Reaper's Fire
Page 11

“Nice to see you, Talia,” I said, thinking of Princess Diana. Calm, cool, graceful Diana. Now I just needed to channel her, instead of going all Kardashian on Talia’s tacky ass like I wanted to. “I was just about to show Cooper his new place. Would you like to join us?”
She looked over at the building.
“I can’t understand why you’d want to live here,” she declared loudly at Cooper. “They’re a bunch of old people, and I’m sure they’ll bitch at you all the time just because you have a life.”
Dear God, were we really going here?
Inhale pink, exhale blue. You can do this.
“I’ll show you the apartment, and then you can get settled,” I announced, ignoring her. “Second floor, right behind the main house. That’s a good one, because it has its own separate entrance off the parking lot. Gives you more privacy.”
Cooper nodded, following me as I stepped off the wide porch and around the side of the house to the attached apartment building. There wasn’t much of a stoop on the stairwell, but it had a nice awning over the entry. Handy in the winter.
“It’s just one bedroom,” I said, unlocking the door. I pushed it open, and Cooper and Talia followed me into the living room. The apartment stretched across the width of the building, so there was light coming in from both sides. Across from the door was a dining area with a kitchenette.
“It’s all natural-gas heat,” I told him. “That keeps the utilities under control. The bedroom and bathroom are just through here.”
They followed me through the living room into the bedroom, Talia looking around eagerly. Apparently her disgust didn’t run quite as deep as she’d let on. Fair enough—it was a nice building, built by my grandpa and lovingly maintained by my dad. They’d always taken their work very seriously.
“Do you have a bed?” Talia asked Cooper. “When are we breaking this place in?”
And just like that I was done.
“So, that’s everything,” I announced. “There’s a paper with all the garbage and utilities information in the kitchen, along with my contact information. It’s taped inside the cabinet next to the sink. Call me if you need anything, otherwise I’ll just let you get settled.”
I started toward the door, wondering if it would be okay to declare he wasn’t allowed overnight guests. Specifically, that he wasn’t allowed female overnight guests.
Hmmm . . . probably not. Pisser.
I’d just reached the door when Cooper’s hand caught my arm, scaring the crap out of me.
“Sorry,” he said as I spun on him with a definitively unsexy squawk. “I just wanted to thank you. The place looks great.”
“Wonderful,” I snapped, glaring down at his hand. I could smell him all around me, feel the strength in his fingers. If a super hot guy was going to answer my ad, why did it have to be one who already had a girlfriend? That was flat out unfair.
“So, maybe we should talk in the morning,” he said. “If you put together a list of everything that needs doing, I can get started tomorrow. Looks like there’s a few projects here and there that could use some work.”
I barely noticed his words—I was too busy watching his lips move. They were really, really pretty. Perfect. Exactly right for sucking on. Something twinged between my legs and I felt my nipples tighten. His hand squeezed my arm again, feeling strangely intimate, and his eyes pierced mine.
“So, tomorrow?”
“Um, sure,” I said quickly, realizing I needed to get the hell out of there before I embarrassed myself. “I’ll see you later.”
Wouldn’t want to get in the way of them “breaking in” the bedroom.
This wasn’t going to end well.
Maybe I should fire him.
I was climbing the steps back to my house and giving the idea serious consideration when my foot caught on a rotten board that’d been on my to-fix list since last spring. I tried pulling it free, but it stuck. Then I kicked at it, and suddenly the damned thing gave way, sending my foot plunging through.
Well, crap.
Firing him wasn’t really an option . . . I’d been advertising for a handyman for nearly a month, and during that whole time I’d only gotten two calls. One was a prank and the other was Steve Gribble, whose wife had kicked him out (again) for getting drunk and losing his job (again).
I’d just have to suck it up and deal with Cooper and his stupid, evil, gorgeous girlfriends. Yup, that’d work. All I needed to do was think of him as convenient eye candy, like the guys in those sexy firefighter calendars. Fun to look at, impossible to touch, and not quite real.
I could handle this.
 
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, TWO WEEKS LATER
“Bring more wine,” I hissed into the phone. “He’s taking off his shirt and I’m starting to overheat.”
“Does he have tattoos?” my best friend, Carrie, asked in a harsh whisper. “I keep imagining tattoos swirling all over that chest of his, and . . . Oh God. I think I need to change my panties.”
“No tats that I can see. But he’s getting sweaty.”
“Do you think two bottles will be enough?”
Shaking my head slowly, I sighed as Cooper stopped the lawn mower long enough to take a deep drink of water. God, the way his throat moved when he swallowed . . . and those muscles bunching in his back. Damn.
“Three. Better be safe. It’s a big yard.”
• • •
Generally speaking, I’m not the kind of girl who drinks during the day. I mean, I will. Sometimes. You know, like at a Fourth of July BBQ where people start cracking beers around one in the afternoon? But this was a Sunday and I had four hundred caramels—a full week’s orders—to package for the courier first thing the next morning. A hangover wasn’t on the agenda.
Seriously, though.
He’d taken off his shirt.
Why the hell was I putting myself through this? And more importantly, why had I moved him into the apartment that shared a wall with my own childhood bedroom like some total creeper? There was another vacant unit around the back side of the building.
Lust.
Yup. I was woman enough to own it. Tinker Garrett, aged thirty-six, was in lust with Cooper Romero. The man was so damned easy on the eyes that it caused me physical pain. Okay, not pain. Warm tinglies. And he was exactly what I needed, too. According to the rental application that I’d belatedly asked him to fill out, he was two years older than me. Should’ve been perfect, right? Too bad he was into twenty-year-old nutjobs with small boobs and tight asses.