Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 131387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
I couldn’t move. After five orgasms, my body was somnolent from the tips of my toes to the ends of my hair.
But I couldn’t stop looking at him.
And this couldn’t happen.
The whole point of me being in this loft cabin in the middle of nowhere in Fret County, Washington State and not back home in Florida was to stay very, very far away from this kind of entanglement.
Of course, a girl had needs.
However, this was not the guy you used to scratch your itch.
This was the kind of guy that the first concepts from the beginning of time were the hotbed of what hopes and dreams were made of.
Dang it, I’d only been here seven months, and here I was, messing up my life again.
My hand actually ached from forcing myself not to reach out and rest it on his chest, feel that springy hair, the warmth of his skin, his heart beating.
My body yearned to inch forward and press itself to his side, wrap him in my arms, so he might turn and wrap me in his, tangling us up in the moonlight.
I was so screwed.
But I didn’t stop watching him, perhaps it was only long minutes, it felt like hours, before my eyes drifted shut, and I lost him.
In more ways than one.
I opened my eyes, delightfully tender, deliciously relaxed, totally refreshed, and I stretched my back.
The sun was shining through the window at the head of my bed.
And the pillow beside mine was empty.
No.
Strike that.
It wasn’t.
There was a wide, yellow Post-it note resting on the pillow.
I held the covers to my chest and reached out to the note, stupid, stupid, stupidly hoping it was his number and an urge to call him. Or an invitation to dinner. Or to meet him at The Link that night for a drink.
Mostly, hoping it was signed because he never told me his name.
It was not.
There was one word on that note, scrawled in black ink.
And that word was…
Thanks.
TWO
Not Again
Mabel
To say I was not in a good mood that morning as I got ready to head out would be an understatement.
“I’m such a moron,” I complained to myself as I did the breakfast dishes at the sink at the back of the cabin.
The space I was renting had three acres and two buildings.
First building, the cabin, which on the bottom floor was an open living room and kitchen with a closed off utility room to one side of the kitchen that led out to the car port (or more aptly described as a truck port), and on the other side, a pantry and a tiny half bath.
On the top, creating the ceiling of the kitchen (the living room space went up two stories) was an open loft. My bedroom, flanked by a bathroom and a closet.
To get up there, you used a spiral staircase off to the side of the kitchen next to the door to the powder room.
Since I sold pretty much everything I owned in Florida before I moved here, it had taken me months to find the right pieces to fill the space, none of it new, except the blue corduroy couch that faced the stone hearth over which was mounted (also new) a flat-screen TV.
For two months, I’d lived on mattresses on the floor up in the loft, and for another month, the stuff that should go in drawers was in boxes until I’d discovered, and oftentimes refurbished, the furniture that was in there and elsewhere in the cabin.
I didn’t consider it done. But as much as I loved this place, if I could make a go of my store in town and decided to stay in Misted Pines, I wasn’t going to continue to rent, and I knew the wild character who was my landlord, Mrs. Matthews, wouldn’t agree to sell me this place. Thus, I was making do with what I had until I made my decision about staying or going and settled, wherever that may be.
The other building—and even as awesome as the cabin was, that other building was a big part of what made me love my rental—was the big workshop that sat about twenty yards off to the north side of my front door.
It didn’t have heat, but it did have electricity, and it was plenty roomy for my needs.
Oh, and there was no one around.
The drive into the property next to mine was at least a good quarter, if not half mile away, and the next drive was a good half mile up the road on the other side of street, whatever that property might be, resting higher up the mountain.
There was no landscaping at my place.
The front of my property was a vast expanse of dirt, some boulders, and surrounding it were thick pines.
My plans for the day had been to continue work on refinishing the bureau in the workshop. I’d stripped the paint the day before, unearthing a gorgeous walnut, but there was a lot of detailed sanding work to be done before I could start finishing the piece.