Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 117201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 586(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 586(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Decision made, Tallulah slipped the phone out of the front pocket of her windbreaker and prepared to call the Bearcats defenseman. Being so unprofessional about this rankled. She should break their deal in person. But what if he reacted badly? Got upset?
A phone call was better. Safer.
Before Tallulah could dial, a bell tinkled above the door.
And Burgess Abraham himself entered the smoothie shop.
Holy shit, she’d forgotten how . . . hulking he was. Six-three, give or take an inch. Broad as a barn. And grizzled. Sir Savage had entered the second half of his thirties and he already had a hint of salt and pepper buffering in his black beard, his temples. He walked with leashed confidence. It wasn’t the stride of a man who needed to be noticed. Or feared. It was a one hand in his pocket, the other loose at his side, eyes forward, unhurried but goal-oriented gait. He didn’t bother stopping at the register to order, just signaled the employee with a salute.
“Your usual, Savage?” The smoothie guy got working, tossing frozen fruit into the clear blender, adding juice and three heaping scoops of protein powder. “I live in hope that someday you’ll come in and try something new.”
“I like what I like,” Burgess muttered, frowning at the screen of his phone.
Was he checking to see if she’d called?
Probably. She was now sixty-seven minutes late.
With an inward wince, Tallulah tapped call and held the phone to her ear. When the device started to buzz in Burgess’s hand, a ripple went through his back. He dropped the phone to his side and looked straight ahead for a moment, then back at the phone, coughing. Rolling a shoulder. She could only see his profile, but his lips moved slightly like he was practicing his greeting—and that’s when Tallulah remembered why she’d agreed to take the live-in au pair job with someone she barely knew.
Time had obviously blurred the memory of Burgess.
There was something about his energy that read . . . safe.
Very safe.
Protective.
Along with her friends’ faith in Burgess, she’d trusted her gut.
It was going to be a shame to break the agreement. It was for the best, though. There was no guarantee he’d be civil off the ice one hundred percent of the time. Wells and Josephine might wholeheartedly believe in Burgess’s good character, but Tallulah had done the same with people throughout her life and gotten burned when their true selves were revealed.
You just never knew.
Tallulah watched as Burgess tapped the screen and held the phone to his ear, plugging the opposite one with his finger to drown out the screaming blender.
“Hello,” he said, staring intently at the floor. “Tallulah.”
Best to ignore that hot shiver that trekked up her inner thighs at the basement baritone version of her name. Blame it on her recent lack of anything resembling a sex life.
Watching penguins mate didn’t count.
“Hi, Burgess,” she responded, waiting for him to register the blender sounds in the background of her call, too. When he did, his gaze zipped to where Tallulah sat, a grunt brushing up against her eardrum.
They both ended the call, looking at each other across the smoothie shop.
It was very hard to tell what Burgess was thinking. But he was thinking. A lot. Intuitive blue eyes traveled between her and the suitcase, a slight wrinkle taking up residence between his brows, though the rest of his expression remained carved in stone.
Without taking his attention off Tallulah, Burgess reached out and accepted his smoothie over the counter, and that casual competence was . . . dangerously attractive. It was all coming back to her now. The hot spark of attraction she’d felt for this man all those months ago. She’d flown into California as a surprise for her best friend Josephine’s birthday. Burgess had been in attendance as a spectator at the same golf tournament where his friend, Wells Whitaker, had been competing with Josephine as his caddie. Brought his daughter, Lissa, along, too.
The five of them had unexpectedly had lunch—and when Burgess sat down beside her at the table, she’d been caught off guard by the ribbons of electricity that had only fluttered with more persistence every time his voice did that deep, boomy thing. There’d been no reason to question his outward calm while at lunch with other people, but she couldn’t discount her current apprehension at the prospect of being alone with him. In an apartment. Day in and day out. Knowing he was capable of breaking someone’s nose with all the fanfare of a sneeze.
As Burgess approached the table, the sound of his bootsteps was muffled, her palms growing soggy, but she also couldn’t help but notice the way his God of Thunder thighs were almost too robust for his jeans. He wore a loose navy sweater, like a man in the middle of a relaxing Sunday, and she wondered if he’d stretched out the neckline to show off the sharp cuts of his throat and collarbone.