Cold Foot Komodo (Wreck’s Mountains Book 2)

Sasha had totally thought he would kiss her when Reed had dropped her off at her rental house this morning. Maybe he didn’t because he was needing to get to work. Although, technically he was already working by the time he dropped her off. He talked to his boss and did her entire neighborhood, so he had his bucket lowered when he pulled up to the house. He’d patted her leg and given her a hug, and let that embrace linger. When she’d eased back, she’d waited a few seconds, eyes locked on his, but he didn’t make a move. The pause had been too long, and she panicked and said goodbye, got out of the truck, and made her way to the door. He’d been gone by the time she’d turned around to wave.

The quick exit had confused her.

Maybe her family stuff was too heavy, too soon, and she got that. A man shouldn’t have to reassure and comfort a woman during the first twenty-four hours of meeting her.

“Hey,” someone called.

It was the neighbor, Garret. He was jogging through the overgrown, snow-covered yard. “Sorry, I was trying to catch you before you headed in.”

She didn’t know if she liked this. She didn’t like being flagged down in her territory, and whether this was a rental or not, it was her territory.

“Can I help you?”

“Yeah, I was just wanting to clear something up real quick.”

“You don’t have to clear anything up,” she said, feeling uneasy.

He cleared his throat and hooked his hands on his hips. “Look, I really don’t want any trouble from your Crew.”

“From my Crew?”

“Yeah. I’ve been trying to stay off of the radar and just keep to myself, but I got a call last night from someone with a lot of power. Clearly you went to the big dog about me.”

She frowned and cocked her head. “You think I told someone about you?”

He shrugged. “I just wanted to make it clear, I don’t want anything to do with any territory disputes. I didn’t know you were going to move next-door to me. I bought this house last year,” he said, gesturing to his place. “I had no idea there would be an organized Crew moving into the territory, or that my neighbor would be connected to the Cold Foot Crew, either. I just want to say it plain—I want no trouble.” He held his hands up in surrender. “I’m just trying to get through life, same as everyone else.”

She was still baffled. “I can totally understand that, but I haven’t talked to anyone about you.”

The softness fell from his eyes. “So it was your man then?”

“My man,” she gritted out. “You’re talking about Reed?” Her protective instincts were wrenching up.

“When Damon Daye calls me and rips me a new one for not being registered, I’m pretty sure someone leaked what I am,” he said dryly.

“Well if he did, he was just trying to watch out for his Crew.”

“His Crew. Not your Crew?” Garret asked.

“I don’t like this conversation. I don’t like being accused of anything by a stranger, or feeling like I need to defend myself. I’m sorry Mr. Daye called you, but that has nothing to do with me.”

“Okay, you’re getting upset,” he said softly, backing up. “I’m not meaning to mess up your day. If you could just give Wreck the message. I don’t want any trouble. I just stick to my own little corner of Darby.”

“I’ll let him know.”

“Thank you. Have a good day. The offer still stands. If you ever need anything, let me know.”

“Okay, I appreciate it,” she called, watching him make his way back to his house.

Her phone vibrated in her back pocket with a call, and her heart sank. Her mom hadn’t texted in an hour, and Sasha was hopeful that she’d finally exhausted herself and fallen asleep. When she looked at the caller ID though, she perked right back up. It was Timber.

“Hey,” she answered, unlocking her front door.

“You need help with more of the move today?”

She flipped on the light switch and looked around the cluttered rental. “Umm, yeah. I will take all the help I can get.”

“Sweet! The girls are coming with me.”

“Wait, Katrina and Raynah?”

“Yep, and Beth is meeting us there in a couple hours, after she finishes up with an appointment.”

“Oh my gosh, best squad ever.”

“Yep! And Reed just let King know he’s putting in a big order at the hardware store for new flooring and a bunch of other stuff that needs replacing. It’ll be ready to pick up in a few hours, so the boys will handle that.”

“Holy shit. Okay! How do I pay for it?”

“It’s all going on the Crew account, and I’ll let you know how to handle all that ASAP. Reed wants it streamlined for you. He’s on it!”

“I need to haul out the furniture and get some replacements.”

“We just furnished the cabins and know a couple places to go! We will be there in an hour.”

True to her word, Timber pulled up in a jacked-up Ford Ranger, and the ladies of the Cold Foot Crew piled out. Sasha had a moment as she stood on the porch and watched them all chattering with Timber as they scrambled out. Timber was wearing the biggest smile. Reed had said to watch Timber today and see how good she was doing now that their toxic family had no access to her, and she was going to do just that.

The girls greeted her, and they did a tour of the house, and Sasha told them what all needed to be done to make it comfortable to live in. She wanted a place she was excited to come home from work to.

They spent the next few hours getting so much done. The girls were all very strong, and helped Sasha haul out every bit of the furniture. Timber called the garbage company to do a special pickup, now that the roads were cleared and the snow had slowed.

They all cleaned that small home from top to bottom. Right as they were leaving to head to a small local furniture store, another text came in. Now, they’d been coming in all day from Mom and the family loop, but this one caught her attention and didn’t drain her. It was from Reed. He had sent her three pictures of laminate planks of flooring that looked like real wood, but were life-proof and durable. Which color? he asked.

Either one or two, she texted back.

A FaceTime call came through, and she got so excited and nervous answering it. Reed smiled at her and said his hellos, then aimed the camera at the two options they were choosing between. Okay, the second one looked way different on FaceTime. That was the one. It looked rustic and would fit the house great.

“Two!”

“That’s what I thought too. Didn’t want to assume though.”

“Are you already off work?”

“Nope, I’m taking my lunch break here. King and Cash are here too. They’ll bring you everything.”

“We’re about to head to the furniture store.”

“Yep, do your thing. Just leave the back door unlocked so they can get in there. The flooring needs to acclimatize to the room, so we’ll have to leave it in there for a bit.”

“Are you some kind of superhero?” she asked.

He chuckled. “Not at all. I would be labeled the villain. You just have shitty survival instincts.”

She busted out a laugh as she climbed into the passenger’s seat of Timber’s truck. “Um, am I going to see you tonight?”

“Do you want to see me tonight?”

“Fishing,” Katrina sang.

“Damn right I am,” Reed muttered. “I’ve been in prison. I need a complete self-esteem rebuild, so hell yeah I’m going to fish for compliments and also reassurance. Fight me.”

Okay, he was easy at joking, and funny. And also confident, so she didn’t really believe he needed help with the self-esteem side of his life.

“I’ve got to work late tonight, but I’ll check and see what you’re up to when I get off.”

“Okay, I have to get to bed at a reasonable hour tonight. It’s my first day at the new job tomorrow.”

“Oh my God, this is like watching two old people flirt,” Timber said. She wrenched up her voice, “I need to be in bed by eight p.m., so if you work too late, no booty calls for you.”

“Timber! This isn’t a booty call!” Sasha looked down at her phone, mortified. Reed had turned his head to the side as he was walking through an aisle of what looked like screws. He was laughing as quietly as he could. “Reed, it’s not a booty call. My sister is just being atrocious.”

“I’ll let you get back to the girls. Do you have a preference on paint colors?”

“Browns. Not too light, not too dark.”

“Medium brown. Sounds perfectly boring.”

“I have an aesthetic in mind!”

He was still chuckling as he got off the phone. The next several hours flew by. They got food quick, and shopped at the furniture store. They had several pieces available from the warehouse in the back of the store, so they got to fill the back of the truck and tie it all down. It took three trips to that store to get it all hauled to her house, and the next two hours were spent ripping up the nasty carpet and the carpet padding underneath. King and Cash were there to make sure every nail was trimmed down and picked up, until all that remained was the sub-flooring beneath.

“No bare feet on here until we have the flooring in,” King told her.

“When would be a good time to do the painting?”

“Before we put in the floors. If you drip on the sub-flooring, it doesn’t matter.”

It was 7:00 p.m. by the time she organized the painting supplies the boys had picked up on a plastic drop cloth that she’d spread out in front of the fireplace.

Katrina and Timber helped while Raynah took the truck and picked up hamburgers from a local drive-through. The boys stayed busy cleaning out the garage.

You home? Reed’s text made her so happy. She loved the comfort with which he talked to her.

She sent him a selfie of herself holding a paint roller. Her hair was pulled up into a messy bun, and there was a streak of medium-brown paint across her cheek. I’m at the house! Send.

I saved that picture. You look pretty today.

The butterflies were filling her up, and the stretch of her smile across her face felt so damn good. If that’s true, then why didn’t you kiss me this morning when you dropped me at my door? Her finger hovered over the send button. Oh, screw it. This was fun. Send.

I was trying to be a gentleman.

She texted, Zzzzzz, like she was snoring, and then a laughing-face emoji.

You’re trouble. You distracted me all day, woman.

Good. I like being thought about. Fine, I don’t want to kiss you either because I’m a proper lady. See you soon, friend. Send.

Sasha. But he didn’t say anything else. Feeling like she’d won some unspoken game, she went back to rolling paint onto the wall beside the hearth. Timber and Katrina had been pros at taping off the edges, which made everything way smoother for Sasha to get color on the walls. Reed had picked the perfect shade of designer brown. They wouldn’t finish the whole house tonight, but they would at least get the living room and kitchen painted.

A knock sounded on the door, and Timber turned down the music they had blaring on a speaker in the kitchen while Sasha scampered over to the door and pulled it open. Reed stood there, looking like a tall glass of water on a scorching-hot day. He wasn’t wearing his jacket, so the fitted white thermal was exposed and clinging to the curves of his muscular shoulders. He wore a charcoal-gray beanie pulled low over his bi-colored eyes, and he lifted his chin higher, sparking hunger in his eyes as he drank her in.

“Hi,” she said softly, hoping he couldn’t hear how fast her heart was racing.

“I brought you a house-warming gift. Hold out your hands.”

“I love surprises,” she whispered, closing her eyes and holding out her hands, palms-up.

He set something heavy onto her palms and said, “Okay, you can look.”

When she opened her eyes, she gasped in surprise at what sat there. He’d given her a six-pack of grape soda. She laughed and lowered the sodas, because they were heavy and upper-body strength wasn’t one of her talents. “You listened!”

“Well, grape soda was all you talked about yesterday.”

“Oh whatever. I hooked you in with my smoothness, didn’t I?”

He waved to the girls inside, and then pointed to Sasha. “I’m stealing this one for one minute. Just one. I’ll bring her right back.”

Reed set the sodas down on the porch, and pulled her by the hand out into the night. She nearly tripped on the overgrown yard as he tugged her toward the side of the house. “Where are we going?” she asked breathlessly.

He pulled her up to the side of the house and picked her up, wrapped her legs around himself, and pressed her back against the wall as his lips crashed onto hers. Shocked, she froze for a moment, but as his hand slipped up the side of her neck and his lips moved against hers, a sudden fire was lit in her middle. She threw her arms around his neck and got lost in that kiss with him. His lips were soft against hers, and his short beard tickled her chin, and his cologne filled her senses. He tasted like mint, and was so warm against her. She should’ve panicked, being pinned against the house like this by a stranger, but it was thrilling instead. Reed sure didn’t feel like a stranger.

He angled his face the other way and kissed her deeper, brushing his tongue against her lips in a gentle ask. Sasha parted her lips for him, and melted at the feel of his tongue against hers. Holy shit, she’d never felt like this inside of a kiss before. Every cell in her body was reaching for him, and she wished she could ask him for more, right here, against the side of the house, where someone could walk around the corner at any moment.

Reed slowed the kiss, and began to ease out of it slowly. Kiss. Kiss. Peck. Peck. And then he rested his forehead against hers and closed his eyes. Her chest heaved with her shaking breath. Her adrenaline hadn’t spiked this high in years.

“I wanted to kiss you this morning,” he rumbled, pulling back by a foot so he could look her in the eye. “I wanted to kiss you last night, too, but you’re human and you don’t understand yet. You can’t. Physical touch for men like me means something bigger than I can explain to someone who doesn’t have the same instincts.”

“Physical touch means something to a girl like me, too,” she murmured softly.

“Truth,” he uttered, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “I haven’t kissed a woman in so damn long.”

“Well, you haven’t missed a beat. Also, if you mention kissing other women again?” She scrunched up her face. “I’ll stab you.”

He laughed and settled her onto her feet. “Jealous?”

“Territorial.”

“Well, I’m going to try and take this slow, so you have time to figure out exactly who I am. I don’t want any regrets, and I know there’s risk in this.”

“Risk how?”

“You just blew into town, Sasha,” he said low. “You’re high on the emotion of creating space between yourself and a shitty support system. You’re starting a new job, and rehabbing this house, and meeting all of these people in the Crew for the first time. You have to find your footing. And I’m not a good match. For anyone. I just escaped prison, and that’s going to hit you at some point. You need time to figure out what you really want.”

“I mean, I like your boner,” she said, cupping him between his legs. “I want that.”

“Mmm,” he rumbled, leaning into her touch. “Let me be a gentleman a little longer, will you?”

“Boring. I’m partying here. I’m free! I’m on a high! No one is telling me to stop being too much, or putting me down here. I just want to…”

“Want to what?”

She inhaled deeply and leveled him with an honest look. “I want to do whatever I want to do, with no judgement from anyone.”

A slow smile transformed his face. He leaned in once again and kissed her, then pulled out of it and grabbed her hand, pulling her to the front of the house. “You smell like arousal,” he observed.

“Can you blame me? I just had your boner in my hand.”

He belted out a laugh and gestured for her to go inside without him.

“Are you leaving?”

“No, I just need a minute.” He pointed to the seam of his jeans and yep, now she saw the problem. He was hard as a rock right now.

“Want me to name gross stuff so it goes away?”

“Sure.”

“I’m wearing a red bra today—”

“Sasha,” he gritted out.

“And matching panties,” she said, playing. This power was so much fun. “And I have a hidden tattoo.”

His eyes looked really dark, what with his pupils growing so big. “Hidden where?”

“That’s for you to discover, LB.”

“Chhh.”

“What’s going on out here?” King asked from the open door of the garage.

Reed did an about-face and headed for the street. “I forgot something in my truck.”

“Um, I can tell when you’re lying,” King called after him in a confused tone.

Reed didn’t answer. He just went directly across the street to where his truck was parked in front of an empty lot.

Sasha was trying so hard to hide her smile.

“What’s going on?” King asked. “Is he okay?”

“He will survive,” she assured him. “I’m a nurse. I know these things.”

The behemoth gorilla shifter was staring at her like she’d grown three heads. “Okay.”

Sasha went back inside in a daze, her lips tingling from the warmth of his. She brushed her fingertips across her lips and looked back at the door, hoping he didn’t actually drive off.

She made her way to the drop cloth and covered her paint roller in brown paint, then began painting where she’d left off by the fireplace.

“You good?” Timber asked.

“Huh?” Sasha blurted out.

“You look like you’re in la-la land. Must’ve been some good, innocent discussion going on out there.”

“Oh. Yes. We were talking about…flooring.”

Timber and Katrina snorted. “Sure.”

A few minutes later, Raynah returned with food, and Reed followed her inside. He tossed Sasha what looked like a shy smile, and she understood. She was off-kilter around him too.

And this was their first date. It was a painting party with part of the Cold Foot Crew. It was knowing smiles and wanting looks. It was his fingertips finding the curve of her lower back when he needed to move behind her. It was sitting by him to eat, sitting on the drop cloth all criss-cross, and their knees almost…almost…touching.

It was finding excuses to have private moments and paint in the same space. It was laughter. It was forgetting all of her troubles. It was the ease with which the others conversed with her. It was that feeling of teamwork that she loved.

Last night had been so much fun around the firepit, but tonight, working on an old, dilapidated house, she was having just as much fun—which led her to think that the old saying about it not being about where a person was, but who they were with, was true.

Timber really had found it. She’d found the happily ever after, and Sasha was watching her. She was watching how easily her smiles graced her lips, and she got it, because she felt the same thing happening to her.

Life held more beauty without cinder blocks tied to her ankles, as Reed had said.