Her Broke Handyman Husband Was the Secret Billionaire novel · Chapter 2 of 24
Chapter 2: Above the Hardware Store
In Elias's cold apartment Kasey's fury turns into a long night, and on Monday her badge is dead and the flashy rival sits in her chair with a pen.
Elias drove for ten minutes without saying anything.
The wipers thumped, the heater smelled like hot dust, and my hands would not stop shaking in my lap.
"I'm sorry about your mother's table," he said finally.
"Don't you dare apologize," I said. "Don't you dare."
"All right."
"She had them carry my chair out like a dead dog."
"I saw."
"And you stood there and dried your hands."
"I did," he said. "Your mother wanted a scene, and you were already giving it to her."
I laughed, which surprised both of us, and then I was crying, which surprised me more.
He pulled the truck up in front of a dark brick building on Division Avenue and cut the engine.
RUDD HARDWARE, said the faded gold letters over the door.
His father had sold nails and fuses down there for thirty years, and Elias had kept the apartment upstairs for storage.
Tonight it would have to be a home.
The stairs creaked at every step.
The apartment was one long room with a bed, a couch, and a kitchen the size of a closet.
The radiator hadn't seen a match since spring.
It was colder inside than out.
"Give me a minute," he said.
He knelt by the radiator and hit the pipe once with the heel of his wrench.
Something deep in the wall groaned, then banged, and then warmth began to climb the iron.
"You hit it and it works," I said.
"Most things."
I stood in the middle of the room in my good Thanksgiving dress, with my braid half undone and snow melting off my shoulders.
I was furious, and I was cold, and I was so tired of being the good daughter that I could have screamed.
Elias stood up and looked at me.
He's tall, and he doesn't hurry.
He looks at a person with all of his attention.
"Come here," he said.
"No."
"Kasey."
"You come here."
He crossed the room in three steps.
I grabbed the front of his canvas jacket with both fists and shoved him back against the kitchen counter.
A mug fell into the sink.
"You let them call you the help," I said.
"I know."
"You let her put an apron on you."
"I know."
I kissed him hard enough to hurt.
He kissed me back.
I pulled the pencil from behind his ear and threw it.
I got the tool belt open with shaking hands and let it hit the floor with a heavy clank.
His mouth moved to my neck, and the whole day went out of me in one long breath.
"Take it off," I said, tugging at the jacket. "All of it."
He shrugged out of the canvas and pulled his thermal over his head.
His chest was warm and hard, tanned from summers on other people's roofs.
I put both palms flat against it and felt his heart slamming.
He turned us around so that my back was against the counter.
His hands found the zipper at my spine and drew it down one inch at a time.
He moved like a man opening something he meant to keep.
The dress pooled at my feet.
He lifted me by the thighs and set me on the edge of the counter.
The cold of the laminate made me gasp against his mouth.
"Still angry?" he murmured.
"Yes."
"Good."
He dropped to his knees on the floor in front of me.
I lost my breath when he hooked a finger in my panties and pulled them down my legs.
He put his mouth on my pussy, slow and sure, and I grabbed the edge of the cabinet behind me and held on.
His tongue found my clit and stayed there, circling, patient, steady.
I heard myself make a sound I had never made in my mother's carriage house.
The walls there were thin, and she liked to walk her dog past our window.
"Elias," I said. "Please."
He didn't stop.
He slid two fingers into me, curling them.
The pleasure climbed my spine so fast that I put my hand in his hair and pulled.
I came with his name in my mouth, shaking, with my heels digging into his back.
He stood and wiped his mouth with his wrist.
His eyes were dark, nearly black, and his breath was ragged.
"Bed," I said.
"Counter's fine."
"Bed, Elias, I want to feel the whole length of you."
He picked me up and carried me across the room, and I wrapped my legs around his waist and bit his shoulder on the way.
He laid me down on the old quilt and finished undressing in the light from the street.
When he came down over me, his cock was hard against my thigh, hot and heavy.
I reached down and wrapped my hand around it, and he shuddered.
"Kasey."
"Tell me you want me," I said. "Say it."
"I want you," he said, rough. "I've wanted you since you told me my invoice was wrong."
I guided him to me and arched up as he pushed in, slow, filling me inch by inch until I was holding my breath.
"God, you feel good," he said into my throat.
He started to move, deep, and each stroke dragged against that spot inside me that turned my thighs to water.
I locked my ankles behind him and met every thrust.
The bed knocked against the wall, the radiator banged along with it, and I laughed helplessly into his shoulder.
Then he gripped my wrists and pinned them to the pillow above my head, and the laughing stopped.
"Look at me," he said.
I looked.
He fucked me harder, steady and hungry, with his eyes on mine the whole time.
I came again with a cry that rang off the brick.
He followed, pushing deep, groaning my name against my mouth as he spilled inside me.
We lay tangled and sweating under the quilt while the pipes ticked.
"Whatever she takes," I said, when I could speak, "she doesn't get this."
"No, ma'am," he said, and kissed my forehead.
On Monday, the gate at Haverkamp Furniture beeped red when I held up my badge.
The guard looked miserable.
"Ms. Haverkamp, I'm sorry, I was told this morning."
I took the stairs to the second floor, past the receptionist who wouldn't meet my eyes, and opened my office door.
Landon Huddleston was sitting in my chair, with his feet crossed on my desk and a gold pen laid across a stack of papers.
"Kasey," he said, with a smile like a warm towel. "Sit."
He slid the papers toward me with one finger.
A divorce petition, already typed, with my husband's name on it and a yellow tab where I was meant to sign.
"Sign that, and you're my deal CFO," he said. "Triple your salary, and I want you at my side when I save your family."
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