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“How were your classes today?” Owen called from the kitchen, peeking out into the hallway as I walked into the house. He wore a silly grin, flour on his face that didn’t quite hide the bruise under his eye, and a bowl in his hand. I knew he was making cookies but that didn’t explain why he was home in the middle of the day nor why he was baking.
Not to mention the fact that in the last several weeks, I had found out he’d been following me. He knew everything about me and while I knew that he taught BioChem at one of the state colleges, that’s kind of... all I knew.
I tried my best to reel in my disappointment that I didn’t have the house to myself—another indication that this relationship was dead in the water—but it didn’t work. “Don’t you already know?” I clapped back, Owen’s expression darkening.
“I come home to surprise you with the sugar you crave so damn bad and this is the attitude I get?”
Another thing I couldn’t stand about him. Owen’s ability to twist my words and make it seem like I was the bad guy. I wasn’t. He was inmyhouse, usingmyshit but was ridiculing me? “Sorry. Just didn’t know you’d be home. I’m going to take a nap.”
Like passing ships in the night. I wouldn’t eat his cookies anyway. That guy didn’t know the difference between flour and sugar half the time and I was convinced he didn’t know how to use the oven.
“Rhys, talk to me. How’s the dissertation coming? Get over that roadblock?” I stilled, halfway down the hall because this was one of those things that Owen asked about incessantly. Always wanted to know about my work and if I had completed it.
My work on predictability and statistics could very well change how things were done, especially for the government—which is why I wasn’t allowed to talk about it. Not to mention the fucking security clearance I had to obtain and keep whilst working on my dissertation.
The problem was that Owen always wanted to know what stage I was in—he never asked for specifics but he was ‘just curious’. I couldn’t tell if he was being supportive or devious but paired with the mysterious cuts and bruises on his face, I just kept telling Owen that it was in progress.
He gave me a strange smile as he set down the bowl and raced after me. I swiveled around, wondering what he wanted when his eyes flashed with interest. For a moment, I thought I was going to get the fuck of my life until he just stuffed a small box in my hand and kissed me on the cheek. “Think about it. We could beeverythingtogether.”
When I looked down to see a velvet cube, I couldn’t help the rage that built up in my chest. If that was his idea of a proposal, it was a poor one. The fact that he either expected me to say yes or that it was just a run-of-the-mill choice I was to make like I did when I chose coffee or juice in the morning didn’t sit well with me…
I had accepted his proposal but every day since, I regretted it.
An abrupt knock on the front door followed by an impatient, ring of my doorbell ripped me out of the memory. I was both glad for the interruption and fucking pissed that my precious sleep had been ruined by that stupid nightmarish scene. I didn’t even remember falling asleep which was a bad enough sign in and of itself. The doorbell rang again and I grumbled, throwing off the sheets, my entire body tender from last night’s impromptu fuck session.
One that I was all too eager to replay.
However, it was now 6 a.m., Friday morning, and someone was knocking on my door.
I could only hope they’d go away but the neighborhood I lived in wasn’t known for randos and hoodlums. The constant barrage of noise would draw the cops, something I was avoiding. At the very least, I was pretty sure that it wasn’t Owen. I dragged myself out of bed and smoothed down my hair before wiping the sleep from my eyes with my thumbs, coated with the wetness of my tongue. Yeah, yeah, it was gross but I wasn’t exactly thinking.
“I’m coming!” I shouted, rather forcefully as I shoved on a shirt and a pair of boxers by the bed and then pattered into the living room, yanking open the door to stop the sound threatening to worsen my headache. “What?!”
My brain short-circuited for a moment as three men crowded around the door, the shock on their faces mirroring how I felt, although I was a bit more horrified. My gaze perused the three sex gods, two of which I recognized. Fucking Gianni and Valentyn were staring at me, Valentyn’s gaze heating as he took in my odd choice of clothes. It was only then that I realized I somehow had opened the door wearing one of Gianni’s old shirts he had left during one of many fantastic nights.
I should have known it wasn’t mine when it smelled like honey and darkness. “Fuck,” I spit out, muscles and smiles that rivaled the sun staring back at me. Gianni looked like he was about to bust out laughing and I was pretty sure, given the chance, Valentyn would bend me over the side of the couch to fuck me again. I wasn’t complaining but Gianni said they had a job this morning.
My attention drifted to the third man, no less stunning. Three pairs of eyes, blue, green, and hazel, flared with amusement at my disheveled greeting, the unknown of the three trying to hide his chuckle and failing.
The longer I stared, the harder it was not to ogle but it was also abundantly clear from the tool belts that there was a reason they knocked on my door and it wasn’t just so that I woke up to eye candy. Maybe I got the timing wrong and Gianni promised to come overbeforework. However, that didn’t make sense either.
“Um…” Confidence flushed down the sewer, I fought for the right words. “What are you doing here? This isn’t some weird porno, right?”Thosewere not the right words.
Gianni couldn’t hold it anymore, outright laughing at my bewilderment. I feared he was going to tell the third just how close we truly were rather than answer my question but Gianni had always been able to gauge my comfort level and it was slowly waning. “We were hired, babe,” he let slip. He clicked his tongue in a silent apology, the third one nodding.
“Got the job a few months ago and just got around to performing it,” the third stated. His words were laced with the hint of a French accent, his sharp features already making me hate him. It wasn’t his fault, but the fact that he reminded me of France and the day I met Owen already put one strike against him. Granted, if he kept looking at me like that, I might just forgive him.
It clicked that this was Gianni’s other partner.
Them all being this fucking hot was not fucking fair to the rest of the world.
“Hired for what?” Sleep was still taking over half my brain and mixed with the hangover, I really couldn’t understand why they were standing there. Until it finally hit me that this must have been one of the last projects that Owen had scheduled before I kicked him out. “Oh. I… yeah…” I pulled at the hem of my shirt, feeling extremely self-conscious all of a sudden.
Valentyn grinned at my lack of composure, his shoulders relaxing as if he was trying to seem less intimidating. “We met,” he purred, making me remember the way his breath felt on the back of my neck as he fucked me. “However, it seems a renovation was scheduled for this location.” The way he said it made it seem like he wasn’t talking about my house, but that didn’t make sense.
“Right. I just…” Well, this was embarrassing. My words were usually a lot sharper than this but my dick was taking over my ability to speak. In another second, it would be nearly impossible to hide the growing tent in my pants. Since when were handymen this fuckingsexy? And why the fuck were they at my door? And why did it have to include Gianni and Valentyn? Quickly, I made up a lie because while I vaguely remembered Owen scheduling this shit, there was no fucking way I was letting Gianni fix up my kitchen. “I forgot to cancel. I don’t have the budget for it and-”Did weeverhave the budget for it?
Gianni just waved his hand, his beautiful mane of blonde hair moving with his head. “No worries. We’re just here for the estimate, alright?”
