Life in a Rut, Love not Included (Love Not Included series Book 1) (5 page)

No I don’t.

Yes I do.

No. I. Don’t.

I don’t miss a man who was sleeping with my roommate and best friend for months behind my back. I used to worry it was me. That something was wrong. Steve would tell me nothing, that he was just swamped with work and he had big clients to focus on. He slowly stopped spending the night. Weird to think about it, but so did Stacey. I sometimes wonder if I did see the signs and chose to ignore them. Once I came home to find Stacey and Steve practically in a wrestling position on the floor laughing and joking around. They seemed pretty freaked out when I came home unexpectedly but I didn’t think anything of it. They told me they were just messing around and tripped over the coffee table. I laughed it off with them and offered to make everyone dinner. Man, what a fool I was. And they just let me be one.

“Sarah!”

Ugh, can’t a person just lie in bed and wallow in their self-pity!?

“Yes, Mom?” I attempt to spit out while peeling my tongue from the roof of my mouth.

“Are you able to move some of your things out of the garage and into your room? We need to make some space for the contractor to store some tools while he works.”

Wait . . . Step back a second. Did she just say contractor? Because I’m pretty sure that last night after my fourth martini I verbally expressed my dissatisfaction with her choice in contractors. I told her it was my new civic duty to help her find a new and better one. I also then passed out on my floor. Which makes me wonder how I’m even in my bed right now. Man, I’m a lightweight. Poor Aunt Raines probably stayed up and had seven more drinks after I crashed like a virgin college girl.

I make the effort to pull my legs, which may I add feel like dead weight, off the bed. Then I do a sheet check (not this time, floor), and stand up. As the room begins to slowly spin, I attempt to find my sweats. Where are my lucky sweats? My comfort zones? It takes me two tries of eye-searching before I find them in the corner babysitting a pile of vomit. Classic, Sarah, classic. Oh hell, who cares? I’m a grown woman and I can walk around in my damn underwear if I want to. It’s not like my mother hasn’t seen me in many other forms. She did birth me, right?

I walk down the hallway, bypassing the bathroom, because today is not going to be a cleanliness day, and I make my way down the stairs. Turning to my left I enter the kitchen, only to smack right into the one and only Hottie McBulging Biceps. He wraps his strong hands around my shoulders to steady me so I don’t go down. Wow, his grip is firm. And delightful. And those arms . . .

“Honey, you remember Jack Calloway, right?” I think my mother is talking to me but I am lost in thought. Those tanned arms, wrapping their long, strong length around my . . .”Sarah?”

“Huh??” I snap out of whatever trance I am in. Where was I again? Oh yeah, my kitchen.

In my underwear . . .

With McHottie . . .

Wait. What?
! It takes about 2.5 seconds to register reality and 2.5 more to make an attempt to turn around and bolt right back upstairs, causing my foot to get caught in the world’s oldest and longest telephone cord and thus fall flat on my face. With my shirt halfway up my back.

Death cannot come soon enough for me.

“Honey, oh my! Are you all right?”

As my mother rushes over to help me adjust myself, I scurry to my feet only to see McRude God staring at me with a smirk on his face. “I’m fine, Mom,” I manage. “I was just going to take some inventory of the garage. Not sure there’s much room to move anything. Probably won’t be able to really move anything at all.” I say all of this as I stare him up and down, as he is doing to me. Unfortunately his smirk just continues to grow into a devilish grin.

“Well just take a peek, dear. It would really be helpful to Jack if you could.”

“Oh I’m sure it would,
Jack.
” I give him one last angry squint and proceed to pivot and walk towards the garage.

“Thanks, dear . . . Oh, and Sarah?”

“Yeah, Mom?” I turn back to face my mother, blocking out the handsome McJerk next to her. “Maybe you should put some pants on?”

Maybe in the garage I can start the engine and let the fumes just kill me right there. I am never drinking with Aunt Raines again. I simply nod and continue on my quest.

I
SPEND TWO DAYS
and a lot of nagging my mother to move my stuff out of the garage and into my room for me, mainly because it takes that long to get rid of my hangover enough to do anything useful. I’m currently in the garage acting like a bratty teenager, stomping and tossing my stuff around in hopes that someone gives in and tells me to leave my stuff alone. I mean, this is ridiculous. Why do I have to move my stuff? I need to find my own place. One that doesn’t include having to share space with a particular man.

Speaking of, I haven’t had a run-in with McHotstuff since my kitchen show and still this guy has me on edge. I haven’t even had any juicy dreams about my hot dream man. Just nightmares about falling face first into the floor with my shirt riding up my back. Oh wait. That was reality . . . Ugh.

I need to get this guy out of my head, starting by getting him out of my house. I mean, what is my mother thinking anyway?! Didn’t I make myself clear the other night? Aunt Raines says I had made a good argument in the beginning, but by my fifth martini it was straight muscles talk and how dreamy his ass looks. I need to not drink with Aunt Raines anymore, and get a backbone.

And take argumentative classes.

Note that to self.

I begin to move some boxes around, only to break the bottom of one open and have all my things dump to the floor. “Seriously?” I hiss. I kick another box, and it of course domino effects and takes out a crate full of tools. This is just great. I’m bent over to assess the damage, when I hear stomping feet approach.

“What the hell are you doing?!”

I turn to see
him
quickly walking toward me, jaw locked and wearing an impressively angry look.

“Listen, it was an accident,” I growl out and dip down in an attempt to pick up his tools.

“Don’t touch my equipment!” He swats my hand away and bends down to place his scattered tools back into the overturned crate.

“Listen buddy, it was an accident. Maybe you should find another place to store your junk!”

“Junk, huh?!”

“Yeah, junk—” As I try to finish spitting out my sentence, he bends over and picks up a pair of my shiny stilettos. Dangling my Jimmy Choos over my head, he then proceeds to throw them across the garage.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I scream.

“Oh don’t worry, sweetheart. I’m just helping you make room for my ‘junk’!”

“Oh no you didn’t!” I get right in his face. He follows suit which brings us nose to nose, ready to face off. His eyes are flaming orbs and I can feel his breath hitting my cheeks.

“You’re going to regret this,” I hiss.

“You have no idea.” In record speed, he raises his hand and throws it behind my neck, then he grabs my head and slams his mouth on mine. I have been pondering the feel of his mouth pressed against mine for days, but it’s nothing like the real thing. Too shocked, I don’t know whether to fight him off or wrap my arms around his neck to deepen the kiss. Before I can find out, he releases me.

“Don’t touch the equipment,” he says, out of breath, and walks out of the garage.

What the hell?

“What the hell?”

I press my fingers to my lips. I can feel them a bit swollen from his aggressive kiss. I want to storm out of here screaming
assault,
but holy hotness that was seriously the hottest kiss I have ever experienced. Who is this guy?!

As I make a pathetic attempt at moving my boxes, I can’t get the feel of his mouth out of my mind. One minute, I’m pretty sure he is going to kill me and hide my body under my parents’ soon-to-be new addition, then the next minute he is kissing me. Like a man in heat. Like a
hot
wild man in heat. I mindlessly move stuff around, picking up a box, trying not to touch his tools.

And all the while, I can’t stop thinking about touching his other
‘tools.’

I
T HAS BEEN A
week since my last run-in with Hottie McMacho Pants and my hopes are that it continues. As I lay in bed I can hear the trucks coming in and out of the driveway dumping supplies, and voices in and out of the house. The one most stinging is the one of the tall, strong, handsome jerk who keeps invading my head and my dreams. For some insane reason my dreams at night now include the hands of that one man in particular. Why can’t I just dream about someone I don’t know? So I don’t feel wrong asking for it rough? Instead, in my dream I have McSteamy’s hands all over me while he kisses me with need and hunger just as I remember it in the garage. The even more horrid thing is that I am completely enjoying it. I need to check on the status of where I’m at with getting some real action. I should write that task down.

I decide that today is going to be a motivation day. I am going to shower. I am going to shave. I am going to put on my best stilettos and get my highly qualified ass a job. My parents are right. I have a great degree. And I am hugely talented. I didn’t work at the biggest marketing firm and under the most highly respected clients in the business to not be good at what I did. Too bad seven years of the hardest work I have ever performed ended in a seven-minute blowout freak show.

Well . . . moving on. First plan of action is to find a coffee shop and pump myself with caffeine, then search the wanted ads. I’m feeling good about this. Positive. Can’t say I’ve had this much motivation in quite some time. I get out of bed, sheet free (I’m catching on). I head for the shower. Not going to lie, it’s been a while since I’ve primped so I make sure to swap out the semi-used can of shaving cream for a full bottle. There’s definitely some work to be done in there.

Having hot water hit my face feels glorious. I actually forgot how good it feels to stand under the hot water and let all the day’s wear and tear melt away. I remember how Steve and I would work late together, then head back to his condo, order takeout then jump in his gigantic shower, and just stand there holding each other while making love until we were pruned and our legs were shaking. He would wash my hair and caress me while leaning over me and being gentle with every scrub of my body. He would pat me dry and place me in his big T-shirts while we ate our takeout and discussed our latest clients and projects. I thought that was perfect. I thought things were exactly how they were supposed to be. I was so wrapped up in my perfect world that I never took the time to even question or realize then why one night I spotted one of Stacey’s hair bands on his counter. The things you know now that you wish you knew then.

Quickly deciding that showering is way overrated, I opt that a quick one is better. As the water turns tepid, I also now confirm I hate showers. I mean, it’s a simple task, why do people make such a big deal of it? Wash, scrub, shave, and get out. People waste too much time in this—

“HOLY!—”

What the
. . .

Just then, cold water starts spurting straight at my face. I attempt to quickly scrub the remaining shampoo out of my hair. While dodging ice splatter, I throw myself out of the shower, of course slipping right off the mat and onto the floor. What is the obsession with my face wanting to connect with the floor?! Pulling myself up, I try to get my eyes to stop burning since I have shampoo seeping in them. I focus on my current state of mayhem, grab the nearest towel and barrel out the door.

“Mom!” I scream because there is no way she forgot to pay the water bill. “MOM! Why is the hot water not working? I was in the middle of—”

Oomph!
Walking into the living room and slamming right into a hard hot body was not what I was expecting. As I look up while adjusting to my foam-glazed vision, I see Sexy McTouch Me staring at me with that damn grin again.

“How did you get in here?! Where is my mother?” I spit out angrily, trying to look around for my mother while preparing for the lecture of a lifetime on how she has to stop letting this hunk of a man into our home!