AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Denise thought a moment, then smiled, her face lighting up. Jimmy stood there stunned. Yeah, the woman was gorgeous, her smiles like a lifeboat for a drowning man.
But they only left him treading water.
“That sounds perfect,” Denise said, waving a still stunned Jimmy off so he could put in their order.
Leaning back, AJ clasped his hands in his lap and stared across at Denise. In the mid-morning sun, she was beautiful. Her golden hair like a halo around her head, her bright blue eyes, beguiling in color, but striking in obvious hunger.
The thought of taking her back to his place and feeding that hunger made his cock twitch. She was the Swan he’d been fantasizing about, so his reaction was normal. Expected. She was everything a man like him could want. A walking fantasy of sensual perfection. His body demanded he reply to her blatant invitation by dragging her back to his truck and fucking her in the backseat. But his mind told him to wait. That he needed to clarify some things before he allowed his dick anywhere near her—even if she was Swan.
His heart, however, was quiet. Almost…detached. As if guarding itself.
Against Swan, though? Why?
“So, tell me why,” he demanded lightly. He was eager to know all, but he didn’t want to push her too hard to fast. The Swan of their emails was vulnerable, skittish. She’d clam up and he wouldn’t get his answers.
His gaze on Denise, he pictured her ducking her head shyly, or smiling coyly, or blushing, or…hiding behind her computer screen at all, the socially awkward, book nerd she proclaimed to be.
His thoughts turned to Maeve, as they too often did. She blushed. She smiled coyly. She tucked her chin into her chest when embarrassed. She was vulnerable, soft, gentle, but there was a fire there, a strength, a sensual spirit that blazed to life when he kissed her.
Maeve was equal parts fragile and fierce. Stop, you’re trying to make Denise—Swan—sound like Maeve.
Denise, furrowing her manicured eyebrows at him, seemed more brittle than fragile.
“Why what?” she asked, lifting her water glass to her mouth and taking a sip. Her killer red lipstick leaving behind a deep red stain on the rim of the glass.
“Why did you send that first email? I mean, you have to know you’re a beautiful woman.” She visibly preened, her eyelashes fluttering. “Why did you feel like you couldn’t just approach me, ask me on a real date?”
“Well, if you remember, I tried that when you were in Miami.”
“True. But why not email me as yourself without all the pretense about needing to speak about business?” She’d been emailing him, texting him, and calling him regularly since they’d met in Miami several months ago. It didn’t make sense that she would create a whole separate identity just to talk to him. “Why not just be upfront?”
“I was scared you’d turn me down again. And I wanted to be able to be my real self with you. I can’t tell you how many men come on to me just because of my looks. I mean, yes, I’m attractive, but there’s more to me than that, you know.” She huffed, lifting her nose into the air with feigned indigence. The woman had no problem being ogled. Which begged the question—why had she’d been so scared to reveal herself? Why run from him Friday night when the lights came on?
Just another question to add to the growing list.
“Of course, there is more to you,” he agreed. “Like mugs and baking,” he offered.
“Huh?”
“There’s more to you than your looks, like your mug collection, and baking cookies.”
Something flashed behind her eyes.
She fumbled a laugh. “Oh. Right.”
“Why do you collect mugs if you don’t drink coffee?”
Her eyes widened quickly as if caught, but she quickly recovered. “Well, I make a mean mulled cider.”
“Not mocha chocolate lattes? Your email said you can’t go a morning without them.”
She flushed, stammering, “Oh, yes, but decaf only.” She smirked, her painted lips curling suggestively. “I’ll have to make you some…when you come over. There’s nothing like a hot cup of mocha or cider on chilly mornings.”
Mornings? Because he’d come over the night before and stay until the morning?
Her words hit him…wrong. Instead of the cockstand he should have gotten from her overt invitation to fuck, he felt nothing. His dick had lost interest in Denise once thoughts of Maeve surfaced. The woman was a cockblocker without meaning to be.
“Come over? To Miami?” he asked, something like panic suffusing his blood.
Denise slapped his arm playfully, rolling her eyes. “No, silly. My house here. I’m moving to Jackson Key. We can be together now.”
That panic he felt moments before morphed sharply into dread as the implication of her words settled in his gut. His Swan was moving to Jackson Key, to be closer to him, so they could be together. He’d be able to kiss her, hold her, and finally make love to her. After that kiss in the dark, he was more than eager to take her mouth and then worship her body as he been longing to do for months.
So why did the thought of Denise, his Swan, wanting to take the next step in their relationship make his guts twist?
And why did the thought of Maeve seeing him with Denise make his heart ache?
