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)
Three. He’d do three more sets before he went home.
Burgess swiped a towel over his sweaty hair and tossed it onto a nearby bench, pacing with hands on hips. While putting himself through another three rounds of squats, he didn’t see his image in the mirror at all. Just Tallulah. She’d lived for ten days in his home. All of her things were kept confined to that bedroom. No shoes by the door. No coat on the peg. Yet her presence was everywhere.
In the air.
In his lungs.
Sometimes he caught her staring at him across the apartment and his blood would heat to a fucking boiling point. He’d swear hers was doing the same and tonight was the night she came to his room, stripped at his bedside, and they gave in. But despite those hungry looks, they kept things professional. And by professional, he meant Tallulah was transforming their very lives one genius fix at a time. She didn’t merely talk Lissa down from a ledge when she came home from school after a bad day, she explained to Burgess afterward why her method had worked. She had the inside track to the teenage brain.
Burgess had stumbled on the Holy flipping Grail.
And yeah, she said she’d never cook again, but she continued to make dinner almost every weeknight and enlist their help in the kitchen. A couple of days ago, she’d had too much homework to prepare the meal, so he’d done it with Lissa. Just the two of them. They’d prepared a stir fry from memory and it hadn’t tasted like hot garbage.
In ten short days, life felt different. His kid was happier. He was learning to communicate with her, simply by watching Tallulah. So he should probably be happy with what he had. A harmonious household. A wildly competent au pair.
Though he couldn’t help but wonder what might have happened if they hadn’t been interrupted by a phone call the night he picked her up from the club. When he’d almost kissed her a second time in the cab of his truck, her hand fisted in the front of his shirt. Maybe that kiss would have gotten out of hand. Maybe she would have taken off her lacy black panties, climbed onto his lap, and ridden him in the front seat while the windows fogged up. Hard, fast, letting out urgent little whimpers at the ceiling—
“You seem kind of distracted today, man,” Sig said, leaning against the mirrored wall in front of Burgess. Where the hell had he come from? “What are you thinking about?”
“Next week’s game,” Burgess snapped. “That’s where everyone’s focus should be.”
Sig smirked at him. “You’re forgetting that I met your au pair last Friday.”
Burgess gave him a pointed look. “We’ll talk about it later.”
“Why? Now seems like as good a time as any.”
“Hold the fuck up. Burgess has an au pair?” Mailer emerged from the other side of a partial cinder block wall that separated the weight area from cardio equipment. Of course, Corrigan followed directly in his wake, two sharks homing in on the scent of blood. “Is she French?”
Burgess stared blankly at Sig.
Sig rubbed the center of his forehead. “Sorry, man. That’s why you didn’t want to talk about her. I forgot the rookies hover around you at all times.”
Corrigan slapped a hand down on Burgess’s shoulder. “Like vultures around a rotting carcass.”
“Don’t make me rip your fucking arm off,” Burgess said as calmly as possible.
The rookie took his hand back, snickering nervously.
“So?” Mailer rubbed his hands together. “Is she French?”
Sig groaned up at the ceiling. “You don’t have to be French to be an au pair, you absolute dumbass.”
“Fine,” Mailer said. “What is she? Hot?”
“Yes, Mailer,” Sig replied dryly. “She’s from the Republic of Hotness. Just below France.”
Corrigan slapped his friend in the chest. “Hotness isn’t a nationality.”
“It is in my book,” Mailer said, letting his tongue hang out.
“Your book is just a notepad with a bunch of dick drawings,” Burgess commented.
Mailer and Corrigan doubled over laughing.
Burgess’s back let out a particularly sharp throb and he ground his molars together. “Can you fuck off now and let me finish my workout—”
“I had a nanny for a while growing up,” Corrigan interrupted. “She was in her sixties. But there were some days she looked pretty good. Those were confusing days for me.”
“Every day is a confusing day for you,” Sig quipped.
But the rookie was looking at Burgess.
Both of them were.
As a matter of fact, any time either one of them said something, they turned to get his reaction. Every. Single. Time. Tallulah was right. What exactly did that mean? She’d implied that Lissa did it because his opinion mattered the most, and he’d been . . . honored to know that. That couldn’t be the case here with Orgasm Donor One and Two, though. They didn’t give a shit about anyone’s opinions but their own. Right?