Husband Under Construction Read Free Page B

being the stand-in, you know?”
    After a moment, she stomped back to the dining room to dig deep into one of the boxes, muttering, “Now I remember why I left. The way everybody’s always up in everybody else’s business.”
    â€œYeah. I think that’s called caring, ” Noah said, surprised at his own defensiveness. Even more surprised when Roxie’s gaze plowed into his, followed—eventually—by another tiny smile, and he felt as if his soul had been plugged into an electrical outlet. Damn.
    â€œNo, I think that’s called being nosy,” she said, and Noah chuckled over the zzzzzt.
    â€œAround here? Same difference.”
    The smile stretched maybe a millimeter or two beforeshe dropped onto a high-backed dining chair with a prissy, pressed-wood pattern along the top. “It’s a bit more complicated than that, but…you’re right. And I apologize. For real this time. It’s not you, it’s…”
    She rammed a hand through her curls, grimacing when she snagged the cobweb. “This hasn’t been one of my better days,” she sighed, trying to disengage the clumped web from her fingers. “Sorting through my aunt’s stuff and getting nowhere in my job search and thinking about…my ex—and trust me, it’s not his head I want on a platter—” A short, hard breath left her lungs. “I feel like somebody’s weed-whacked my brain. Not your fault you’re the weed-whacker.”
    â€œI’d ask you to explain, but I’m thinking I don’t really want to know.”
    â€œNo. You don’t.” Once more on her feet, Roxie returned to the kitchen, leaning over the counter to scratch at something on the metallic, blue-and-green floral wallpaper over the backsplash. “I promise I’ll be good from now on.”
    â€œThat mean I have to be good, too?”
    â€œGoes without saying,” Roxie said, after a pause that was a hair too long, before her gaze latched onto his Tootsie Roll pop. “Got another one of those?”
    Lord above. Noah had gotten tangled up with some ding-bats in his time, but this one took the cake. Not even the cute butt could make up for that. Even so, this could shape up—heh—to be a pretty decent job, so he supposed he’d best be about humoring the dingbat.
    â€œUh…yeah. Sure.” He dug a couple extras out of his pocket. “Cherry or grape?”
    â€œCherry,” Roxie said, holding out her hand, not speaking again until it was unwrapped and in her mouth, her eyes fluttering closed for a moment in apparent ecstasy. Then, opening her eyes, she grinned sheepishly around thepop. Mumbling something that might have been “Cheap thrill,” she slowly removed it, her tongue lingering on the candy’s underside, her gaze unfocused as she dreamily contemplated the glistening, ruby-red candy on the end of the stick, which she gently twirled back and forth between her fingers. “Can’t remember the last time I had one of these,” she sighed out, then looked at him again, her pupils gradually returning to normal. “Well. Ready to see the rest of the house?”
    Holy crap.
    Lust run amok Noah could handle. Electric jolts he could ignore, if he really put his mind to it. But the two of them together?
    This went way beyond unfamiliar territory. This, boys and girls, was an alternate universe. One he had no idea if he’d ever get out of alive.
    If he even got out at all.

Chapter Two
    T he longer Roxie trailed Noah through the house, batting away the pheromones like vines in a jungle, the easier it became to see why the man had to fight ’em off with sticks. Not that he’d ever seemed to fight too hard. His reputation was well documented. But holy moly, the dude exuded sexual confidence by the truckload. As opposed to, say, herself, who did well to summon up enough to fill a Red Rider Wagon. On a good day.
    Then