Page 3 of Viper

Harvey walked up as I scanned the list. A name in the middle jumped out at me. The orders for his business clients weredelivered by a couple of my male coworkers, while I normally only handled smaller stuff for retail customers. “Cassidy Design and Landscaping? They’re not usually on my route.”

“Yeah, the owner had a plant emergency with one of his clients and needs those English shrub roses right away. He’s going to plant them in one of the beds before we bring out the rest, just to make sure the guy likes them since he’s gotta pull out a shit ton of tulips that they already planted.”

I caught most of his explanation, but my mind was firmly stuck on the fact that I would have to talk to the man I’d been fantasizing over since I first spotted him in the store a month ago. At six feet two inches of tanned muscle, Viper was hard to miss. Add in his light brown hair, intense brown eyes, and perpetual scruff on his cheeks, and I had no doubt that he caught the attention of most women who crossed his path. Not to mention all the tattoos he had and that he was in a motorcycle club.

I’d never been drawn to bad boys—or any guys really—but that hadn’t stopped me from crushing hard on Viper. And that was only from afar since I hadn’t gotten courageous enough to approach him while he was in the store.

“Are you…um…sure you want me to do his delivery?”

Luckily, Harvey took my question at face value and didn’t notice that I was blushing while he started to load the van. “It’s a little more than I would normally have you do, but Viper will have guys on-site to help you unload. His stop is a little out of the way, but do it first so you can get these out of the way before your other deliveries.”

“Will do.” A tendril of excitement snaked up my spine, but I needed to focus on my job. At least until I was in the van and nobody was around to witness the buzz I was feeling over finally meeting Viper.

I glanced at the pallets of plants that had been delivered this morning before I got here. It reminded me of the mix-up I noticed when I accepted an order a few days ago. “Did you figure out why we got all those purple panolas?”

“No.” Harvey pinched the bridge of his nose. “The supplier just told me to keep ’em since it was too much of a hassle to send them back. I’ll probably need to sell them at a steep discount since they need to be planted soon. But at least today’s order was accurate.”

I wished again that I still had space for a proper garden. Purple was my favorite color, and I would’ve happily taken as many of the panolas as I could fit into the ground if Harvey really wanted to get rid of them. But that wasn’t an option, so I couldn’t offer to take some off his hands. “Even if you sold them for a dollar, you’d still make a profit since you didn’t pay anything for them.”

“That right there is another reason I’m damn glad to have hired you—I can always count on you to look at the bright side of things.”

3

VIPER

It was another damn hot day, and I’d already ditched my shirt by midmorning. I kept a towel hanging from the back pocket of my jeans so I could wipe away the sweat while I was on the ground laying paver stones.

A soft whistle caught my attention, and I glanced to my side to see one of my crew—a young guy around twenty—staring toward the driveway with wide eyes and a slack jaw. I huffed in irritation, figuring that Grant’s daughter had dropped by again. Vivian was a spoiled, seventeen-year-old drama queen who threw tantrums like a little kid when shit didn’t go her way.

She wore skimpy outfits that I thought she looked ridiculous in. But while she made my dick want to shrivel up and die, I couldn’t blame any of my guys for being distracted.

Growling in frustration, I got to my feet and removed my dirt-covered gloves before turning around. My intention was to get Vivian to leave without causing her to turn on the waterworks and call her daddy—who would bribe her with shiny things so we could get back to work.

However, when I turned around, my jaw went slack, my eyes grew wide, and my dick sprang to life. Which was another shock since he’d had no interest in anyone in a very long time.

Holy shit.

I was staring at a woman with a tall, willowy body. Her long, black hair cascaded down her back until just above a pert ass. My gaze fell below her purple shorts to her legs, and I immediately pictured them wrapped around my head. Her skin was tanned and looked silky soft, making my hands itch to run my palms over every inch.

She stood in front of an open van, looking at something inside. After a minute—long enough to make my cock so hard it was pressing painfully against the teeth of my zipper—she grabbed something and turned around.

The view from the front was even better.

She wore a black T-shirt, and her tits pressed against the fabric as if it struggled to contain the full globes. They should have looked out of place on her tall, slender frame, but they were fucking perfect. I instantly knew they would spill out of my hands, and my mouth watered at the thought of sucking on their stiff peaks.

I dragged my eyes away from her body before she noticed my inappropriate ogling and lifted them to look at her face.

Well, fuck.

A part of me had been hoping that there would be something about her that would put out the fire blazing inside me. But no…she was fucking gorgeous.

Her hair was pushed back with a headband, leaving her face exposed.

Thick dark lashes rimmed big, deep brown eyes that were slightly almond-shaped. They accentuated her adorably pert nose, which had freckles sweeping over the bridge and bothcheeks. Shiny, bright pink lips curled up into a pretty smile, and my dick leaked at the image of them wrapped around it.

Get ahold of yourself, idiot,I mentally grumbled. I’d never reacted to a woman like this, and it was throwing me for a loop.

I shook my head, hoping that it would break whatever spell she had on me. Instead, I noticed all the other men standing around, practically drooling over my woman.

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