It’s been too long since I’ve posted a Sample Sunday 🥹. And I’m thrilled to share a snippet from my upcoming release Wrath – the sixth book in the Love is Cure, Vol. 1 – Vices & Virtues series. Wrath is currently available for pre-order here. But before you go, check out a sample from one of my favorite scenes from Wrath.
*This story is still unpublished, so the text below is subject to change before publishing.
“I didn’t bring my wallet,” I said to the book before glancing up to meet his eyes again.
God, those eyes.
“I only brought enough for lunch, which you refused for me to pay for again this week.”
For another Saturday in a row.
“And I’m going to refuse for you to pay for this.” Asher slid the book out of my hand. “It’s on me.” He turned to face the opposite shelf and approached it. “Let’s see what else they got. Mess around,” he added, glancing over his shoulder while wearing a smirk. “I might fill at least one of your bookshelves at home.”
“I don’t have a bookshelf,” I admitted. “Or a bookcase, for that matter.”
That made him turn around to face me again.
“I keep my books on a side table by my bed pushed together with metal bookends.” I shrugged. “I do most of my reading in bed, so…”
A full beam smile pulled at his lips. “Oh, then we’ve got to get you a bookcase right now.”
“Right now?”
He nodded. “Immediately.”
Asher gestured with his head toward the area we entered through. “Come on.”
* * *
Asher sure moved fast.
Fast in deciding we’d swing by a local Target to purchase a simple wooden bookcase.
Fast in ordering a black car to get us and the wooden bookcase, that was only wood pieces in a box in that instance, back to my apartment.
“Would you mind if I put it together for you?” He asked on our ride back to the apartment.
I couldn’t believe a simple second lunch date was turning into this.
I said nothing in response, simply rummaging through my thoughts for the answer.
“You can say no,” he insisted, lifting his hand with emphasis. “I can put it together at my place and bring it down—”
“You can put it together in my place.”
It was such a ballsy decision for me. Different. Because no one had been in my apartment besides Aunt Evelyn and sometimes the maintenance guy, but Aunt Evelyn would be present with me whenever he made an apartment call for repairs.
But here I was. Sitting on my green velvet armchair, watching Asher put together a bookcase, not once glancing at the instructions.
I watched as every muscle in his upper body flexed whenever he twisted a screw onto one end of the shelf, then lifted that shelf to slide into the solid standing case.
He worked quietly, only making slightly curious sounds as he searched around him for a tool or for an accompanying piece of wood to add to the bookcase’s structure.
“Are you going to read the instructions?”
I’d been trying to think of something to say to him and that was the best I could come up with. Although I was nervous having him in my place, only us two, he made me feel so comfortable. He gave me no reason to be nervous and that helped a lot with my anxiety.
“No need,” he insisted, eyes preoccupied with his work. “I can just study the picture and can tell where everything needs to go. Plus, all the pieces have sticker letters on them. See?” He held up one of those pieces and looked at me.
I couldn’t care less about the pieces, the bookcases, or the numbers separating them all.
He was in my apartment, building me a bookcase. A man who embodied the hallmarks of a man who never had to use his hands in his life to build anything. And he was building something for me. A practical stranger. I couldn’t believe it.
I nodded, though, acknowledging his remark about the numbers on the pieces so I wouldn’t make things weird.
Asher glanced around himself as he picked up another piece to continue working. “Your place is beautiful.”
I turned my attention to my apartment and the surrounding things.
My apartment was my little piece of heaven, away from the hell outside of it. I knew when I left Aunt Evelyn’s apartment that I would have to create a place that would provide the comfort she wouldn’t be able to give me while I was away.
My Aunt’s love of magazines fostered my love for it too. So I created artwork out of the ones she used to throw away. I placed vintage black magazine covers in picture frames. Other art from local artists hung beside them.
In the sitting area where I relaxed on my crushed velvet green armchair was a magazine holder beside it. Depending on how much I loved the cover, after reading the magazines they graced, I’d rip them off and would place them in photo albums.
It was an odd collector’s hobby, but it was mine.
Most of my furniture were items that were discarded by the new fancy neighbors who overestimated the space they were moving into. Thanks to gentrification, I had a beautiful vanity table and side tables in my bedroom, the velvet couch I sat on, and antique end tables in my living room. All of them like new.
“Thank you,” I said. “And thank you for this. You didn’t have to.”
“I wanted to,” he replied, busy at work. “Thank you for allowing me to.”
We were quiet again for a bit as Asher continued to work. He was almost done. I could tell this by how finished the shelf looked. It resembled the box’s photo.
“Have you ever built a bookcase before?”
He chuckled. “I have.”
I twisted my lips to one side to bite the inside of my lip. “Have you ever built a bookcase for a woman?”
He stopped twisting the screw into the final shelf end when he peeked over his shoulder and held his gaze with me for a breath.
He smirked. “You’re my first and only.”
End of Sample
Wrath is available now for pre-order at the link below!
Are you caught up! All stories in the Love is Cure series are standalone so you can read the stories in whatever order you choose. I recommend you start with book one – Pride – though. Summer and Jayce from Pride will appear in Wrath!