Tangled Web: A Small Town Romance (The Cortell Brothers Book 6) by Giulia Lagomarsino (an ebook reader txt) 📕

“Hey, I wasn’t done—“

I slammed the door so I didn’t have to answer him and grinned at Lorelei as I walked up to her.

“Hey, you didn’t wake me up.”

I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her close to me. “Well, you looked so damn beautiful, I didn’t want to wake you.”

She laughed. “I looked like I’ve been sleeping on a couch in the cold without a shower for days.”

I grinned. “It’s like you know exactly what I’m looking for in a woman.”

“That’s just disgusting,” Eric said from behind me.

“Hey, this is an A-B conversation, so why don’t you C your way out of it.”

I heard his huff of irritation. “Great, so we’ve gone from Millennial talk to the nineties. That’s great.”

I ignored him and leaned down to kiss Lorelei. It turned heated instantly, and despite the cold, I wanted to throw her over my shoulder and take her inside for another round of sex. I’d been fucking her for days, but I wasn’t tired of her. If anything, I wanted her more and more.

Eric cleared his throat and I finally pulled away from her, giving her a wink. Turning to Eric, I shot him a bored look. “Did you need something?”

“Yeah, do you need a ride?”

“Nah, I got this.”

“Sure, now that I did all the work,” he grumbled, walking back to his truck. He got in and finished digging out my truck. I’d still have to shovel around the truck so I could get out, but now I would actually be able to leave at some point. And that just made me sad. Sighing, I figured it was better to get it over with now.

“I should probably get to work on the snow around my truck.”

“Yeah, you should. Are you planning on heading home today?”

“I guess. I mean, I have to see if I have any work waiting for me.”

She nodded, taking a step back. “Right. Well, I don’t want to keep you from your work.”

“It’s not like that. I just…as much as I want to stay here with you, I have to at least go check in. But I can come back after I have stuff squared away. Maybe I’ll take a shower so I don’t smell.”

She smirked at me. “Do you want some company? I need some more groceries.”

“I could just pick them up for you.”

“But you don’t know what I need.”

“Well, you could make a list.”

“Or I could just go with you.”

My brows furrowed. “Well, I mean, that wouldn’t make any sense, for me to go home with you only to come back here…”

She sighed heavily. “Or, I could go home with you, take a shower so I don’t smell. I could get my groceries, and if you have too much work, I can come home. And all this time, you would understand what I’m saying.”

I grinned, pointing my finger at my nose and pointing at her with the other hand. “I gotcha. See, I almost didn’t catch that.”

“You didn’t catch that at all. I had to explain it to you.”

“Right,” I cleared my throat. “Well, I got there eventually.”

She rolled her eyes at me. “You start digging out your truck and I’ll get something warmer on and come help.”

She ran inside while I got to work on my truck, but when I looked at where her car was, I knew it was pointless to try and dig her out. She came bounding down the steps, all bundled up. She tossed a bag on the steps and headed toward me.

“I think your car is going to have to stay where it is for now.”

“Why?”

She glanced over my shoulder to see the massive amount of snow around her car. Her shoulders slumped. “Well that sucks.”

“It’s okay. I’ll take you into town, as long as you don’t mind waiting around for me.”

“It’s fine. I can hang around town for a while.”

“Well, let’s go then.”

After we both showered, I stared at her naked body for way too long, refusing to give her a towel. The only reason I finally handed it to her was because Joe walked in the door, and there was no way I was letting him see her. We got dressed and headed out to the bakery for something to eat. There wasn’t much to eat in the apartment, and neither of us had bothered to eat before we left this morning. I was in desperate need of some coffee.

“That’s your brother’s shop?” she asked as we passed it.

“Yeah, I’m surprised he’s even open today.”

“Well, I doubt he can afford to shut down.”

“Why do you say that?” I asked curiously.

“Well, small businesses can’t afford to just take days off. They need to be open to thrive.”

I draped my arm over her shoulder as we walked toward the bakery. “You said there were a lot of poor people in your town. Did a lot of businesses close down?”

She snorted. “The only thing that stayed open was the gas station that had the mini-mart attached.”

“What happened to the town?”

“Andrew!” a woman’s voice shouted. I searched down the street, but the voice was coming from across the road. I groaned when I saw it was old lady Cranston.

“Who’s that?” Lorelei whispered.

“Mrs. Cranston. Resident busybody and she also happens to have a Facebook page dedicated to dirty pictures of Eric.”

“What?”

“Yeah, she took them in secret when he was working on her house.”

“That’s disgusting,” Lorelei said, grimacing at Cranston.

“It’s actually pretty funny. She’s got a pretty big following. Even Kat follows the page.”

“Eric’s girlfriend?”

“Yep.”

Mrs. Cranston rushed over to us, smiling brightly. “It’s so good to see you, Andrew. And who is this?”

“This is Lorelei. She’s new to town.”

“Oh, that’s nice. And you’ve been showing her around?”

The way she said it, it was like she was hinting at this being more.

“Yeah, I’m showing her around. Eric’s doing work on her house.”

“Oh, I was wondering why I hadn’t seen him in a while. Oh well, I’ll just have to take