Total pages in book: 37
Estimated words: 35001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 175(@200wpm)___ 140(@250wpm)___ 117(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 35001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 175(@200wpm)___ 140(@250wpm)___ 117(@300wpm)
“I talked to my brother.”
Silence reigned for a few moments.
“I’m guessing this isn’t the one serving?”
“No, this is the one that told me to leave.”
“But he was glad you were alive, right?”
She drank some coffee, her small moan of appreciation bringing his gaze back to her profile. Full lips, high cheekbones, thick curvy eyelashes.
“Bradford?”
He nodded. “Of course. And he found out who’d been stealing from him.”
Her eyebrows went up and she smiled. “That’s wonderful, right?”
“Yeah. It was his secretary.” He scrubbed his hand over his chin.
She canted her head to the side and stared at him, setting the coffee on the floor by their feet. “Why?”
“Apparently because I wouldn’t sleep with her.” He shrugged. “At some point I apparently slept with her sister, and she was jealous.”
Iris closed her eyes and opened her mouth a few times only to shut it again.
“What?” he prompted.
“I mean, don’t take this the wrong way, you’re a fucking stud in bed, but because you said no she tried to set you up for embezzling from your own brother’s company? Not because he turned her down, but you did?”
He winked. “You know all I heard from that was you think I’m a stud in bed.”
She narrowed her gaze at him. “All equines are, from what I hear.”
His grin was easy and full. “I’m not putting on that fucking unicorn again.”
She shrugged. “Made your eyes sparkle.”
“You’re not distracting me from the fact you know people who say how equines are in bed. What kind of people are you associating with, beautiful?”
“Hush, you. You know exactly what I meant.”
“I hear what I want to.”
“I’ve noticed that about you. Seems to me this woman was an idiot. Sure, she could do her job, but to throw it all away because someone wouldn’t give you some dick seems foolish to me. But hey, maybe she thought she was going to get a baby and be set for life.”
He shuddered. “Oh God, no thank you.”
Her smile was sad. “No kids for you then?”
“Not with her.” He thought about Monica. “She’s not my type.”
“She looks that different from her sister then?”
“No, very similar in fact.”
Iris finished off her coffee and leaned back, hands flat on the blankets behind her. “I’m confused then.”
She readjusted to set the mug off to the side before she straightened out her legs and just lay there, looking up at the ceiling that thankfully hadn’t crashed in on them. He joined her, shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh.
“About?”
“How she wasn’t your type when she was a lot like her sister.”
“Easy. She worked for my brother. That automatically made her off limits.” He picked up her hand and laced their fingers. “I may be a playboy, but I have some morals.”
She squeezed his hand. “I think you have more morals than you want people to know.”
He rolled over and kissed the back of the hand he held as he propped his head up. Bradford needed to tell her.
“Iris. After this—”
“No,” she cut him off. “There isn’t anything after this. We go our separate ways.”
God help him, he didn’t want that. At all.
But when she kissed him, all rational thought slipped away, and he lost himself in her embrace.
They spent the night making love. Both tenderly and furiously, like they could stave off the encroaching end of their time together. It didn’t work.
* * * *
When morning rolled around, they were awakened by a somewhat identifiable sound of a roaring whirr. Or chopping sound.
Together, they bundled up and went to the front door in time to see a sleek black helicopter settle on the snowy yard. Piros growled low beside Iris. Bradford knew this because the dog had stepped between them and the vibration ran up his leg.
The sliding door opened and out hopped a man he’d not seen in years. Eli Mattson, Livingston’s best friend and a PI.
As if the cold didn’t mean shit to this man, he stood there in a tight black shirt and jeans. After casting a look around, he strode through the snow like it couldn’t be bothered to slow him down.
“Shit,” Iris muttered, pure adoration and feminine approval lining her tone.
Bradford scowled over her tone for the tall, handsome Native American. The man didn’t even bother restraining his hair back in a queue, just let it flutter around his angular face.
He walked up onto the porch, black eyes moving from Bradford to Iris and back again.
“I’ve been sent to retrieve you.”
She didn’t say a word, but he could feel Iris withdrawing from him. Fuck no! He’d planned on this going differently. So differently.
“Iris?”
She shrugged, like it didn’t matter at all to her. “You should go. Just try to keep this one in the air this time. I won’t be around to save you a second time.” Her smile was shaky, but she gave it.