Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 126589 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 633(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 422(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126589 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 633(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 422(@300wpm)
She stretched, working the kinks out of her shoulders and neck. She’d started work at six-thirty this morning—two hours earlier than usual—because she was running late on a couple of deadlines and needed to put in the extra hours. She’d been sitting for two hours already, ignoring her smart watch’s regular demands that she stand up. She was feeling it now. She pushed to her feet and groaned when her muscles protested the movement.
“Do you w—” She stopped speaking abruptly and swallowed down the lump in her throat. She was getting used to not having Spock around but she still found herself talking to him sometimes. Those moments were always followed by an immediate elastic band snap reality check and a swell of loss that occasionally resulted in tears. Thankfully these moments were less frequent now, but they still happened at least three times a day. Especially after intense bouts of concentration.
She ground her teeth, determinedly keeping the tears at bay, and stared out of the wide, arched window.
He was out there again. Which meant that her morning show was about to start.
Her office was in the front of the house and faced Gideon’s covered front porch. Most mornings he worked out on that porch…shirtless.
And most mornings, for nearly four months—at exactly eight-thirty—Beth sat down in front of her desk, with a steaming mug of coffee, seemingly to prepare for her day. After the first week, however, all pretense of work had been abandoned in favor of blatant voyeurism.
He had a freestanding punching bag, and one of those little speed bags as well. It was a joy to behold the man punch and kick the shit out of those bags every day. She would never admit it to a single soul, but watching the muscles bunch and stretch in his heavy shoulders, broad back and bulging arms was the undeniable highlight of her day.
Occasionally, when he stopped to take a drink, or pat the sweat from his face or torso, his gaze would absently sweep up and down the quiet cul-de-sac, pausing ever so briefly on her house and Beth would shrink back, terrified that he could see her through the old-fashioned lace curtains Granny June had hated so much. Beth, however, loved those curtains and had balked when her grandmother had tried to swap out the lace for vertical blinds. Now she was happy that she had won that particular argument. It was a lot easier to shamelessly spy on her sinfully hot arch nemesis through lacy curtains than through twitchy blinds.
Beth sighed and dropped her cheek into her palm, drinking in the sight of him. As her eyes flitted over every straining muscle, as well as the stern focus on his face, and the heaving breath he took between every punch and roundhouse kick, it occurred to her—not for the first time—that he’d looked equally as focused and intense when they’d been together. All that sweat, strain, and concentration—just for her.
She groaned, her breathing picking up and her throat going dry. God, she was losing her mind. It was just sex for heaven’s sake. Mind-blowing, earth-shattering, toe-curling sex.
They hadn’t seen each other since that weekend two weeks ago. Well, of course they’d seen each other, it was hard to avoid the man when his house was directly across from hers in a sleepy cul-de-sac. Beth had gone out to meet with one of the executives at Bottleneck Advertising earlier in the week and Gideon had lifted a hand in greeting as she’d climbed into her car.
She’d been stupidly flustered by the fact that he was bare-chested and sweaty, and in the middle of a workout. Which was ridiculous when one considered that she’d been spying on him for months before that day. But covertly perving over a guy, and openly acknowledging him when he was in a state of delicious undress, were two different things. Her brain cells had short-circuited and she’d frozen up. Instead of returning the wave like a fully-functioning adult human being, she’d ducked her head, scampered into her car like a skittish rabbit, and fled without acknowledging his greeting.
Or existence.
Even now, nearly three days later, she cringed in embarrassment at the shameful memory. Not her finest moment.
“Awkward dumbass,” she berated herself while she watched Gideon stretching. The hour had flown by and it seemed like his work out was nearly done. He would retreat inside for the rest of the morning.
Beth wondered what he got up to in there. He had to pay the bills somehow. Yet he rarely left the house. Some days he had up to three female visitors, varying in age, race, and body type. Other days not a single lady caller.
Since she’d already discounted The Gigolo Theory; Beth had been wracking her brain trying to figure out how he earned a living. Could he be their personal trainer? That was a perfectly viable—not batshit insane—theory.