She shivered, despite the heat of the day. It was morbid, but she couldn’t seem to stop the terrible dreams. She’d even gone so far as to check into the house’s history on a local historical website. It hinted at the home’s colorful past. Those tales were more rumor than anything, but the police reports on file corroborated Gates’s story. All the deaths had been suicides, not murders.
“I’ll be leaving now, Miss Wright. Thank you for allowing the interns to help with the inventory. We’ll get this mess put behind us so you can move on. The most important thing is to find your grandmother’s papers. She told me she had a life insurance policy, but I don’t have the name of the insurance company or the policy number. I’ll need to file on your behalf so you can receive the funds.” Mr. Gates looked nervously around the house as though he thought someone might jump out and yell “boo.” Belle found his demeanor unsettling.
A cool breeze brushed past her legs. Cooler than cool, really. In fact, it felt like an arctic blast. Mr. Gates obviously felt it as well because he stiffened and took a giant step back to the threshold of the front door.
“I think that’s my cue to leave.” The lawyer’s eyes had gone wide. He swallowed nervously. “Expect the interns shortly.”
Belle frowned. The guy was really freaked out about the house. She’d noticed that when she’d first come here. That cold draft probably wasn’t anything more than the air conditioning being temperamental. The HVAC expert would be here in thirty minutes. Problem solved.
Unfortunately, now she’d have a group of wet-behind-the-ears wannabe lawyers parading through her house. So what was one more, especially if he managed to keep the temperature in the house stable? If necessary, she would shut off the rooms with exposed wood and pray she didn’t have to spend more than the rest of the funds her grandmother had left.
“If you think your interns can find the insurance paperwork and it’s worth some money, I’ll dance a jig.” Belle smiled, mentally making a priority list of all the things she could renovate.
Gates backed out of the house until he stood in the midmorning sun. Once he’d cleared the threshold, he visibly relaxed and regained his composure. “Thank you, Miss Wright. You know, all these repairs to the house will be quite expensive. My buyer is still willing to take this house off your hands and pay you in cash.”
She shook her head. Even with the debt mounting, she refused to sell. Despite her bad dreams, Belle loved being here. The house had quickly grown on her, and she felt a connection to the place she never had before. Her father had grown up here, and being under this roof reminded her how much she’d missed him.
She looked up, and the sight caused every sad thought to dissipate.
Tate jogged up the sidewalk, his big body covered in nothing but sweatpants, sneakers, and a fine sheen of sweat. Every muscle on the man’s body bulged. The definition of his shoulders and chest almost made her drop her jaw. Belle hoped she could remember to breathe. Damn, when he wore next to nothing, she needed one of those arctic air drifts blasting through the house.
A flirty grin transformed his face as he jogged his way up to the house. “Hey, baby. You should have worked out with me. I burned roughly seven hundred calories given distance, time, exertion, and my relative weight.” He utterly ignored the lawyer nearly blocking the door and gave her a sexy little growl. “Although oral sex burns roughly a hundred calories per half hour, and you wouldn’t have to do anything but let me love on you.”
She gasped and slapped his perfectly muscled bicep. “Tate! Hush, you dirty man. Go take a shower. You’re supposed to be the one with the delicate nose.”
“I can’t smell myself.” He shouldered his way past Gates, who recoiled and grimaced. Then Tate leaned in and ran his nose along her neck, breathing against her and lighting up her skin. “But you smell so good.” He turned to Gates, suddenly focused and protective. Tate morphed from horny man to shrewd lawyer in the blink of an eye. “What do you need with my client, Mr. Gates?”
The older man frowned. “If that’s the way you treat a client, sir, then I’m afraid we have different ideas about professionalism. And my business here is done.”
He pivoted on his heel and walked away.
“You didn’t have to be rude,” he called back. Tate tended to correct people he didn’t like. He’d said he merely tried to make them more likeable, but Belle was pretty sure he did it to irritate them.
But that got her thinking… Maybe she should treat Tate a bit like Sir. When he was good, she’d toss a cookie his way. When he was rude, she could spray him with a water bottle. If nothing else, it would give her a giggle.
Tate eased inside and closed the door. “I don’t like him. He sets off my douchebag radar.”
Belle felt the same, but no sense in adding fuel to Tate’s fire. Once they’d finished all the paperwork associated with her grandmother’s estate, she’d never have to see Mr. Gates again.
“I need to get back to work.”
“One second.” He grabbed her elbow and pulled her so close the heat of his body wrapped around her.
God, even sweaty, he smelled amazing. So musky and manly… Her girl parts clenched in a silent pleading.
“What?” she breathed.
“Did you know that sex is one of the best workouts a man can get? I could burn a hundred and forty-four calories during actual intercourse and that doesn’t include the hundred I would have shed from eating your pussy.”