Free Suddenly in Love (Lake Haven#1) by Julia London Page A

Great—he’d been reduced to getting hard at the sound of a woman’s laugh.
    “Please, sir, I need you to move the van now,” said the security guard.
    “Whatever,” the other man said. “Apparently I have to do everything, don’t I? I’m calling my friend Dalton, and then I’ll be back to pick you up as usual , Miss Mia-I-don’t-drive.”
    Mia. That was it. Mia, Mia, with the cinnamon hair. Brennan suddenly imagined her on top of him, on his cock. He imagined pert breasts, dark areolas, and him, pumping, pumping . . .
    A door slammed again, and Brennan winced as the force of it reverberated through his head. “Damn,” he muttered. There went the fantasy.
    “Thanks for the ride, Wallace!” she called out. She sounded a little too singsongy. As if she were trying to provoke the man who didn’t want her living with her parents. Wait . . . she lived with her parents? She’d seemed too old for that . . . but then again, he’d been a little drunk when he’d met her, so who knew how old she was.
    The vehicle started up with a grind that didn’t sound right. It moved away from the house, the sound of the rattling engine lessening the faster the van went.
    “How are you, Drago?” she asked when the van had gone out the gate.
    “Good. Did you try that spin class yet?”
    “I have not,” she said solemnly. “But it’s definitely on my to-do list this weekend. Is Mrs. Yates here today?”
    “Yep. She’s inside,” the security guy said.
    So Mom was home. Brennan was not up for another conversation with his mother. He listened as the decorator walked across the drive and up to the front door directly beneath him. He heard the door open, the dogs attacking her feet, and the door closing.
    Silence.
    He rolled onto his back and pushed two empty beer bottles off of his bed. They landed with a clatter on the wood floor. He grabbed a pillow and pulled it over his head, closed his eyes, and let sleep take him again.
    He next awoke to the sound of sheet music rustling and falling from his bedside table, moved about by the breeze that had come in through the open window. Brennan groaned, tossed the pillow aside, swung his legs over the bed, and sat up. He rubbed his face with his hands. His eyes felt scratchy—he’d slept fitfully, which seemed to be the norm these days. Sleep refused to come on any normal schedule, sometimes passing an entire twenty-four hours before blessing him with its presence. And when sleep did come, it rolled over him in great crashing waves, forcing him down into its depths.
    He yawned, scratched his bare belly. He was hungry. And he needed to piss. He stood up and walked unsteadily into the en suite. He took care of business, washed his face and scrubbed the sleep from his eyes, brushed teeth that felt like tiny fur babies in his mouth. He wandered back into his room and glanced around dispassionately. God, it smelled in here. He went to the windows and opened them wider to air the place out, then bent down, swiped up a T-shirt and some jeans off the floor.
    The T-shirt was one he’d used to work on a car he’d had in LA. It had some serious axle grease stains that his housekeeper had never been able to get out. And . . . something else. Brennan didn’t know what that stain was, but it didn’t look too offensive. His jeans had seen better days—or at least a washing machine at some point. He buttoned them only enough to stay up. He couldn’t even be bothered to finish off a row of five buttons now. Yeah, well, whatever.
    He padded downstairs in bare feet, pushing his overgrown mop of shaggy hair back from his face and scratching at his beard stubble.
    Just as he reached the foyer, the front door swung open and his mother’s housekeeper, Magda, stepped in with two stuffed tote bags, one over each arm. From the kitchen, the tiny demons his mother called dogs came yapping and scampering down the hall.
    “Out!” Brennan said sternly, and pointed toward the kitchen. The dogs