Match Made In Paradise by Barbara Dunlop (black female authors TXT) 📕

a tool belt and loaded it up with hammers and roofing nails.

Silas lifted the ladder, while Brodie hoisted the two stacks of asphalt shingles.

As they walked toward the house, Raven appeared on the porch. “Today’s the day?” she asked, looking them over.

“Coffee on?” Silas asked, since the answer to her question was obvious.

He’d assumed Brodie had given her a heads up they were coming, but Raven seemed surprised to see them. He planted the extension ladder on the ground and leaned it against the side wall.

“I’ll get you each a cup.” She was dressed in blue jeans and a bulky sky-blue sweater. Her hair was pulled up in a messy bun. Since she never wore makeup, it was hard to tell if she’d just rolled out of bed or had been up for hours.

Brodie’s gaze followed her as she walked inside.

“Just going to stand there?” Silas asked him, mounting the stairs. They had to go inside to assess the leaks, plus he didn’t expect Raven to haul their coffee outside like a café waitress.

It took Brodie a second to react. “Yeah. Sure.”

Silas mounted the front stairs.

Even on a sunny day it was dim inside the cabin. It had been built sometime in the fifties, when window size was not a priority. There were a total of five small windows in the U-shaped kitchen and living room, which wrapped around the staircase that led to the loft.

Raven poured coffee from a battered pot into two white ceramic cups.

Silas went for them, handing one to Brodie as he took a sip from the other. It was hot, and it was good. The amenities of Raven’s cabin might be archaic, but they produced a great cup of coffee.

Brodie wandered into the living room. “Four leaks?” he asked Raven, looking around at the bucket locations.

“Two more upstairs,” Raven said.

“So, six?” Brodie sounded judgmental.

“We’ve had a lot of rain lately,” Raven said in her own defense.

“And how long have you known about them?” Brodie asked.

Silas moved through the living room toward the staircase, deciding to check on the upstairs leaks and leave Brodie and Raven to duke it out over blame.

As he pivoted to head up, he nearly crashed into Mia coming down.

She stared at him in shock.

He gaped at her outfit, a purple silk negligee with spaghetti straps over smooth rounded shoulders and a white lace cover-up drooping down her arms. The thin silk clung to her perky breasts, and her legs were bare from mid-thigh down. Her toenails were polished the same color as the negligee.

She slowly pulled a set of earbuds from her ears. “Hi.”

Silas tried to respond, but he had to clear his throat first. “We’re here to fix the roof.”

“I didn’t know you were coming.”

He couldn’t stop staring because Mia most definitely looked like she’d just rolled out of bed, warm from the covers, soft and supple. His gaze went involuntarily back to her breasts, pert and round beneath the thin silk.

Man, oh man, he was feeling an itch to play poker now—and not just to play, but to win at poker so he could take Mia out on a date somewhere secluded and romantic. Forget shutting the game down. He’d changed his mind about that.

Her hair was up, messy around her face. She wasn’t wearing makeup, but it didn’t matter. Her eyelashes were thick and dark, her blue eyes sparkling, her skin so perfect and so smooth. He wondered if fashion models received secret face treatments.

She was staring back, taking in his faded green T-shirt, scuffed canvas work pants, tool belt and his steel-toed work boots. He hoped she was thinking he had a good soul.

She glanced past him and gave a little nod.

Okay, maybe she wasn’t thinking about his soul. She was probably wondering why he was standing here like an idiot instead of getting out of her way.

“Brodie’s here too,” he said, warning her, even though he’d just stood for a full thirty seconds taking an eyeful.

“Hi, Brodie,” she called out.

“Hi, Mia,” came his reply.

Silas waited for her to turn and head back upstairs to get dressed now that she knew Raven had company.

“I was on my way to the bathroom,” Mia said, taking another step down, clearly expecting Silas to get out of the way.

The idea of her walking blithely through the cabin like this unsettled him. He supposed she wore outfits like this on the runway all the time in front of audiences in the fashion capitals of the world. But this wasn’t a fashion show. Bad enough that Xavier was hot for her, and that Cobra had laughed and joked with her over the pool game. She’d been wearing jeans and a scoop-necked sweater then, nothing close to what she was wearing now.

Her bedroom outfit was going to make Brodie’s eyes pop.

“You don’t want to change?” Silas asked.

She took another step then looked down at herself. “Why? You don’t like this?”

It took him a second to find his voice. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

She was closer now, only one step above him, and they were eye to eye. She pulled the two edges of lace cover-up together. Somehow that made it worse.

There was mischief in her eyes. “You’ve seen all you’re going to see, Silas.”

“I was thinking about Brodie.”

“Brodie doesn’t care what I’m wearing.”

Silas couldn’t stop himself from looking down at the lace and silk between them. “All guys care when you’re dressed like that.”

“Brodie’s only interested in Raven.”

Raven? That was news to him. “They have a business relationship.”

“You think it’s all business?’ she asked, arching a perfectly sculpted brow. “Watch this. Observe how spectacularly unsuccessful I am at attracting his attention.”

She squeezed her way past Silas, and it was all he could do not to reach out, wrap his hands around her tiny waist, feel the satin slip through his fingertips, close his palms on her warm skin and pull her into his arms for a kiss.

He gave his head a sharp shake to get rid of the feeling. Then he blinked, focusing on her