Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 68515 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68515 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Nobody was by themselves.
All my crews were safe, semi-cold, but were covered.
Rachel, with her knowledge of the company, could hold down the fort.
And I was free to go home for a few much-needed hours of shut-eye.
Yet, I was turning down an unfamiliar street, and into a driveway that I knew wasn’t mine.
Logically, I knew that I should be going home and not putting my new employee into this position.
But I wouldn’t.
Didn’t.
Couldn’t.
Because she was all that I was thinking about.
All that I’d thought about for the last few hours while I got work done that I didn’t want to do.
Pushing through the shared door of the duplex, I cursed myself for not figuring out what was wrong with her door. It wouldn’t do for two ladies to be left home alone during this shit with a door that wouldn’t even lock.
Regardless of my thought processes, I let myself into her place, also wondering if that was just a bit too forward seeing as we hadn’t known each other that long.
Yet, it didn’t stop me from doing it, only thinking it was sort of bad.
Arriving inside, I looked at the long-ass hallway that separated her end of the duplex from her friend’s, then shook my head as I hooked a left.
I used the key on her keyring to get inside, and the first thing I heard as I entered was her muttered curses.
“I’d rather be sunburned, covered in mosquito bites, wearing flip-flops and wondering how in the hell to stomp a copperhead to death in them than deal with winter weather!”
Goddamn, she was so cute.
I closed the door hard to allow her the warning that someone was there, then called out, “Gracie?”
There was a soft curse, then a head popped up from over the couch that’d been pushed as close to the fire as possible without worrying it might catch fire.
“Jeremiah!” she called out. “You’re here!”
“You’re awake,” I mused, wondering why that was.
“It’s cold,” she admitted, explaining all the blankets that were wrapped around her. “I’m very cold natured, and this fire doesn’t seem to be cutting it right now. I can’t seem to get warm enough.”
That was all the invitation that I needed.
Between one breath and the next, I was shrugging out of my clothes.
First my coveralls, then my boots. My socks went next, followed by my long thermal tee, and then my undershirt.
The final article of clothing to go was my long johns.
Before I’d left the office, I’d loaded up on all of my clothes, just in case I was called out tonight for an emergency. Or an emergency that was more of an emergency than the emergency we’d already experienced.
“Those thermals look very warm,” she mused as she watched me disrobe. “Are you sure you want to take them off?”
I raised a brow at her, and I knew that the reflection of the firelight on my face projected it back to her.
“You want me to leave them on?” I asked, long johns halfway down to my knees.
She snorted, and it was such a cute sound that it took me by surprise.
“As if.” She smirked. “That would be like me telling you that your voice offends me. Your voice is so smooth and deep that you could sing me to sleep right now, despite my mild hypothermia.”
It was good she liked my voice.
It was also good she found my body pleasing.
The old man in me liked it a fuck of a lot.
It wasn’t often that I got those kinds of looks anymore. Not that I wasn’t attractive or anything, but because I was a Battle Crow. I was the epitome of ‘scary’ according to quite a few women.
It was nice that someone was looking at me like I wasn’t about to steal her firstborn child.
“Get in here already,” she urged. “I’m not joking. I’m freezing.”
“I hate to tell you this,” I said as I walked to the bathroom and relieved myself. When I was back, I finished with, “But I’m just as cold, if not colder, than you are. Since I was outside and all.”
“Is it bad?” she asked as she lay back down on her couch.
She lifted the blanket up only enough for me to crawl inside, then scooched backward.
I crowded in close and pressed my body fully against hers.
She hissed in a breath and said, “Holy crap. You’re not kidding.”
I wasn’t.
But certain things were warming up a hell of a lot faster than they were, now that I was pressed against her.
“You feel like a slab of ice,” she muttered, shivering a bit. “All that hard muscle, paired with the cold. Brrrr.”
I moved closer to her, wrapping my arms around her and bringing her in so close that there was no way in hell she’d miss the erection tenting the front of my underwear.
She didn’t say anything about it, and neither did I.