AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Except in my daydreams, where I’m endlessly exotic and sophisticated, I don’t wear a lot of makeup. Mr. Grimm doesn’t seem to favor it, and there’s no reason to get dolled up for my usual job of running around after screaming, giggling preschoolers. Still, a visitor is coming, and for the slightest moment, I wish I was prettier than I am.
Then the elevator doors open, and Hawk Majors steps out into the corridor. The instant he sees me, he freezes as his expression hardens. His gaze then warms and he grins.
“Hawk.”I gasp the name out loud, or I’m pretty sure I speak it aloud, but in my head it’s the breathy murmur that Margaret and Belinda and Henrietta and Miranda and Juliette and Anastasia and all the other Richardsons have perfected over the years, their voices lush and sophisticated and totally mature, their beautifully painted lips parted and inviting. Because it’s always been Hawk Majors who’s appeared in my daydreams at exactly the right moment, no matter where in the world I imagine myself to be, as big and tall and strong and rough and brutal as he was the day he walked out of my life.
Now he’s back, and all my daydreams are nothing compared to the excitement now swelling inside my chest.
“Hawk!” I try again. This time my voice is barely more than a squeal, because I’m up and running around the desk, five long years of abject loneliness falling away as I launch myself toward him. He’s exactly how I remember—maybe a little tanner, a little less tired—but the same dark blonde hair, the same square jaw, the same firm mouth and sharp, endlessly searching ice blue eyes. His powerful body is braced, his hands jerking up instinctively as I leap for him. I’d barrel over a lesser man, but Hawk merely takes my weight and size in stride, adjusting easily as he swings me around. His bark of laughter is surprised and heartfelt, and his ordinarily fearsome face is transformed as he smiles wide.
“Well hello there, honeybee—”
“You came back!” And what happens next is something I should’ve seen coming, should’ve thought more about, because for five long and lonely years I’ve been thinking—dreaming—imagining this man holding me in his arms exactly the way he’s doing now, looking so rugged and handsome and impossibly beautiful that of course I have to follow with the next thing I always do when Hawk Majors, the Grimm family’s most brutal and terrifying enforcer, finally blows back into my life a second time and sweeps me off my feet, making all my dreams come true…
I kiss him.
