The Builder: BWWM Romance Series (The Handyman Series Book 5) Read online

  The Builder

  BWWM Romance Series

  Jamila Jasper

  Jamila Jasper Romance

  Contents

  Complete Series

  1. The Builder

  2. FREE SAMPLE: Ex Con’s Captive

  Afterword

  More Jamila Jasper Romance

  Patreon

  Social Media

  Acknowledgments

  Complete Series

  The Pool Boy

  The Plumber

  The Gardener

  The Fireman

  The Builder

  1

  The Builder

  My head felt like it was on the verge of busting open.

  The sound of power tools outside was proving a constant distraction to my work, which was already going poorly enough as it was. I'd thought, by taking my papers home from the university and grading them in the privacy of my own study, I might actually manage to get something done. My students had this irritating habit of totally disregarding my office hours, and swinging by just whenever they happened to need something, making it next to impossible for me to accomplish anything.

  A woman professor not receiving the respect she deserves from her students? Shocking, I know.

  Although it was really more just a matter of being a woman, period. As a Gender Studies professor for the past twenty-five years, nothing should have surprised me at this point. And it's true, I'd made significant headway over the years, and I would argue that the cause of feminism has never been stronger than it is today. Still, though, when you're actually dealing with the day to day bullshit as just about any working woman can tell you, the notion of genuine progress starts to feel less and less defined.

  I can't even begin to tell you what a common thing it was for men to simply look right through me. Both my students, as well as my colleagues. Red-blooded males in their late teens and early twenties who found themselves forced into my classes as electives, spending the whole time talking and flirting, distracting the other students, and refusing to take me seriously whenever I called them out on it. Other professors who would talk right over me at faculty meetings, interrupting me mid-sentence. And the list goes on and on.

  I don't even want to get into my ex-husband, a sociology professor who impressed me with his seemingly well-intentioned feminist ideals, but then spent an entire year cheating on me behind my back with not one, but two of this young female students. Somehow, he managed to hold onto his job after all that, and perhaps predictably, his standing actually improved among our colleagues once the two of us split, while I was humiliated and made to feel like some sort of social pariah for the next several months.

  And I know I might sound bitter about all of this, but frankly, I have good reason to be. My girl friends were my only source of hope: Shontal, Tasha, Kishawn and even Zelda. Zelda and Kishawn kept me strong in my faith while Tasha and Shontal were known for walking on the wild-side and always encouraged me to get out of my shell and relax more.

  How could I relax?

  Over twenty-five years, I'd watched the cause of gender equality give the appearance of improving by leaps and bounds, but as far as what was going on right under my nose, it was beginning to feel more and more like a lost cause with each day that passes.

  I supposed I could be considered a success as far as that goes. There was some consolation in knowing that I'd changed at least a few young women's lives for the better, inspired them in their careers, or at the very least, helped them to recognize their own self-worth. And even if that hadn't been the case, even if I'd spent all that time simply spouting hot air, only to have it fall on deaf ears, I'd at least done well by myself as far as a career went. I mean, if I hadn't been successful, I wouldn't be sitting here in my cozy colonial home, sitting back in a leather desk chair with a glass of scotch at hand. And I certainly wouldn't be able to afford the renovations I'd been paying out the wazoo for over the past several months.

  Those renovations, incidentally, being a significant player in my present distractions.

  I'd been facing away from the window until now, but presently I turned to open up the curtains, giving up all pretense of successfully grading the papers I had at hand.

  A shiver ran through my body as I caught sight of the man outside in my backyard, steadily at work on the construction of a gazebo. Derek was his name. He was already a tempting enough distraction as it was- tall, bulky with muscle, a light film of stubble across his chin. But to make matters even worse, he'd since taken off his shirt in the setting summer sun. Now, as he leaned and strained and shuffled building materials around through my backyard, I was treated to an absolute visual smorgasbord. I found myself utterly entranced by the play of the golden light against his straining musculature. His back rippling, his arms pulsing, rivulets of sweat glistening as they poured along his broad, heaving chest, his six-pack abs, and slid down along the maddeningly entrenched V-lines of his Adonis' muscles.

  It didn't take me long at all to go from annoyed leering to outright ogling my delectable little construction worker, and I felt a familiar stirring between my legs as I watched him, one that hadn't properly been satisfied in years.

  I watched as he bent over, the top of his jeans sliding down along his backside, the crack of his ass peeking just into view, as well as the very tops of two tight, highly sculpted cheeks.

  My breath caught in my throat.

  I felt like a teenager all of the sudden, an adolescent lust awakened in me that threatened to overpower me. I knew it was absurd, but I couldn't look away. I nearly licked my lips at him, and secretly wished that those jeans would inch down just a little bit further, and further, and then slide the rest of the way down while they were at it.

  Then, without warning, he reached back and hiked them back up again. His body began to turn, seeming to move in my direction, and I panicked.

  I grabbed the curtains and yanked them tightly shut so that barely a sliver of outside light was permitted to seep into the room.

  I leaned against the wall, breathless, shaking, trying to understand my overreaction to this whole situation.

  At first, it was a kind of moral indignation against myself. I was objectifying this man the way I spent my days rallying against men doing to women. Seeing him like a cut of meat hanging in a butcher's shop, rather than as a human being (although, to be fair, if you'd have seen him, I could hardly be faulted for that...)

  Taking a deep breath, though, I began to wonder if that was really what had freaked me out so much about the situation.

  I mean, human attraction was human attraction. And I would hardly say that men receive the unwanted attention from women that women do from men on a regular basis.

  Coming to my senses, then, I realized that what was really freaking me out was that I'd let myself get so carried away with my fantasies. What the hell was I thinking?

  I mean, I was a fifty-five-year-old woman. I'd been divorced for years, hadn't had a real relationship in almost as long. And sure, I was still fine as hell by any reasonable standards, but what the hell made me think that a man like that could ever want anything to do with a woman like me? At least, not the things that I wanted him to do with me...

  He couldn't have been older than twenty-five, maybe thirty at the absolute most. With a body like that and the confident swagger I'd seen in him until now, he could make the panties of every woman in a room drop just by walking into it. And I knew damn well from my ex, far less of a catch physically than this man was, that males would always go for a younger woman when the opportunity presented itself to them. Always.r />
  This sudden, intense longing was all just madness on my part. Probably the effects of working too hard, in need of an outlet for my stress.

  Anyway, what interactions Derek and I had shared up until now had hardly inspired confidence as to his character. He treated me like most men treated me. Scoffed when I told him I was a gender studies professor. Barely listened as I told him what I wanted out of him. Acted like he knew everything, and like he was God's gift to womankind.

  Although the way I felt right now, I wasn't so sure I could fault him for that last assumption...

  I tried to relax and put it all out of my head. I sat back down at the desk, took a long drink from my glass, and returned to the paper at hand. It was one of the better ones. The work of a promising female student of mine who really seemed to understand the material we were covering.

  I started to scribble out some comment above a particularly well-written paragraph when suddenly my racing thoughts got the better of me. I was bent forward, doubled over the edge of my desk, my panties down around my ankles in a prone position. Derek was on me, his hands gripping my breasts with a desire that hadn't been shown them in some time, penetrating me hard and deep while he kissed the back of my neck.

  I gasped and tried to snap out of it. I noticed that my pen had dragged in the middle of my fantasizing so that my most recent comment seemed to read, “Very insightfuuuuuuuuuu.”

  I felt my cheeks get warm and cleared my throat with embarrassment.

  I very thoroughly crossed out what I'd written, and gave the comment another go.

  I did okay for another few paragraphs, and then, once again, I found myself drifting from the task at hand entirely. I was no longer in my office at all. I was in my bedroom, with Derek stretched sprawled out beneath me. His body glistened with sweat, his muscles heaved with gentle movement. His cock stood straight into the air, and I opened myself up onto him, sliding down, gasping as my body strained to part for him, aching, burning...

  I gasped.

  Once more I snapped back to the present, pushing my knees together hard, feeling absolutely fed up with myself, and with the moisture now accumulating between my thighs.

  “God damn it!” I shouted in desperation, pushing my chair back from the desk, feeling totally fed up with myself. Derek was now outside, drilling into the wood almost as vigorously as he'd been drilling into me.

  I couldn't keep dealing with this. I seriously needed to get these papers done.

  I needed him to leave for the night, and come back when I was out of the house. I would ask him to leave, come back in and masturbate vigorously to these ridiculous fantasies, and then he would be out of my system.

  Simple enough, right?

  But as I slipped out of my study and thundered down the hall toward the front door, I really should have known by then that things were never as simple as I expected them to be when it came to men...

  “Excuse me... Excuse me... EXCUSE ME!”

  Derek was still drilling when I came out to interrupt him, but I had a hard time believing that the sound of the drill would have been nearly loud enough to constitute him being unable to hear me. It felt like a power play, a way to minimize me. Although given how defensive I was feeling about this whole situation, it's entirely possible that I was looking for signs of something that wasn't there.

  Finally, Derek drew to attention, and I nearly passed out from the effort of keeping my eyes on his as he turned to face me, instead of on his rock hard body, dripping so abundantly with sweat that he resembled some sort of marine mammal.

  “Oh hey Ronice,” he said, with a sly half smile, abandoning any pretense of tact as his eyes roved up and down along my own body. It was strange, I thought- moments ago I'd been craving this man's attention, but up close I knew that it wasn't of a kind I actually desired. His bearing, and the way he spoke to me, all reeked of a power play. I could tell that he was one of those men who made it his automatic mission to project superiority over any woman he met. It annoyed the hell out of me, knowing that I'd clawed my way to the position I was in and was far more successful than he would ever be in his life, and he still treated me like I was inferior to him.

  “Call me Miss Milton,” I insisted, my voice laced with palpable tension.

  “You got it, boss,” he said, and his cocksure tone made it feel like a defeat.

  I took a deep breath and tried to let this one slide. I just wanted him out of here already so I could do my work in peace.

  “Listen, do you think you could pack up for the night and continue tomorrow? It's getting pretty late, after all.”

  “No can do,” he said. “Busy tomorrow. Want to get this section finished up before I head out.”

  I blinked at him, more taken aback than I should have been.

  “Well,” I said, though I really shouldn't have had to explain myself, “it's just that I'm trying to get some work done...”

  “What do you think I'm doing?” he asked. “And this is real work...”

  Jesus, what the hell? I gritted my teeth at him and could tell that my nostrils were flaring with anger. Had he forgotten just who was working for who, or had he gotten so used to walking all over women that he thought he could get away with talking to me like this?

  And of course, I let him, but just barely.

  “Yeah, well, your real work is extremely loud and distracting to me. And it's going to get dark out soon, which means the neighbors are going to start complaining about the noise as well before long. So I would really, really appreciate it if you could do as I asked you, and come back at another time.”

  “Damn, relax a bit why don't you? Seriously...”

  He was still smiling at me with that shit-eating grin, and I was starting to get frustrated with it.

  “You know, maybe I would relax if the person I hired to do a job actually did as he was asked and if the men in my life didn't all act like they were high and mighty over me! You're all the same, and I'm getting to about the end of my rope with your bullshit!”

  “Jesus, PMS much?”

  I blinked at him. My mouth hung limply open for a moment, and I tried to wrap my head around what he'd just said. I'd put up with my share of sexism over the years, but more often than not it consisted of microaggressions. Obnoxious behavior that, though irritating as hell, was often more of a blind spot for men than it was an outright attack on my gender. In a perverse way, I think it was almost refreshing for this dullard standing in front of me to come out and say exactly what was on so many other men's minds whenever a woman stood up to them.

  In any case, if I'd needed any other excuse to get rid of him before now, he'd just gone to the trouble of handing it to me on a silver platter.

  I stared him straight in the eyes, doing my best to match that smile of his with one of my own.

  “You're fired,” I said decisively. “Pack up all your shit and get off my property. I'll hire someone else. Someone who actually respects me.”

  He looked at me for a moment, and it was gratifying to see how surprised he was at my boldness. He hadn't thought I would actually go through with it, not in a million years. And I'd just proven him dead wrong.

  He seemed to search for the right words for a moment, staring at me for a long time as though expecting I would suddenly change my mind about the decision. I didn't, and he reacted exactly how I might have expected.

  “Respect isn't given, sweetheart. It's earned. You think just because you're a woman you deserve any more respect than anyone else?”

  “If this is how you respect the average person,” I snapped, “I would hate to see your idea of disrespect. “Just get the hell out of here, don't make me call the cops.”

  I was done with him. I had no patience for whatever asinine counterargument he would surely come up with to try and fight me on this. I was just done.

  Or so I thought.

  I stormed back around toward the house, still furious, but at least feeling as though I'd managed to gain the upper hand.r />
  That all changed in the blink of an eye, as I felt my right foot sinking into the ground, and my weight giving out beneath me.

  I screamed.

  I fell like a timbered tree, slamming to the ground with my hands out beneath me, trying and just barely managing to catch myself. A wretched pain shot through my leg, and my wrists gave out too so that I ended up falling completely face down in the dirt.

  I wanted desperately to cry, and even more to avoid doing so, but in the end, my emotions won over.

  I began to openly weep, struggling to lift myself when the sound of footsteps came charging toward me.

  “Oh my God, are you alright?” Derek asked, and at that moment I wanted nothing more than for him to disappear.

  He reached down to try and help me, but I was still pissed off at him, and more at myself for allowing this display of weakness in front of him. I shooed away his hand and made another go at lifting myself up off the ground, but the pain was just too much.

  “Here,” he said, and finally he managed to get his hands on me, sending shivers along my body in the process.

  “I think it's broken,” I whimpered, my jaw seizing up as I tried to put weight on my injured leg.

  “Just calm down. Relax. Let me help you inside.”

  And before I knew it, I was being lifted up into the air. Cradled in those massive arms, pulled close against his bare chest. His warm breath simmered against my skin, the sensation more powerful than the ache in my leg as he whisked me toward the house.

  I did my best not to look at him, ashamed and humiliated, and wanting him at that moment far more than I cared to admit to myself.

  What the hell had I just gotten myself into, I wondered, as he carried me in through the sliding door, and brought me down the hall, and into my bedroom.