Fast & Loose by Elizabeth Bevarly (the giving tree read aloud .txt) 📕

The entire front of the shotgun house was a glassed-in porch that the business partners had done a passably good job of turning into an office. What walls there were had been painted an inoffensive taupe, the wood trim an even more inoffensive white. The concrete floor had been painted with a faux mosaic, and the late afternoon sun spilled boisterously through the wide frosted panes of the jalousie windows. Charcoal sketches of local landmark homes—completed by Eddie’s partner Devon—dotted the walls. There was a desk situated at each end of the wide room, both comfortably cluttered with computer paraphernalia and paperwork. Eddie had his blond head bent over his work at the desk nearest Lulu, but the other one was vacant as the workday drew to a close.

While Eddie finished up with his client—a man with pale brown hair and soft brown eyes who had smiled kindly in response to Lulu’s own smile when she entered—Lulu did what she always did while waiting for something. She let her gaze rove hungrily over every aspect of the scene, just as any other visual artist would. But since she already knew the details of Eddie by heart, her attention naturally fell on the man who was with him.

An academic, she decided immediately. Probably an English professor. And a poet. He just had that look about him, all rumpled, cerebral, and sweet. He gave her the impression of being the sort of man who would feed stray cats and water his neighbor’s plants while they were away. Not especially handsome, but pleasant-looking and tidy, the kind of person you wouldn’t mind having sit next to you on a crowded bus.

Lulu brightened. Maybe Eddie really did only rent to people who had good references—and even better auras. In fact, it was entirely possible that this was the very man who would be renting her house for the next two weeks. Eddie had said he needed her keys by five o’clock today, which was only minutes away, because that was when her renter was due to arrive.

To test the theory, Lulu crept forward and, very discreetly, extended her hand past the man to settle her house keys on Eddie’s desk. Eddie looked up at her when she did and smiled gratefully, his brown eyes full of obvious relief.

“Your timing could not be better,” he told her.

Bingo, Lulu thought. This guy had to be her renter. Suddenly, she felt much better about the weeks ahead. The man just had goodness and decency stamped all over him, and she was confident he’d take good care of her house. Eddie thrust at her the contract that she’d already read but put off signing, and she hastily scrawled her signature across the bottom line, no longer worried about the care and feeding of her home. Then she dropped the contract, too, onto Eddie’s desk and turned to make her way out.

But just as she was reaching for the knob to open the front door, it came swinging toward her instead, with enough authority and velocity that it nearly slammed into her. Lulu leapt backward just in time to miss the door, but not quickly enough to avoid the huge, dark-haired man who barreled through it. She ended up flat on her fanny, arms braced behind her, legs akimbo, the breath momentarily knocked out of her. That last wasn’t because of her tumble, however. No, her breath didn’t leave her until Lulu looked up at the man who had nearly trampled her and found him glowering down at her.

Truly. He had the nerve to glower at her. As if she were the one who’d been responsible for their collision. But even that wasn’t what made her stop breathing. It was the rest of him that did that.

He was, in a word, incredibly gorgeous. Okay, so that was two words. One word just wasn’t enough to describe a man like him, not even a word like gorgeous. His black hair had fallen over his forehead upon impact, above eyes that were a darkish green Lulu couldn’t recall ever seeing on another human being. His suit was a color she didn’t see often on men, a deep plum that should have looked feminine but instead only enhanced his masculinity. His shirt and tie were both steely gray, and neither was in a state that could be called tidy. His collar was unbuttoned to the third button and the necktie loosened to the same level, revealing a strong throat and scattering of dark hair beneath. He was huge, easily topping six feet, perhaps as much as a foot taller than her own five-four.

But it was his face that commanded her attention and held it, all planes, angles, and edges, from the blunt jaw to the narrow nose to the truly spectacular cheekbones. And those eyes, so focused and intense and so very, very green…

She realized she was starting to feel dizzy and gulped in a deep breath, then shook her head a little in an effort to clear out the buzzing that seemed to have overtaken it. The big man extended a hand to her, and, automatically, she accepted it. Just as she was noticing how his big paw swallowed her fingers, he was tugging her up from the floor, with enough force that she was literally swept off her feet before coming to an unsteady landing before him.

“Sorry about that, sweetheart,” he said in a voice that was deep and booming and bore not a trace of apology. Then he turned his attention to Eddie and opened his mouth to say more—obviously having already forgotten about Lulu. To his credit, when he saw that Eddie was with someone else, he closed his mouth again to wait his turn. He clearly wasn’t happy about doing that, however, because he hooked his hands on his hips impatiently and began to fidget.

Lulu reminded herself that she’d completed the task