Jaw clenched, he stood there, prepared to man up and apologize so that he could get this over with and forget that last night he’d woken up with his hand wrapped around his cock and thoughts of suckling Necie’s large breasts on his mind. He either needed to get a hobby or get fucking laid, something, anything so that he could stop those damn thoughts from haunting his mind.

He wasn’t attracted to the little terror, didn’t want her and his goddamn cock needed to remember that. Silently cursing the long line that was keeping him there longer than he wanted to be, he found himself glancing around the large bakery, looking for the little pain in the ass and once he saw her, he couldn’t take his eyes off her.

Yeah, he definitely needed to get his fucking head checked, he decided as he licked his lips as she bent over to grab something out of one of the ovens, making her jeans tighten around her generous ass and giving him an image that had him muttering a curse, turning around and hurrying out of there before he did something seriously fucking stupid like take her out back, bend her over and fuck her until he couldn’t see straight.

*-*-*-*

Thursday, December 3rd.

“Thank you,” she said, frowning as she shook her head and decided that wasn’t the tone that she wanted to convey so she tried again. “Thank you,” she said with a heavy sigh of disappointment, because saying it breathlessly probably wasn’t the best way to thank someone for saving her life. It sounded more like she was thanking him for spanking her bottom, which probably wasn’t appropriate.

Although…

No, she decided with a sad shake of her head, definitely inappropriate, she decided as she picked up the plate of spaghetti and meatballs and immediately put it back down when the hot plate burned her hands. Berating herself for such a rookie move, she grabbed the potholders, placed the foiled wrapped Texas toast that she’d made on top of the plate and picked the plate back up and headed for the door, deciding that she should just keep it short and sweet.

That was probably for the best, she thought absently as she opened the back door and frowned, wondering when everything had turned white. She stood there for a few more seconds, watching the sheet of white race this way and that way and wondered why her weather app hadn’t alerted her to a winter storm. Stepping back into the safety of her kitchen, she closed the door with her hip, placed the plate down on the table and pulled her phone out only to groan when she realized that at some point she’d switched her phone to silent.

She swiped her phone open, turned the sound back on and read her text alerts. By the time she read the fourth text, she’d really wished that she’d left her phone on the kitchen counter instead of carrying it around in her back pocket as she’d rushed around cleaning, cooking and going over next week’s orders, because then she would have known that the huge storm that was supposed to hit Pennsylvania before heading out to sea had shifted so that it was now hitting Massachusetts at full force and skipping Pennsylvania altogether.

Yeah, it definitely would have been nice to know, she thought as the lights flickered, once, twice and then finally, went out, leaving her standing in the kitchen in complete darkness.

Yup, she definitely could have used those text alerts…

Chapter 11

Friday, December 4th.

“Why?” he asked no one in particular since he was standing in the living room by himself, staring out the window. “Just fucking why?”

But if he was expecting a reasonable answer as to why the little pain in the ass was outside during a blizzard that wasn’t supposed to stop for another forty-eight hours, then he was out of luck. He could understand shoveling every few hours so that the snow didn’t have a chance to pile up, but the woman’s van was in the shop and her old car had been totaled last year during the dumpster incident, which he still didn’t like to think about.

So, digging out her driveway when she didn’t have a vehicle really didn’t make much sense. Not that anything that she did ever really made sense, he mused with a vicious curse as she slipped, again, and fell face first into the snow pile that she’d made. When any other woman would have taken that as a hint that her ass didn’t belong outside, this one simply took it as a challenge.

With a glare towards all the snow falling down around her, she pushed herself back up, got to her feet, grabbed that shovel that she seemed to love so much and once again started to attack the snow, shoveling like a mad woman and leaving him standing there, shaking his head in wonder. There was something seriously wrong with that woman, which meant that there was something seriously fucking wrong with him, because he couldn’t seem to stop thinking about her.

For an entire year he’d done everything within his power to avoid the woman, cursing his bad luck whenever their paths crossed and praying that he survived their encounters with all his limbs intact, praying for the day that she would move or Danny would kick his ass out because he no longer needed him and now…

He had no fucking clue what was going on. All he knew was that he just couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her, and she seemed to have some anger issues when it came to snow. When she tripped over the oversized winter boots that she was wearing, he’d had enough. Zipping up his winter jacket the rest of the way, because the house was freezing thanks to the loss of electricity, he grabbed his gloves and his hat and headed out, deciding that he’d kill two birds with one stone.

He apologize for his actions the other day and then he’d threaten to spank her ass again if she didn’t get her ass back inside where it was warm and safe. Since it sounded like a solid plan, he decided to go with it, but the moment that he stepped outside and saw the reason why they’d both lost electricity, had him swearing and breaking out into a dead run, praying that he got to her in time before she could start shoveling the walkway.

*-*-*-*

If he didn’t get his butt out here soon so that she could thank him, she was going to die of hypothermia, she realized as her body shivered violently and her arms threatened to fall off. As she shoveled another scoopful of snow, and seriously how much more snow could they possibly get? she snuck another casual glance next-door.