Unstoppable (A Country Roads Novel) by Shannon Richard Read Free Book Online Page B

and for about an hour it went off every five minutes. And right before the last class, the janitor had disturbed a family of raccoons in the storage closet, and the family had quickly run out into the halls. The students had been switching classes, and needless to say it had caused a bit of a panic.
    By the time Mel got to Bennett’s, she was exhausted and so looking forward to a home-cooked meal, a cold beer, and a hot man.
    He provided all three.
    And dinner had been amazing. He’d made apple and bacon pork chops with garlic-mashed potatoes and asparagus. Mel was stuffed.
    “Pick something out to watch.” He nodded toward the living room before he pushed his chair back and stood from the table.
    “I can help,” she said, standing.
    “Come on, Mel, I know how tired you are, and this will only take a second,” he said, indicating the plates. “By the time you find something, I’ll have finished.”
    “I don’t have the energy to argue with you,” she said, grabbing her beer.
    “Good,” he said, as she headed into the living room.
    Bennett kept all of his DVDs in the steamer trunk, so Mel walked over to it and knelt, popped the latches, and pulled up the lid.
    Holy cow. It was filled with movies and TV shows, all of them alphabetized. She recognized Game of Thrones and grabbed the box to read the back. When Bennett came into the room a couple of minutes later she stood and handed him the box.
    “I’ve heard of this, and I’d wanted to watch it,” she said.
    He looked at it in surprise, and maybe a bit uncomfortably.
    “Mel, there is a lot of sex in this show,” he told her.
    “You don’t think I can handle it?” she asked narrowing her eyes playfully.
    “Oh, I’m sure you can. I’m just telling you, it leaves nothing to the imagination.”
    “Well, your warning has been heard. Let’s watch it,” she said, as she stepped past him and took a seat on the couch.
    “All right, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
    *  *  *
    They were halfway through the second episode, and Mel was already hooked. Bennett hadn’t lied when he’d said that there was a lot of sex. And it was more than a little awkward watching scenes that were fairly intense with him sitting right next to her.
    And he was sitting right next to her. His arm resting on the back of the sofa and his leg pressed into hers. She really wanted to lean into him and use his chest as a pillow, but she refrained.
    Well, really, she wanted to hide her face behind a pillow because she was the shade of a freaking strawberry. But she couldn’t look away. One reason was because more often than not something important besides all of the sex was going on in a scene. And second, because she’d told Bennett she could handle it, and she didn’t want to show weakness. So she watched, and even though she was completely into the show, she was aware of Bennett next to her the entire time.
    And just like Lost , this one ended its episodes on a cliffhanger every time.
    “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she yelled at the screen when the episode finished.
    “So you’re into the show, I’m guessing.”
    She turned and glared at him. “Does every episode end like this?” she asked.
    “Pretty much.”
    “I don’t think I can handle this again. Why didn’t you warn me about this before?”
    He laughed. “We can watch some more episodes this week.”
    “Yeah?” she asked, her frustration quickly giving away to pleasure.
    “Yeah.”
    Huh. Before, he’d just let her borrow the DVDs and watch episodes with her every once in a while. This time he wanted to watch all the episodes with her. This was an interesting development.
    “Well, then I’ll cook. It’s only fair,” she said.
    “It is only fair.”
    “When is good for you?”
    “I have baseball practice tomorrow. How about Wednesday?” he asked.
    “Wednesday is good. Six?”
    “Sounds perfect. I’ll be there.”
    “All right. I should probably get going,” she said, more than a