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My hand was tight and punishing on my erection as I streaked the shower wall with my cum, thinking only of Nicole and everything about her—not just her jeans, but her smart mouth, her confidence, and her gorgeous honey eyes.
8
Nicole
There was an upside to the build site being so close to my office. I could drop in to check the progress, especially when the crew (namely Noah) wasn’t around. The downside was the noise. I had noise-cancelling ear pods. I had a Bluetooth speaker to play classical music and cover the racket. Most days that was fine. But today there was what locals would call a ruckus going on.
A clamor of noise, a true cacophony of slamming and cussing that had nothing to do with the normal heavy equipment sounds of the job site. I peeked out my door and asked my secretary what was going on.
“Any idea?” I asked. “Is actual hell breaking loose and demons are stampeding at the build site?”
Before my secretary could even begin to answer, the door burst open and there was Noah Jeffries on a rampage. He was a big guy to start with, but he was enraged and looming. I knew something must be really wrong, because he was normally more a low-key asshole, domineering and bossy but not channeling the fucking Hulk.
He stormed right into my office. I stepped aside and opened the door, but I didn’t back up. I knew better than to be cowered by a man having a temper tantrum. I squared off, hands on my hips.
“What’s the story?” I asked neutrally, letting him know that I wasn’t going to tiptoe around his moods.
“Some of my tools are missing! My tools, which are valuable and which I need to complete this job, have been stolen. That’s the goddamn story,” he stormed.
“Were they locked up?”
“Do you think I’m stupid? Is that what you think? Of course they were fucking locked up. Some motherfucker used bolt cutters to break into the storage container.”
“Okay, we’ll get some insurance forms filled out so you can get a replacement. New locks, that kind of thing. I can requisition security cameras to monitor the job site to deter future thefts, but it’s probably just kids.”
“Kids with bolt cutters? Kids steal candy and booze, Nicole. They don’t break into locked storage containers for heavy-duty tools. Electronics are easier to pawn if they want money,” he practically spat at me. I had to admit that made sense.
“All right. You have a point. I’ll call Brody and have him send someone down. You can file a police report, and I’ll have my secretary get the insurance forms for you.”
“I don’t have a day to waste, but thanks,” he scoffed. “I’ve already got to wait around while my foreman goes to buy replacements. I’ll give you the bill. Just take it out of the damn project cost or let insurance reimburse you if you want to fill out the forms. I’m on a timetable here, and I didn’t pad the budget with room for error. I only charged you for materials and labor, for fuck’s sake.”
“What?”
“I’m not making a penny off this community center. I’ve wanted it for a long time and tried for years to get the council to take it seriously. So I’m building the goddamn thing for free. I can’t lose a day. It’ll end up costing me money. My men have to be paid whether we make progress or not—they have bills to pay and so do I.”
“I had no idea,” I said, because that was all I could say.
I was a little bit speechless. This guy, this arrogant, chauvinist pain in my ass, was spending months of his year working for zero profit, cutting into his annual income for his small business because it was… a personal mission? A work of heart, as they say? Baffled, I just stared at him, at how angry and frustrated he was about being robbed, at how he was so much better deep down than I had expected. Something shifted in my chest and stomach—maybe I was hungry or hadn’t slept well, that must be it. It couldn’t be that I was struck by an attack of liking Noah Jeffries. He was the least likeable person I’d ever—no, Ray Forrester was the least likeable person I’d met in this town. But Noah was a pain in the ass, conceited and independent and refusing to hear anyone else’s opinion of the details on a project that he’d been working on and envisioning for years. It was a fact that didn’t fit in my idea of him, in the way I saw him. I shook my head like that would clear my mind.
Damn his handsome face. He looked like goddamn Captain America with a square jawed expression of righteous anger. My ovaries should’ve been firing up at the sight.
