Roxy, on the other hand, laughs and smacks Jake hard on his ass. “Work, work, work, work!” she howls, giggling. “I’m glad that I’m the dancer in our marriage!”
Caleb and the boys change into more normal reception clothes with scary speed, and I’m soon enjoying cake and toasts along with everyone. When Hannah gets up, my throat tightens.
“When I first met Cassie, the first thought I had was . . . how do I arrange to get my desk moved to the other side of the floor?” she says, making us all laugh. “Talk about a girl who would never, ever shut up!
“At first, I had reservations. Then, as we struggled together in the sands of Hawaii, I learned about a woman who is a fighter, a loyal companion, a woman with a heart bigger than her body and a spirit bigger than anyone I’ve ever known.”
I’m barely holding back the tears when Hannah chuckles. “Then there was the night that I came back and there was this strange buzzing sound from her side of the room.”
“Hey!” I call out, making everyone laugh. “You promised!”
“It was her alarm clock,” Hannah finishes, making me blush furiously. “But that buzzing woke me up, too. Cassie stood by me when I risked it all for what was right, and I’ve spent every day since my marriage hoping that she’d find someone who loved her as much as I do. Thankfully, there was Caleb, who drove her just as nuts as she drove him . . . that probably should have been my first clue that these two were going to end up together someday.”
“Or that they’d kill each other,” Tony quips, and Hannah laughs.
“He’s right. I’m glad they found happiness instead. So, to Cassie and Caleb, may you find happiness in each other’s arms, laughter in every day, and have lots of babies to snuggle. I know you’ve already found love.”
The touching toast brings me to happy tears, and as the reception continues on to dancing, I feel swept away as Caleb and I dance together, the DJ playing Bon Jovi’s Bed of Roses. I can’t help it. I look up at my husband and chuckle. “Couldn’t pass up the eighties rock, huh?”
“He recorded this in ninety-two,” Caleb counters, smirking. “Don’t worry, after this, I told the DJ nothing from before two thousand unless it’s a ladies’ choice.”
“Good. Thank you, by the way.”
“For what?” Caleb asks as we turn and move on the flagstones that make up the patio we’re using as a dancefloor.
“For fixing me. For renovating my heart.”
Caleb pulls me closer, smiling. “Time for renovations is over. I was thinking we could talk construction from now on. Our family needs an addition.”
“I agree. Good thing I’ve already been working on that,” I tell him, grinning lightly. “I was going to surprise you tomorrow with it, but you’re going to be losing your home office, buddy. It’s going to be the baby’s room.”
Caleb pulls me closer, and I can feel the wetness of his tears hitting my forehead. I hug him tighter, knowing that this leak doesn’t need fixing.
Did you miss how Cassie & Caleb first met? Read Stud Muffin, the previous book in the Irresistible Bachelors series! Read on for previews for all the other books in the series!
Have you read all the current books in this series?
Book 1: Anaconda (Brianna & Gavin)
Book 2: Mr. Fiance (Mindy & Oliver)
Book 3: Heartstopper (Roxy & Jake)
Book 4: Stud Muffin (Hannah & Tony)
Preview: Anaconda
by Lauren Landish
They say size doesn’t matter...
Football star and internet sensation Gavin “Anaconda” Adams is the biggest celebrity our little town has ever seen.
But I had no idea who he was when I accidentally walked in on him naked.
I was shocked, seeing all of him, a cocky grin on his face. I didn’t know what to do.
So I ran.
Now I’m in a world of trouble. No matter what I do, I can’t get that image out of my head. His strong muscular thighs. His washboard abs. His big, throbbing, toe-curling… Jesus!
To make matters worse, Gavin wants a date with me. He’s seen the lust in my eyes, and he’s not taking no for an answer. I should tell him to get lost. He’s nothing but trouble, and he’s only here for a week.
But with one look, I go weak in the knees. And whenever I hear his deep, rich voice, I feel my defenses crumbling.
It’s only one night. What could it hurt?
Chapter 1
Brianna
“This is fucking disgusting,” I mutter with revulsion, looking around the hotel room and barely able to hold back the nausea twisting my stomach from the foul stench. I clamp a hand over my nose, trying not to breathe the acrid air in through my mouth and shaking my head at the horror before me.
Actually, disgusting is an understatement. The room looks like a frat house after a night of binge drinking and wild orgies. There are pizza boxes, crushed beer cans, and dark stains everywhere.
Jesus Christ.
No wonder the smell is so bad. These guys are pigs. My eyes continue to roam and I spot at least one smashed bottle of vodka before…
“Oh, hell no!” I croak, almost dry heaving and turning away from the revolting sight of several used condoms. I can even see something white and sticky nearby. I grab the top of my uniform and pull it up over my nose, no longer able to bear the stench. “They don’t pay me enough for this shit!” Holding my breath, I beeline for the door. I gasp as I exit the room and enter the hallway, letting go of my shirt and sucking down a lungful of air. I normally can’t stand the air in the smoking section of the guest rooms, but right now, this air is sweeter than a double-fudge chocolate chip sundae.
After a few grateful breaths, I pull out my walkie talkie from my side pocket and shake my head as I press the microphone button. “Maintenance, this is Housecleaning.”
“Whatcha need, Bri?” asks a familiar scratchy voice, and I sigh, relaxing. It’s Jimmy, an older man who still wears corduroy and thinks he’s in the 70s. But besides his penchant for living in the past, he’s pretty cool and will empathize with my pain. This isn’t the first wrecked room that I’ve walked in on, and it certainly won’t be my last.
“We have a problem,” I tell him, letting the direness I feel seep into my voice. “A big, big problem.”
“Is it that bad?” Jimmy asks. There’s a slight note of hope in his voice. I know what he’s thinking. He’s hoping that maybe it’s nothing a little bleach and elbow grease won’t fix.
I feel sorry for him. And to think I didn’t even step foot into the bathroom.
I shudder at the gross images that flash in my mind as I reply, “Yes! Your boys will have their hands full. Room 333. Bring steam cleaners, a sandblaster . . . and maybe a hazmat suit.”
Jimmy groans over the radio. I hear him inhale as if he wants to say something, but the transmission cuts. He knows that he can’t say much about it. Our radios aren’t monitored like the police scanners, but they can still be listened to. And with what’s going on, we can’t take chances. A crackling sound pops my ears.
“If you guys get it done, I’ll worry about the towels and sheets,” I add.
“Grand Waterways Hotel . . .” Jimmy says forlornly. “Grand Water Sewer Way would be a more apt name.”
I huff out a chuckle at that. Jimmy shouldn’t have said that over the line, but it’s the damn truth. “Can’t argue with that,” I say wholeheartedly. To the hotel’s credit, though, it can’t help what guests like a team of pro and collegiate ballers do to its rooms when they’re hosting drunken parties. I’ve heard that they stay here instead of in the city to keep the players ‘out of trouble’. But they still have their parties.
“I’ll handle it, Bri. We’ll be up in a half hour. Maybe you can catch the rest on the back half of your shift?”
A feeling of relief washes over me. The man is a lifesaver. There’s no way I could handle these types of situations without him.
“Thanks, Jimmy.”
“No worries. Mainte
nance out.”
“Poor man,” I mutter, tucking my walkie talkie back into my pocket.
Grateful to be free of that disaster, I make my way to the elevator, press the down button, and wait for the doors to open. Once inside, I mull over which floor I should go to, but my watch beeps, reminding me that I need a break.
I jam the button for the basement, leaning against the wall as the carriage starts to go down. My back aches, my feet ache, and I’m pretty sure that my skin needs to be scrubbed with something stronger than soap and water after just walking into that filthy room. The image of the used condoms on the floor flashes in my mind and my skin crawls.
I can’t wait until I finish my degree and never have to step foot into this place again, I think with disgust.
I definitely don’t feel like working the rest of my shift after that. I’m aching and sore all over. I’m seriously overworked, and I don’t think I can take any more surprises.
But at least I’m mostly finished, and I’ve got the next thirty minutes to chill out, try to get myself back together, and maybe pop a Tylenol or two before I do the last set of regular rooms, the suites, and then the floor that I normally hate most because I never know what to expect, the penthouse suites. They can range from sparkly clean to a pigsty as bad as the room I just left… depending on who’s been staying there. Sometimes, the ballers are too damn cheap and just trash a regular room.
The ding sound and opening doors pull me out of my reverie. I walk out of the elevator and head to the maintenance room. I wash my hands using rubbing alcohol and some germicidal stuff from the medicine cabinet in the staffroom before I apply two coats of lotion, praying that maybe this time I won’t be bleeding from between my fingers like the last time I had to do this.
I look up in the mirror and sigh, shaking my head at the reflection that looks back at me. Bra-length, dark brown hair, tired eyes, and a grumpy countenance. I look like I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in over a week.
I don’t need this shit, I say to myself. I can’t wait to get out of this place. Hell, I’ll take just about any job with benefits over this.
But more than benefits, I need money. Doing twenty-nine hours of maid work in a hotel just doesn’t cut it when you’re like me—Master’s degree student with no family, no credit cards, and about two thousand dollars left from a student loan. Somehow, I have to stretch this small amount of money to cover the gap in my living expenses for the rest of the year.
I shake my head again as I think about how close I’d been to that internship.
One computer error. That’s all that kept me from landing a paid internship. One idiot at school who typed in my GPA wrong, saying I had a 1.8 instead of a 3.8. By the time I got it all sorted out, it was too late. All of the internships were already snatched up.
“Face it, girlie,” I grumble to myself, “if this keeps up, you’ll be going down to the food bank for canned goods by Christmas.” I rub the last of the lotion into my hands. The sound of heels clicking against the tiled floor causes me to turn around, and I see my best friend, Mindy, holding a mocha latte in one hand and a cup of green tea in the other. She wiggles the latte at me.
I take it from her, feeling grateful for her thoughtfulness. “Tell me you put cinnamon in it,” I say.
Mindy steps back to survey me, shaking her head, her dark brown hair that’s cut into a side bob glinting under the lights and her large brown eyes flashing with a mischievousness that almost makes me smile. I have to say, she looks hot as hell in her uniform—a white dress shirt, open at the front, a short black skirt, an apron, and stockings, her feet adorned with black glossy heels.
“You bet your sweet ass I did,” Mindy chirps before going over to the free table in the staff break room and kicking out a chair with her foot before sitting down. “Double cream, double sugar, double cinnamon, basically double everything I could get my hands on. Come on, I know your schedule as well as you do. It’s the least I can do.”
“You’re a lifesaver,” I tell her, raising the cup to my lips and taking a sip. I close my eyes as the warm liquid hits my tastebuds and I let out a groan. It really is sweet.
“You know, you keep moaning like that, and people are going to think you’re up to no good during your coffee breaks,” Mindy jokes, sipping her green tea. “I mean, I get it. You skipped breakfast like you always do, but damn, girl, should I leave you and the latte alone with a necktie hanging on the door?”
“You keep making drinks like this and bringing me scones, and you may just have to,” I joke. “But how’d you know?”
“What? That you’d be tired?” Mindy asks, laughing. “Uh, in case you forgot, for the past two weeks, we’ve all been wiped out. I’m sure that V-man loves the money, but he’s not the one busting his ass” —Mindy glances down at her thighs critically— “or in this case, big ass.”
“Oh, come on, you’re a size two!” I protest.
Mindy scowls. “A big size two.”
“There’s no such thing!” I scoff.
“Want to see my ass?” she offers.
“I’ll pass.” I chuckle. Mindy always does this, complaining about her weight when there’s nothing to complain about. I just argue with her to get kicks. I take another sip of my heavenly latte before adding, “And if Mr. Vandenburgh hears you call him V-man again, you know he’s going to blow his stack.”
Mindy laughs and screws up her face, looking remarkably like John Cleese as she pitches her voice perfectly to match the hotel manager’s. “Ahh . . . yes, Miss Sayles, we’ve noticed that you’re taking your job far too seriously, and I’m going to need to make sure you don’t have a broom handle lost inside your buttocks. Please bend over and spread your cheeks for me.”
I laugh, barely holding onto the coffee in my mouth as I set my cup down, trying not to cough. I can’t help it. Mr. Vandenburgh does look a lot like a very short but chubby John Cleese, and Mindy’s got the voice down to a tee. Mindy lets up, and I swallow before sitting back, wiping at my eyes. “Girl, thank you. I so needed that. You don’t even want to know what I had to deal with today.”
“What, the production monkeys aren’t appreciative of the fine rooms we’ve made available to them?” Mindy asks. For the past two weeks, The Grand Waterways has been rented out by a Hollywood studio that’s producing a film in town. While the production team staying at the hotel haven’t exactly been the cleanest guests, they’ve been a hell of a lot better than the sports team that just trashed that room.
“No, actually, it was that rowdy ball team.” I shake my head. “And you don’t even want to know what I saw in their room,” I say, pinching my face into a disgusted scowl.
“Sure I do,” Mindy says, her eyes flashing.
“No. You don’t,” I say firmly. “Trust me.”
“Tell me!”
“No.”
“You suck.”
“Let me just put it this way. I had to call Jimmy and his team to handle it.”
Mindy makes a face. “Oh, it was one of those, huh?”
“Yeah. One of those.”
“I bet it smelled like toe jam and ass crack.” Mindy grins.
“Actually, it was worse.” I laugh, remembering the acrid stench that made my eyes water. “There were like stains . . . everywhere. It was so gross!” I don’t even think about bringing up the used condoms.
Mindy grimaces. “Good lord, what the hell were they doing in there? Having a golden showers competition?”
I snort, nearly gagging on my coffee, and then I start coughing so hard I nearly choke.
Mindy stares at me with concern, half-rising out of her seat. “Jesus, you okay, Bri?”
I motion her to sit back down. “Don’t do that!” I gasp when I’m able to recover.
“Do what?” Mindy asks innocently.
I wipe at my eyes. “Make me laugh when I’m drinking coffee. I nearly gagged to death.”
Mindy grins impishly. “Wouldn’t be the first thing you gagged on.”
I scowl at her. “You’re disgusting, you know that?”
“Oh c’mon, Bri, don’t be such a prude.” She pauses, nodding at the supply room. “So, what’s left on your schedule?”
“Too much,” I reply. “But at least the penthouses should be easy. One of the suites is being used by some film crew, so they don’t want us in there. One is empty until a guest arrives tonight. So, that leaves just one.”
“Then perhaps, Miss Sayles,” a stern voice says from behind me, “you should look at making sure you have that room prepared for our VIP guest.” I turn to see Mr. Vandenburgh, all five foot four inches and about two hundred plus pounds of him, standing in the doorway. He’s in his tailored suit, of course, looking like a thousand bucks from the neck down while looking like a grumpy ass disorderly from the neck up. “That is, unless you want to pay for that coffee you’re holding.”
Oh, God, please save me.
I shake my head. “No, you’re right, Mr. Vandenburgh.” I glance over at Mindy, who is barely hiding a smirk.
“Well then, get on with your duties,” he says acidly, his scowl hard enough to curdle milk.
Please let me find another job so I don’t have to deal with this shit anymore.
Seriously, after that bullshit upstairs, I’d almost be ready to tender my resignation if I were offered a job at McDonald’s sweeping the floors. I’m just so over this.
Mr. Fixit Page 19
