Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 132892 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 664(@200wpm)___ 532(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132892 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 664(@200wpm)___ 532(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
Finally I let my hands drop and pulled my cock free. Talia stared up at me in coy triumph.
“You’ll always come back for that,” she said. I shook my head slowly.
“You’re good, Talia, but I’m not your bitch. You want a man you can give orders to, find someone else. I meant what I said—you’re mine, not the other way around. We clear?”
She shrugged, standing slowly. Then she leaned into me, dropping a hand down to squeeze my ass.
“Clear,” she said. “Now let’s go back inside. I want to see how bad Mike is hurt. You could’ve killed him, you know.”
I could kill you.
“He’ll be fine,” I snapped. “Hope you enjoyed your moment of glory.”
She reached down, cupping my softening cock. “Oh, I enjoyed it. You have no idea. Now buy me a drink—I need to rinse out my mouth.”
TINKER
The next couple weeks passed quickly enough. Work was crazy, because not only did I have my regular orders to fill, but I’d gotten a major order from a law firm looking to hire my future ex, Brandon. He was hot shit, of course. I knew this because he told me regularly, but also because people were always trying to lure him into private practice. He wouldn’t go—not with the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s office up for grabs—but none of that mattered to me. We might be getting a divorce, but I still had a business to run. That’s why my part-time shop assistant—Randi—and I were so busy that I closed the tea shop entirely so we could focus on production. This wasn’t a particularly big deal, seeing as we never sold anything anyway.
As for Cooper, there wasn’t much to tell. Eventually I decided that I’d imagined the tension between us. Not that I could complain about his work ethic—he kept himself busy enough, but whenever we ran into each other, he was only casually friendly. He’d give me a wave or we’d discuss work around the place, but his eyes were distant. Blank.
And of course, she was always around. Ugh. I don’t know who disgusted me more, myself or Talia. She might be the immature brat, but I was certainly feeling like one. Who gets jealous of some guy they’ve never even kissed, anyway?
Stalkers and crazy people.
We hadn’t entered full-on stalker territory just yet, but sometimes I felt like it was close. I caught myself watching him around the property, unconsciously tracking his schedule so that I could just happen to be around when he was. Pathetic. Lame. But, oh my God, the man was a work of art . . . And when he smiled, it felt like my heart might explode. Well, something definitely wanted to explode. Ha! On the bright side he was getting tons of work done and probably putting in more hours than was fair. For the first time since my mom died, I didn’t feel all stressed out about the apartments.
Cooper’s repairs weren’t the only changes in the building, either. That weekend a new family had moved into the last vacant unit, and overnight the place had burst with energy because there were four kids.
Yeah, four. In a two-bedroom apartment.
That violated my policy on the number of people per bedroom, but I had a soft spot for the mother, Janelle. We’d gone to school together and she’d gotten pregnant about the same time as my friend Carrie. Her story hadn’t ended as well. The father took off right after the baby was born and Janelle’s parents kicked her out. She’d drifted from one dead-end job to the next until about ten years ago, when she married a man whose main purpose in life seemed to be drinking and knocking her around.
They’d had three more kids together before she’d gotten up the nerve to move out, and when she’d come to me asking about the empty place, there was no way in hell I’d have said no.
Now I came home every day to find children running wild around our little courtyard, and while it was noisy it was also fantastic. Sure, I got the occasional twinge, the memory of little Tricia bittersweet and full of pain. But when they started building a fort using pallets and scraps from one of my dad’s old projects, I didn’t have the heart to tell them no.
There was only one downside . . . Janelle’s first child, Sadie, was all grown up, and she was part of Talia’s little posse. Now the bitch had two reasons to come hang out around my building, and I didn’t like that one little bit.
Still, I felt optimistic that Thursday night. I’d made all the special-order caramels and had dipped about half of them. If I finished the rest by tomorrow, I’d be able to take my first weekend totally off in forever. Carrie and I had already booked ourselves into the day spa for manis, pedis, and drinkies.