#MidWeekTease with no knickers ad a hot bod alert...

I just had to put that^^^ up

My hero and heroine are getting very aware of each other.

A pheasant squawked and whirred up out of the long grass on the verge. Bryony squeaked in surprise, a bit like the pheasant, and dropped her bag.

‘Sheesh, no need to startle the natives. I’m not about to put you in the pot, as much as I am a carnivore.’ Bloody hell, as if Mop and the cats aren’t enough, now I’m talking to a bird.

‘Glad to hear it.’

‘Argh… shit…’ Now the birds were answering back.

Get a grip.

It wasn’t a bird but a bloke. The ‘drop dread, play your cards right and you can have me,’ arsy Mr Grumpy bloke of the other day. This time, his longish curly hair was tucked behind his ears and helped to anchor the sunglasses pushed up onto his crown. In one earlobe a tiny silver stud winked in the sunlight.

A stud for a stud? Oh shoot, next I’ll be drooling. Where the hell had he come from?  Did that van belong to Mr Grumpy then? If so, he deserved his nuts cracked for being so bloody dangerous.

‘You’re a liability,’ she snapped. Best to get in first with the accusations, just in case he was the driver.

‘Who says?’ He snarled back.

‘Me, if you drive recklessly like that.’

‘Like what? What planet are you on, woman? I’m on my bloody feet, no driving involved.’ He spread his arms out as if to show that. Sadly, or happily, it showed off his more than okay physique. ‘Where have I hidden a steering wheel? No, don’t bloody answer that.’

Bryony bit back the smart and non-pc answer she’d been going to give. No point in riling him further. Not without good reason, anyway. Dressed in what she decided was hot as hell denim cut offs, a black t-shirt, and deck shoes almost as disreputable as the ones she had discarded, he could have been the sort of man hot dreams were made of. If he wasn’t such a class one irritant.

‘I do. You need your licence torn up into little bits. Is it normal to scare the pants off newcomers?’ Bryony demanded, annoyed she must seem a complete wussy female. ‘You know hello, welcome, and now drop dead?’ She bit back ‘and scare them shitless and give them sleepless nights with your sodding van’. She’d said enough along those lines already.

He shrugged. ‘I’ve never scared anyone.’.’

Bollocks.

‘Who are you anyway?’ She’d get his name out of him whatever else she didn’t manage. ‘Apart from the non-friendly-neighbourhood whatever, who is allergic to people.’

He shrugged. ‘Only some. Get over your paranoia.’ His face was a blank canvas. Bryony itched to do something—anything—to change that.

Grief did he never smile? Had he had fillers or whatever and ended up with a frozen face? Didn’t things like that happen sometimes if you over did the stuff? With her hatred of needles, Bryony would rather go for a week without wine and chocolate, than contemplate voluntarily being injected with anything, thus her knowledge of such procedures was a bit sketchy to say the least.

‘Well?’

‘Very thank you.’

‘Oh for…’ If there had been anything to stamp her foot on and make a noise she would have done. Bryony clenched her hands into fists and was rewarded by the tiniest hint of his mouth twitching. Not a proper smile but maybe a softening of his bottom lip? However, he still didn’t offer his name.

‘Fine. Keep who you are to yourself. I’ll just think of you as Mr Grumpy, that’s apt.’ Bryony picked her bag up again and ignored him. He stepped in front of her. She sidestepped. He matched it. And grinned. The sort of grin that would make hundreds of women drop their knickers given half a chance. Not her though, she was made of sterner stuff. She hoped.

But, oh my goodness, that makes him so bloody different. Does he have two personas? Am I in a split dimension? Oh grief, damp knicker alert as Maisie would say.

Then, she remembered, she didn’t actually have knickers on, as she hadn’t been able to find a clean pair and the cheese grater thong her mum had given her for Christmas—‘to bring you up to date, love’—which she discovered in with the corkscrew and three dishtowels, was as useful as an ice cream in hell. That had gone on and off in record time and now resided beneath her period pants in her underwear drawer. She wouldn’t throw it out and maybe hurt her mum’s feelings, but she doubted she’d wear it, not even when she was desperate. Like now. Not desperate. She was as they said, commando, and if she were honest, rather liked it.

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love Katy xx