Chapter 13
“I hear it skips a generation.”
“That would explain it,” Trevor said conversationally as the three of them walked around the library, trying to see if any of the structure could be saved and reused in the new building.
“It would definitely explain a few things,” Jason said as he placed an orange sticker on an ornate bookshelf by the wall, marking it as reusable.
Danny ignored them as he’d been doing since they’d arrived an hour ago and focused on the job he’d been hired to do and the little librarian that seemed to be going out of her way to avoid him. That was fine with him since the marine in him was more than up for a challenge, and she was definitely a challenge, he decided as he casually tracked her every move.
“Do you want some advice?” Jason asked as he knelt down to check the molding that ran along the edge of the wall.
“No,” he said, making a few notes on his iPad as he ignored his cousins.
Trevor sighed heavily from his right. “I’m afraid that you’re going to need our expertise on the matter if you want to win over your future wife.”
Without looking up from his notes, Danny pointed out, “Jason had to kidnap Haley to get her to marry him and even then she only did it out of pity and didn’t Zoe marry you because she lost a bet?”
He ignored their outraged gasps and watched the object of his desire as she bent over to put together another box and had to bite back a groan. God, she had a great ass. A week ago he would have been able to ignore her and focus on the job, but that damn shower…….
Over the years he’d seen his fair share of naked women, and while some had left him hard and panting, he’d never reacted this way to any of them. He couldn’t stop thinking about her or just how good it had felt to run his hands over her before pain had shot through them and they’d eventually gone numb. Even after he’d lost all feeling in his hands he’d still enjoyed the experience. There was just something about watching his hands run over her smooth, soft skin that had left him mesmerized. Even the pain that came and went in his hands hadn’t been able to take away his enjoyment in touching her. The pain had kept him from showing her just how much he liked seeing his hands on her, but it hadn’t been enough to keep him from imagining more.
“We need to get this building inventoried before tomorrow,” he said, forcing his thoughts away from Tinkerbelle and all the things he would love to do to make his little neighbor light up.
Jason nodded as he looked over his notes. “I’ll go check the basement and see if they’re ready to start moving everything out.”
“I’ll start taking down the doors and everything else the Council wants to reuse,” Trevor said, giving him a pointed look before he shifted his gaze to where Tink stood, glaring down at the clipboard in her hands as she tried to pretend that he wasn’t there.
Well, he couldn’t very well allow that, now could he?
*-*-*-*
That cocky, glitter encouraging, parking spot stealing, pizza teasing, kissing bastard was walking towards her, again. All afternoon and most of the morning, he’d been doing everything within his power to drive her out of her freaking mind! Everywhere she went, he followed. Every time she looked over her shoulder, he was there, watching her with a touch of that smug grin of his that normally made her hands twitch with the need to throttle him, but now…….
Now, she had absolutely no idea what she wanted.
He was driving her out of her mind and there was nothing that she could do about it. It seemed that Danny Bradford was in charge of rebuilding the library, something that she really wished she’d known before she’d agreed to work this summer. Okay, so she didn’t have much of a choice since she needed the money to pay off the debt the asshole had left her with, but still……
A little warning that she was going to be stuck spending the summer with the bane of her existence would have been nice, especially since he seemed intent on driving her out of her damn mind. She didn’t know what kind of game he was playing, but he was definitely playing with her. It was the only explanation that she could come up with that would explain how he’d gone from tormenting her to acting like he wanted nothing more than to strip every last inch of clothing from her body and-
What the hell was wrong with her?
She didn’t have time for him or his games. She had a job to do, an insane amount of debt that wasn’t hers to pay off and absolutely no idea how to handle a man like Danny Bradford. She was definitely in over her head here. She knew that much at least.
“What are you doing, Tink?” her tormenter asked as he stopped beside her, looking relaxed, cocky and incredibly handsome.
Yup, definitely in over her head.
“Looking for my keys,” she said, doubling her efforts to find them.
“Do you want some help?” he drawled lazily as he leaned back against the wall.
“No, thank you,” she said, wondering when she was going to catch a break.
Five minutes later, after she’d finished searching her desk and her bag for the third time, she’d decided that today definitely was not that day. That opinion was only confirmed a minute later when she grabbed her bag, gave Danny a muttered, “Have a good night,” and headed to the front doors only to discover that sometime during her mad search for her keys it had started to rain. Well, downpour really was a much more fitting description, she decided as she stepped back inside and pulled out her phone.
Ten phone calls and twenty texts later and she was cursing all of her friends to hell and back. They were all either at work or trying to get to work and couldn’t swing by and pick her up. For a moment she stared down at her phone, wondering if she should call her father and then decided against it. With the way things were going right now it would probably only take one of her father’s warm smiles to get her to breakdown and admit that she wasn’t doing so well. She didn’t want her father to have to shoulder her responsibilities for her. He’d been through enough over the past few years without having to add her problems into the mess.
“Need a ride?” the man that she really wished she could stop thinking about asked.
She glanced outside, looking for any sign that the rain would let up soon so that she could make the five-mile walk home without the risk of drowning, but it didn’t look good. As she stood there, absently watching as a trash barrel was swept down the street with the rain, she realized that she had to make a decision. She could either stay here searching for her keys and waiting for the rain to stop, call a taxi and hope that he’d accept a smile and a thank you as payment enough since she was broke, call her father, or she could accept a ride from the man that was driving her crazy.