this angle, they looked about ten feet tall instead of their usual six and change.
“I was just getting a stain,” I mumbled, dropping the hand with the cleaning rag down to my side. I wondered how long they’d been staring at me. I didn’t even want to think about the only parts of me that had been visible when I’d had my head in the fridge.
“So we saw,” Grant said, still smirking. It wasn’t hard to imagine his blue eyes glued to my ass, and I shifted uncomfortably. I wished I weren’t practically kneeling at their feet, but neither one of them stepped back, and the fridge door was to my back.
Bennett didn’t have a smug look on his face like his cousin. He just stared at me impassively.
“I cleaned the other fridge,” I said, still uncomfortable. “And, um, I was just about to go downstairs and get the beer.” I shifted forward, trying to find a way to get to my feet. After a long moment, Bennett stepped back, but not Grant. He leaned down, his head a foot away from mine, and plucked a brown bottle off of the top shelf.
Then he held out a hand for me.
“I’m fine,” I said, but he didn’t budge.
Taking his hand seemed the lesser of two evils compared to continuing to kneel at his feet, but it also felt a little like a power play on his part—as if he wouldn’t let me move until I did what he wanted.
Reluctantly, I put my hand in his, feeling his long fingers close around mine. He tugged me easily to my feet, but didn’t stop there. He held on just a second too long, pulling a little too hard, and I crashed into his chest, my free hand pressing against his stomach as I tried to steady myself.
It was just a second, maybe more, but I could feel the heat from his skin under his shirt. I could feel the hard, defined abs there.
Just like he clearly wanted me to.
I stepped back hastily and closed the refrigerator door, putting several feet between us. My hair was messed up and I could feel the wet spot on my shirt from the rag, but I didn’t care. I was just glad not to be at their feet anymore.
Bennett rolled his eyes, either at Grant’s action or my reaction. It was frustrating that he and his cousin looked like models for men’s summer wear when I was so disheveled.
Grant looked amused, and I wanted to slap that smirk off his face—if I could reach that high. But then he held up his bottle. It had a white label, and the words were in a foreign language that looked a bit like German.
“This is the only beer I drink. I have it flown in from Luxembourg a couple of times a year. There should be twelve in the fridge at all times.”
“Okay.”
“And it’s only for him, so don’t serve it to any of the other brothers,” Bennett said. I nodded, but it still sounded jarring to hear these guys refer to each other as brothers. “Get some of each of the other kind, too.”