Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 85569 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85569 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
"Do you need any help?" Marilyn Curtis asked, her voice sweet, but poisonous.
"I think I’m okay," I replied as I slipped down my oven mitt and grabbed the next batch that had been sent over.
"There’s a lot to be done. And that last batch of muffins were burnt to cinders. Let me help,” she offered, and it would have been rude to do anything else but accept her offer.
“You’re right. The muffins were slightly burnt.”
“They were blacker than coal,” she said with a smile and came around the counter to join me.
I could smell her strong perfume and I instantly regretted being polite. I should have told the witch to fly off on her broomstick instead.
"You seem to have quite the rapport with Anya's father," she commented sourly, while absolutely not helping and just standing, moving a little bit closer to annoy and quiz me.
"Not especially," I replied as I shut the oven door. "But I am her class teacher, after all."
She smiled again. "Is there a way you can get him to participate more with the other parents? For instance, a bunch of us are chatting and having some refreshments over there."
"I really don't know," I told her. "You'd have to ask him."
"You're really no help at all," she said with another irritated smile before walking away.
A few minutes later, the widely-wanted hunk came over with his daughter.
"The moms hate me," I told him. "They're wondering if I'm holding you back from socializing with them."
"You're holding me back from socializing with them?" he asked, his eyes sparkling like diamonds.
"Yes, I’m being blamed for monopolizing you. So could you go hang out with them for a bit?”
"Anya, go join your friends in the pottery shed," he said, and she ran along. Then he pulled his phone out of his pocket and without looking up spoke.
"Fine. Give me your phone number and I’ll go hang out with some Moms."
"What? Are you kidding?" I asked, shocked. "With all the attention on us right now."
He looked up. “Do you want me to hang out with them or not?”
“I’m not giving you my phone number in front of all these people.”
He grinned. "Then I’m going to keep on standing here and … er … monopolizing you.”
My heart went soft at his words. “Everyone’s gonna know, though.”
He put his phone away. “Just say the number out aloud. I’ll remember it.”
I stared at him. “You’ll be able to remember my number if I say it out once?”
“Yeah, I’m good with numbers.”
I called it out and he nodded. “Just to be clear. I’m doing this for you and only you.”
Truly, I felt like I was melting. "Thank you," I said. "But to annoy them just a little bit more, please say that I told you to come over."
"Of course," he said and reached out then to touch me, but I shook my head with alarm.
With a sigh, he walked over to where Marilyn Curtis and the other moms were gathered together.
I watched him go, dazed by the gorgeous sass of him. I could see the women watching him and I didn’t blame them at all. I was them, only that by some stroke of good fortune, I had met him first, and we had connected. It made me wonder, though, as I turned around to check on the muffins if things would have progressed as they had so far between us if we had met not at the Dead or Alive bar, but here in school.
Maybe not. Here at the school, the setting would have been too proper for us to have come together in such an exciting and incendiary way on the very first meeting, but here then, we would have had the instrument storage closet in the music room.
Wow! Where did that come from?
The thought was crazy, but I had to admit that it was a wonderful one too. I was so busy making insane plans that I was startled when I heard Pearl’s voice close to my ear.
"You sent him to do that?" she asked.
I turned to see what she was talking about and my mouth hung open. He was surrounded by women and had taken his jacket off. He was wearing a tight white t-shirt and over it a freaking apron that looked tiny on him. It should have been ridiculous, but to me, he seemed even more strikingly masculine. The concentration on his face, the way he sat with his strong thighs spread apart ... His huge, wet hands were shaping and molding the clay.
"Holy fuck," Kelly gasped by my side as he dug his hand in the middle to form the pen.
“I’m sure someone just fainted a few feet away,” Pearl said in an awed voice.
"That’s one hell of a man you caught there, Miss Moore," Natalie said.
"Hmmm … I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep him, Nat. Seems I have a lot of competition. Even Tiffany is trying to get her claws into him."