Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 76022 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76022 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
I wanted to offer to fix it.
But I also didn’t want to come off as overbearing.
I already had another surprise for her coming in the next week or so. Too much too soon was going to make her start seeing red flags.
There was friendly.
Then there was obsession.
And while everything I knew about Este so far said she was a woman worth obsessing over, the last thing I wanted to do was scare her off.
Alone in her shower, surrounded by her bath products that carried that distinct rose scent that clung to her body, it took a fuckuva lot of effort to clear my mind, to not think of her in the shower, scrubbing the bubbles all over her body. Better yet, the two of us in the shower with me getting to wash every inch of her.
The last thing I needed was to be rock-hard in her shower. Because it was absolutely crossing a line to jerk-off in her bathroom, for fuck’s sake.
When I was sure I was under control enough, I climbed out, dried off, and slipped into the spare white tee and jeans I kept around just in case.
When I walked back out, Trix looked up from her bed, her hackles starting to rise, before she let out a harrumph and settled back down on her enormous round bed.
“That thing looks thicker than my mattress,” I said as I passed, making my way toward the scent of dinner cooking.
I had meals cooked for me all the time. Detroit loved to cook. So did some of the club wives.
That said, that was family.
This was different.
And I wasn’t sure I’d ever had a woman who wasn’t related to me in some way make me a meal.
“Smells great,” I said, walking in to find Este stirring something on the stove, a little waist apron on that had my mind conjuring up shit it had no business thinking about. “And I like the eggplant. It’s good to have something moodier to offset your brighter palate.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” she said, turning away to walk past me, then stopping and scrunching her nose up. “Oh, I don’t like that.”
Did I smell?
I’d scrubbed pretty damn hard, knowing how sweaty I’d been outside working.
“I like your normal scent better,” she told me. She leaned in to give me a sniff. “Yeah, no. The nag champa smell suits you much better.”
I shouldn’t have been as pleased as I was to know she’d taken note of what I normally smelled like.
“I like the rose on you.”
“On me, yeah,” she agreed, making her way past me. “Okay. As I mentioned before, I have no table yet. So, I got crafty and set up a piece of wood on some sawhorses.”
I followed her out into the living room to find her makeshift table. She’d draped it with a pastel-colored quilt and put a trio of candles in the center.
“Looks great to me. Now, what can I help with?”
“Nothing.”
“Nah, come on. Let me do something.”
“No, I want to do the serving. Besides, you’ve been working all day. Oh, you can grab drinks. But that’s it. There are some options in the fridge.”
She actually had a selection of decent beer, but when she opted for a hard cider, I did the same.
“Don’t put her out for my sake,” I said when she coaxed the dog down the hallway with what looked like a piece of steak.
“This is for both our sanity. She’s such a great dog. Except she is a horrible beggar. It doesn’t matter if I’m just having bran cereal; she will whimper and paw at me until I give in and let her have the milk when I’m done.” She tossed the steak into a room past the bathroom I’d cleaned up in, then quickly closed the door. “There. Now we will have some peace.”
With that, she went back to the kitchen and returned with two plates. Mine seemed to be piled with enough food to satisfy a whole crew of linemen.
“I’ll be honest,” she said when she caught me staring at the pile. “I haven’t cooked for a man since my grandfather. And he wasn’t a big eater. So don’t feel obligated to eat all of it if it’s too much.”
She’d gone all out with crispy smashed potatoes, roasted Brussels sprouts with lightly charred cheese clinging to each sprout, an herb and vegetable couscous, and a massive pile of steak cooked just right.
“I hope the steak is alright. I had to broil it. I would have preferred to grill it, but I haven’t gotten around to looking for a grill yet.”
“Looks perfect,” I told her, my stomach grumbling now that I had it in front of me.
“Oh!” she said, jumping up so fast that she knocked the table and nearly set everything flying. “I forgot the bread.”
“You made bread?” I asked when she came back cradling a pan with mismatched potholders.