Total pages in book: 33
Estimated words: 30528 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 153(@200wpm)___ 122(@250wpm)___ 102(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 30528 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 153(@200wpm)___ 122(@250wpm)___ 102(@300wpm)
Each book in this sizzling rom-com series spotlights a different resident of #1 Love Place as they stumble into love's path. All these stories blend laugh-out-loud moments with curl-your-toes chemistry.
What's cooking at #1 Love
• Small-town charm with big-city heat
• Flirty elevator rides and awkward laundry room run-ins
• Nosy but lovable neighbors playing matchmaker
• Hilarious misadventures in love at first sight
• Guaranteed happily ever afters
So pull up a chair, order your favorite latte, and get ready to fall head over heels for the lovable residents of #1 Love Place. In this building, love isn't just knocking on doors—it's kicking them down!
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
CHAPTER ONE
IRIS
Before the blinding sunlight coming through my dollar store drapes penetrates my mind, I hear an unusual sound. It’s not the gentle, neighborly shuffle of morning feet on carpet, or even the muted drone of vacuuming through a wall. No, this is seismic, industrial, the kind of noise you expect from a herd of water buffalo stampeding through an Ikea showroom.
I jackknife awake, heart pounding, nearly catapulting myself straight off the mattress. Across the room, the digital clock flashes seven-eighteen in glaring, blood-red numbers, as if taunting me for waking up so early. Seriously? It’s Saturday. Way too early to deal with this kind of nonsense.
A relentless barrage of thumps, dragging, then something that sounds suspiciously like someone bowling with furniture and letting the ball thunder down a staircase comes from next door. So. I guess 2H finally got rented out. Figures. I was just starting to enjoy the weird peace that comes with not having a neighbor, the quiet ringing through the walls. Now it’s shattered.
The pounding and scraping double down, rattling the thin wall between us. I can practically picture boxes slamming to the floor, bags tumbling and rolling, maybe a lamp careening end over end. The sound vibrates through my bed, right into my bones.
I flop back, let my head drop onto the pillow, but every heavy crash from next door jolts me like a live wire. The new neighbor is moving in with the grace of a demolition crew. What a way to wake up. My teeth clench with every impact, each scrape and bang a fresh jolt to my bleary brain as my quiet Saturday morning dies a quick death.
Through the wall, I hear heavy, masculine cursing, followed by a metallic clang so violent the floorboards vibrate.
Irritation wins out over the part of me that wants to bury my head in a pillow and ignore the noise. I swing my legs off the bed, tangle them in the blanket, and stumble out of bed.
Curiosity wins out, and I decide to check things out for myself. I swap pajama shorts for sweatpants, pull my hair up into a messy bun, and snag my phone, just in case.
I pad into the hallway and see three men wrangling a sofa the size of a minivan through the open doorway of 2H. The lead guy, a compact, tattooed engine of a human, shouts something in Spanish to the man on his right. The third man is mostly hidden behind the couch, only his dusty ball cap visible above the cushions.
They somehow manage to push the heavy sofa through the doorway and out of sight. I’m debating whether to peek in the door or head back to my apartment when a man steps into view. Oh, holy cow.
He’s tall. Not just tall, but insanely humongous. His T-shirt is black, stretched tight across shoulders that practically block out the light behind him. His face is what gets me. Square jaw. Nose that's clearly been busted and somehow healed even better than before. Eyes so dark the line between iris and pupil just disappears. His hair is dark, too. Neatly cut close on the sides, with a little silver at the temples that manages to make him look both slightly dangerous and completely in control, all at once.
He notices me standing there, swallows, and says nothing. Not “hello,” not “good morning,” not even a “sorry about the noise.” He just stares.
My pulse skids into overdrive. I don’t even have time to feel mortified about my “Coffee spelled backwards is EEFFOC. Until I’ve had coffee, I don’t give eeffoc” T-shirt. My brain empties out, replaced by a sudden, primal awareness of the fact that I am face-to-face with a man who looks like the human version of a military Humvee.
After silence that lasts way too long, I break the unspoken standoff between us. “Hi,” I say, then immediately regret the high, squeaky pitch. “I’m Iris. I live next door.”
He nods, not blinking. “Hunter Hartwell.”
I expect him to say something else. Comment on the weather, apologize for the move, anything. Instead, he just stares as if I’m a particularly complex IKEA manual.
After another, longer pause, I realize it's on me to fill the void. The air between us feels charged, like static electricity before a storm.
"Nice to meet you," I say, and then, because my mouth apparently doesn't listen to my brain, I add, "I planned to sleep in, but…" My voice trails off as his eyes lock with mine.
A flicker of something touches the corners of his mouth. "Sorry for the noise." His deep voice vibrates through me, settling somewhere low in my belly.
This time, there's a glint of something in his eyes—a spark that makes my stomach drop a few stories. Heat blooms across my chest and up my neck.