by Mlissa | Sep 14, 2013 | Uncategorized
It’s the third Saturday of the current college football season and so far so good…
Before anyone kicks off today, I’ll be working hard on edits and revisions of Slide Down On Me, but before we get there, Snippet Saturday comes first.
Be My Baby. Remember that song? Brings to mind Dirty Dancing with Patrick Swazye and his death still breaks my heart. It was a great movie and one I should watch again soon.
Until then, I must find a snippet for you to read…
Johnny groaned. ”Ask.”
”This has trouble with a capital T written all over it.”
”What does?” He looked genuinely confused by her statement, but how could he not see it? She saw it plain as day.
”You. Me.” She waved a hand between them. ”This.”
”I don’t understand.”
”Then think about it for a second, okay? You live this larger than life, life. You’re a rock star and you should live whatever life you want. But I’m a small-time writer in Orlando. I live a quiet life. Full, but quiet.”
”You’re just…” Johnny shook his head and started pacing. Back and forth at the end of the bed. He finally stopped and turned to face her, hands on his hips, pants riding low, tattoos beautiful and full of color in the late afternoon sun coming off the water through the window. ”You want me to move to Orlando? I’ll put my house up first thing. You want to live apart for a while? I’ll rent a place close to you and we can have regular date nights. I won’t—“
”Johnny—“ She started to interrupt him, to stop him, but he kept talking.
”Even wear leather anymore,” he finished.
”Don’t even joke about that,” she said, serious as she’d ever been about anything. The leather was… He knew how much she loved him in leather. For him to use it against her, well, that was just wrong. ”I appreciate the gestures you’re willing to make.”
”Gestures? These aren’t gestures, Liz. These are changing my life thoughts and words and moves. I want you in my day-to-day life. Any way I can get you there. You’ve been with me through everything, thick and thin, for the last five years. I found you again. Don’t you get that? You were one of my closest friends in school, and for the last five years you’ve been my best friend. I can be me with you and there aren’t many people I can say that about. I don’t have to pretend when I’m with you. I don’t have to put on a face for the camera. I don’t have to do anything other than be me, and underneath the rock star image, I am a man. A very simple man who wants love and wants to give it.”
”You are anything but a simple man, Johnny Trouble,” she stated with deep affection and tears that were threatening to clog her throat. His words were what dreams were made of. ”And you always could write a love song,” she complimented.
”I am simple. At the heart of me, you know I am. I want you, Liz. I’m done touring. I’m not done writing, but I’m done touring. I spent the first twenty years of my adult life living out my childhood dreams. I want to spend the next twenty years living out my adult dreams, which, my love, very much include you.”
”Oh.” Beyond that, she was at a loss for words. She didn’t know what else to say. He seemed to have covered everything, and while a part of her still had concerns and would likely always have concerns to some extent, Johnny never said anything that he didn’t mean. Especially to her.
”Oh? Really, that’s all you have to say? Oh?” He laughed a little. ”I want to wake up with you, every day. In our bed, in a home that we share. I want it all, Liz.”
”You’ve had it all, Johnny.” One last feeble attempt at reason. That was all she had the resolve for. Here was a man who she’d known for most of her life, had shared deep desires with, had given her heart to years ago. He was famous, had done things which made him infamous and had always been there when she needed him, just as she had done when he needed her.
In this room, far from everything he knew, and even far away from what she knew now, everything seemed possible when he put it all out there in plain words.
”Then call me greedy, because I want more,” he added. ”I want a whole hell of a lot more. With you. Ask.”
”Will you come back? Please? As soon as you can? As soon as you’re finished? Will you come back? Will you stay?” The words rushed through her lips and filled the space between where she sat in the middle of the bed to the end where he’d come to a complete stop. The shirt in his hand was forgotten, dropped on the floor, and he was on his knees on the mattress, leaning toward her with earnest, ice-colored eyes.
Buy Links: Ellora’s Cave, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, All Romance eBooks
Now, there are several blogs for you to check out on other blogs. Afterward, if you watch college football, best of luck to your teams… If you don’t, why not? LOL…
Lauren Dane
Caris Roane
Eliza Gayle
McKenna Jeffries
Shiloh Walker
Taige Crenshaw
Delilah Devlin
HelenKay Dimon
Myla Jackson
TJ Michaels
Leah Braemel
~lissa
by Mlissa | Sep 7, 2013 | Uncategorized
There was a really great review this week on Cracklin’ Rosie and it was one I hadn’t been expecting to show up in my Twitter feed. I don’t typically read reviews anymore, but that one out of the blue surprised me enough that I had to take a peek. I was glad I did. The reviewer loved it, which is always nice. But it got me thinking about the book and how much I loved it myself and how much I’d loved writing it.
And the hero, Decker, yeah he ends up in the doghouse a few times…
He left. She couldn’t believe he just left after a kiss like that. He left her with a throbbing sex, a pounding heart, a confused head and lips wanting so many more kisses. And an ass…
She retraced her steps to the back of the cabin and quickly cleared away the rest of the dinner dishes. Decker had cleaned the grill while she got dessert out, and all that was left for her now was loading the dishwasher and putting the veggies in plastic storage bags.
The evening was still cooling but with him near, she hadn’t noticed. Now that he was gone, she was chillier than usual. She pulled a lightweight blanket from the storage container she kept on the deck near the chairs. She had Adirondack and rocking chairs and often liked to sit outside with her laptop as she researched recipes or wrote on her blog. She flopped down into one of the Adirondack’s and draped her legs over the wide arm.
She wiggled, trying to find the best spot, trying to stop the tingling in her ass at his remembered words. She was shocked that she’d let it show on her face how his mention of a spanking affected her. He’d caught her staring at him as well…how embarrassing. But damn. How could he just leave her like that? How could he turn tail and run after that?
“That son of a…”
Well, she just hoped he was in as much discomfort as she was. No, that wasn’t right. She hoped he was in more discomfort, bordering on pain. The man was a gorgeous tease.
She touched her fingertips to her lips and swore she could feel the heat from his lingering there, but that was just a fanciful notion. She could still hear his voice in her head, his words echoing through every cell in her body. “I think we’re going to find out soon.” He wanted her, told her so, and looking in his dark eyes, she knew he was telling the truth.
She pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders and sank deeper into the deck chair. Damn man. She couldn’t get comfortable and she kept squeezing her thighs together to try and do what, she wasn’t sure. The pressure only increased the need for release, the need for him. He hadn’t touched her in any sexual way yet, but if she closed her eyes and thought about it, she could feel those rough calloused hands on her body, sliding over her hips, spreading her legs, spanking her, scratching her tender skin in a caress…
And that bit of scruff on his face, that longer-than-average hair, that mouth caressing her…
She wanted him to come back. She wanted him to stay the hell away from her.
“Fuck this.” Rosie stood and dropped the blanket into the chair, then walked inside the house, closing and locking the door behind her.
A few minutes later she had her sneakers on and was on her way to the diner. She needed to do something, anything to get her mind off him, off what they could be doing right that very moment if he’d not left.
“I didn’t need him before he showed up, and I don’t need him now. What the hell was I thinking letting him get close?”
Muttering to herself always fueled her anger and frustration but at the same time, it always helped her figure things out.
When she came to the turn in the road that would take her into the center of town, Rosie stopped. She loved the little town. She loved the quaintness of it, that it had small novelty shops, antique stores, the bar and grill, the coffee shop that wasn’t a chain but rather owned and operated by a couple of local moms, the tiny hole-in-the-wall art gallery featuring local artists, a local artisan jewelry-maker. It was home to her and if she ever felt love for anything or anyone outside of food, her diner and her family, it was this town and its residents.
Putting one foot in front of the other, she started walking again. Half a mile from the edge of downtown sat her diner. The lights glowed from inside and from what she could see, it was still pretty well packed with people. It was a 24-hour place and oddly enough, it kept a steady clientele at all hours, especially on the weekends.
Cool air hit her when she opened the door and went inside. A few patrons waved and said hello, including Blue, her best childhood friend. She was sitting at the end of the counter, eating a piece of cherry pie. It was Rosie’s mother’s recipe and one of the favorites. Another was the blackberry cobbler. Her banana pudding didn’t do too badly either.
Crap.
Just thinking about banana pudding made her think of Decker, and she could feel the scowl take over her face. She didn’t want to think about him, not tonight, not anymore. She was done with him. She wanted him to fix her roof and leave. Heck, she wasn’t even sure she wanted him to fix the roof anymore. She’d find someone else to do it or damn, she’d leave it the way it was. She just wanted him gone.
As she passed through into the kitchen, she headed straight for the small walk-in cooler. She needed something to do and this was it. She’d inherited it from her mother. Cleaning out the fridge. The one in her house was spic-and-span, spotless and very tidy, this one though—this one could always use a good purging and organizing. And even if it didn’t, she’d do it anyway. It would keep her mind occupied and the cold would ease the heat still flowing through her blood that had nothing to do with the walk she just took and everything to do with him.
“What has you upset tonight?”
Blue’s sweet, soft voice floated in on the thin air as she stood just inside the doorway to the cooler. She walked in and closed the door behind her.
“Nothing has me upset.” Only irritated, horny, aching from the inside out.
“Okay.”
Rosie started at the back of the walk-in. Everything was in a haphazard array. “Sometimes I think they do this because they know eventually I’ll come in and fix it all.”
“Probably.”
She picked up a couple small containers of potato salad ingredients and put them on a tray on a shelf near the door. Next she moved the macaroni salad, the coleslaw and the egg salad to another tray on the same shelf. The individual lidded cups that held salad dressings were stacked neatly by flavor—ranch, blue cheese, Italian and French.
“Why aren’t you talking?” she asked Blue. The other woman had come to stand next to Rosie and began arranging the salad fixings on the trays beneath the shelf that held the dressings and other condiments when Rosie moved on to the next rack. Thank heavens for labels with dates.
“Because I know you will, and I don’t want to distract you from it.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” It wouldn’t do her any good to tell Blue there was nothing to talk about. Blue knew her better than anyone else in town.
“Okay.”
The one-word answers were Blue’s way of being patient, and she knew Rosie would cave and spill her guts. Shit. “The man here to fix my roof, the one Caroline’s guy brought out here from California… We had dinner tonight. He’s been coming on to me and hitting on me and so I finally said yes.” She left out the part about the kiss in the diner earlier that morning.
“Good. Is he…you know, like you? Like me?”
“No no no. Not good.” To emphasize her point, she took a plastic container from the back corner of a shelf and tossed it into the garbage bag she’d grabbed on her way into the cooler. It wasn’t often, but she sometimes found containers that had been pushed to the back of a shelf or two that she didn’t want to open. Usually it was someone’s lunch or dinner they’d meant to eat or take home that in the hustle and bustle of the diner never made it to its intended destination.
She turned and faced her friend. “It’s not good, Blue. You know how I am, how I have tried to keep that part of me away from here. I can’t imagine the freakish looks I’d get if people knew about the club in Atlanta or the things I’m into.”
“So, that means, he’s into those things too? That is good. You need that, Rosie. You always have, or at least you have since you found it. And no one around here has to ever know what goes on in your house. They don’t have to know what goes on in private at all.”
“I barely know him, and it’s just not right that he can read me like he can.”
“Why not? We both know how hard it is.”
“Yeah, I do. But not you. You’ve always embraced your kinks. You’ve never cared what people think or might think.”
“Why do you?”
“I run a business. It wouldn’t look right.”
“Again, why does anyone have to know? You should stop being scared of the what-if’s Rosie and give in to the what is. Maybe this guy would be good for you if you’d just let him try. Stop fighting so hard and maybe you wouldn’t have to make the trek to Atlanta anymore.”
Blue was right, and Rosie knew it. She just didn’t like it, and she hoped if she just ignored it, ignored him, avoided him it would go away. And…as soon as her roof was done, he’d leave town, and she wouldn’t wonder about him anymore, wouldn’t want his kisses anymore, wouldn’t want hot sex and to try out those belts of his, wouldn’t want him to cook for her again.
Buy Links: All Romance eBooks | Amazon Kindle | Barnes and Noble | iBooks | Kobo | Powell’s | Samhain Publishing
Now, there are other blogs for you to read snippets on, and I need to get some writing in before the first kick-off at noon…
Lauren Dane
Caris Roane
Eliza Gayle
McKenna Jeffries
Shiloh Walker
Taige Crenshaw
Delilah Devlin
HelenKay Dimon
Myla Jackson
TJ Michaels
~lissa
by Mlissa | Aug 31, 2013 | Uncategorized
It’s College GameDay! First Saturday of the 2013 football season and I’ve finally sat down. I’ve been in the kitchen today making yummy snacks, nothing fancy just enough that I don’t have to move from the couch and go cook, only go refill the plate.
Today’s snippet is going to be from my upcoming Ellora’s Cave release, Slide Down On Me. I don’t have a release date yet, but oh boy I can’t wait! Oh and if you haven’t had the chance to view the cover, I’ll give you a few minutes to pull your tongue back in your mouth…
You good now? Okay… How ’bout a snippet?
“Twenty-five hundred dollars?” Bella barely got the words out before she had to close her mouth. Her throat seized up and nausea rolled through her belly. She was going to throw up. That’s all there was to it. If she said anything more, her breakfast of toast and coffee from several hours earlier were going to be all over the garage floor. They probably wouldn’t even notice, given the stains of oil, gasoline and what she could only hope were other car fluids dotting the concrete.
“Close. Twenty-five hundred, sixty-seven dollars and thirty-nine cents.”
Bella lifted her gaze to meet that of the man standing in front of her. He was as gorgeous as ever. His cobalt eyes held no hint of emotion, no matter the sarcasm that dripped from his lips, but she was riveted by them just the same.
His arms were covered in tattoos, which disappeared under his short-sleeve shirt and drifted up the sides of his neck. Black hair brushed his collar and was so dark that in the right light, one could swear it shown blue. He was tall, broad and she’d wondered for years how it would feel to have those rough mechanic’s hands on her skin.
She’d had a secret crush on him when she was growing up. She’d see him around around town and out on the lake, but they were from two different worlds and though their paths rarely crossed, when he was near, she was always acutely aware of him. “I…I don’t have access to that kind of money anymore, Travis,” she said quietly. No thanks to her brother. Humility seemed to be her new best friend, but in front of Travis? That was a new level she wasn’t exactly comfortable with.
Heat bloomed in her cheeks, but at the same time she refused to show the embarrassment she felt in every cell of her body. She wanted to get out, run as far as she could, but there was nowhere for her to go, no place for her to hide from it all. And now, thanks to the transmission in her car, no way for her to get anywhere. She squared her shoulders and swallowed past the queasiness.
“That’s as low as I can go, Bella.”
Bella sighed. “Going that low or lower or raising the number doesn’t matter. Not even the sixty-seven thirty-nine. At least not until pay day, but that might even be a stretch.” Her voice sounded stronger than she felt it should under the circumstances, but she’d take it. He might be sexier than a man in ugly blue coveralls ought to have the right to be, but she wouldn’t let him be the one to break her. “Can you hold the car for a little while? A couple of days until I can figure something out?”
“Don’t generally do that for anyone other than friends. The lot is pretty small, you see,” he observed, looking over her out the bay door. “I don’t want legit customers thinking I can’t take care of them because there’s a fancy piece sittin’ out front.”
She ignored his emphasis on the word piece. His hard-as-marble tone was better than the condescending or mocking ones she usually heard from some of the people in town, though. She once thought Travis might have had a thing for her too, but she guessed that was well and truly dead now. She might have been able to flirt her way out of a few hundred dollars years ago, but not now. “It’s a Cadillac. People drive them all the time. Please, Travis. Just a couple of days until I get paid on Friday.”
Please had become the most-used word in her vocabulary. She’d always used it, along with thank you, excuse me, yes ma’am, no sir among other courteous terms, but they had all taken on whole new meanings since she was no longer the heiress who lived in a mansion. She was a regular person now, working class, and while she’d never looked down her nose at anyone, she’d learned quickly that her perceptions were vastly different than the perceptions of the average person.
He stared at her with unblinking, cold eyes. He probably trusted her about as far as he could throw her, but her word was pretty much all she had anymore and she’d been trying hard to stick to it.
“It was all I could do to get it here this morning. You know I don’t have any way to get it back to the lake or anywhere else to keep it.”
He heaved a sigh. “Until Friday. Not a day later.”
Relief swelled inside her and she smiled. “Friday. Yes. Th-thank you, Travis. Thank you. I have to get back to work, but I’ll be in touch Friday when I get off.” She turned, her heart thumping in her chest, her mind whirling with the fact that she had no way to come up with the money to get her car fixed in so short a time frame, but at least she had a couple of days to deal with it.
His voice from behind abruptly stopped her forward progress.
“Do you need a ride?”
Bella masked the lust his words brought to the surface before she turned to face him again. Yes, she’d love a ride. A long, hard, naked ride. On him. He hadn’t moved but she could’ve sworn there was a flair of heat between them. Maybe he wasn’t as indifferent as he’d have her believe. “N-no. I walked here from work. I can walk back. I don’t want to owe you any more than I already do.”
Travis shrugged, the gesture full of indifference. “Suit yourself. Have a good day then.”
This has been a fun book to work on. The edits so far are a bitch, but the book itself… It’s fun and HOT!
I’m going to settle in for football and you have other snippets to take in on the following blogs:
Lauren Dane
Caris Roane
Eliza Gayle
McKenna Jeffries
Shiloh Walker
Taige Crenshaw
Delilah Devlin
HelenKay Dimon
Myla Jackson
Shelli Stevens
Jody Wallace
Felicity Heaton
Leah Braemel
Mari Carr
~lissa
by Mlissa | Aug 24, 2013 | Uncategorized
We’ve all had this happen, haven’t we? Boyfriends, lovers, even friends. They come and go and come and go and at some point (hopefully) we get to the point where enough is enough and we scream and yell or just tell them to go. Our hearts can only take so much and we need to heal and they need to stop draggin’ it and us through the mud.
And then again, sometimes, we’re the ones draggin’ our own hearts around…
Justin liked exposing her where they might or might not get caught. The thing that made it okay, made it better, made her want it more was that he was willing to expose himself too. He would stand by her, stick with her and take the brunt of anything if someone caught them.
He was slowly, or rather not so slowly, showing her the risk of being vulnerable. The pleasure of such was high if she trusted him, and his protection of her was worth everything.
“I want them to smell sex on you. I want them to smell me on you.”
“It’ll single me out. I don’t like that.”
“Why not?”
“Because you won’t be with me.” That was the crux of the matter. She was helpless and hopeless in the best of ways when it came to him, especially when he was with her, but when he wasn’t, when she was on her own, she was shy, uncertain in most things save her job. Divorce had been a big personal chance she had taken on her own and she’d made a life by herself, but she honestly didn’t want to live alone or exist alone. Sure she had friends, but what she really wanted was a lover, a man to share life with. She’d had a man, but not a lover and well, hell, she needed and craved and hungered for the lover part of the equation. It was as important as talking and communicating. At least to her. She’d lived enough years with just talking and no real communication, no intimacy or physical affection that being lonely had been inevitable.
She didn’t want that again. She didn’t want to be alone. She’d learned she could do it—she just didn’t want to. She didn’t want the dating scene either. Her single friends from work had enough horror stories about trying to date that Ella didn’t want to venture into those waters.
“I’m always with you, baby. Every word I’ve ever said to you is either inside your head or just a push of an app button away in your email.”
And that was true. “But you won’t be there holding my hand or there for me to hide my face against.”
“Why would you want to hide? Hell baby, you know how many people would be envious of what we’ve been doing the last few days?”
She didn’t know, but she could remember when she had been envious of people that had that same kind of wild and crazy sex life. If anyone had told her a year ago that she’d be sitting in the lap of a twenty-nine year old bartender-fireman in an airport parking garage having sex, she’d have told them they were just shy of admittance to the nut house.
Yet here she was.
If anyone had told her a year ago that she’d be divorced and free to be having sex in the lap of a twenty-nine year old bartender fireman, she’d have told them they were a few watts short of a light bulb. She’d have immediately hoped for and wanted it, but she wouldn’t have believed it possible, wouldn’t have believed herself fed up enough with mediocre and status quo.
Yet, there she was.
“I need to go,” she said.
“I don’t think so, Ella.”
“Justin, the time.” She looked at her watch. “I—”
“Not that.”
“Then what?”
His hands gripped the hair that framed her face. He twisted his fingers in the strands and held her head immobile, his gaze intense and dark, mesmerizing. She was once again amazed at the many different facets of her cowboy’s personality. “I don’t think I love you. I don’t think you think you love me either. I know I love you. I’ve known for a long ass time that I loved you, and we’ve both known you loved me too.”
“Justin, I—”
“You’re just scared to say it without qualification or justification and that’s okay. You’ll get there.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” she said, leaning her forehead against his.
“It was supposed to be exactly like this. Now, you’re right. You do need to go. I don’t want you to miss your flight. Your job is important to you, and that makes it important to me.”
“What about after, though?” The worried tone was back in her voice.
“You’ll know what to do and whatever you decide is best, I’ll be here to support you.”
At first, she wasn’t sure they were talking about the same thing, but as she stared at those eyes, crystal clear but for the love shining back at her, she realized they were talking about the exact same thing. He was leaving it up to her, the direction or not, of their relationship.
She nodded, and he kissed the tip of her nose before opening his door and helping her down from his lap to the ground. She leaned against the inside of the door and adjusted her skirt, and did her best on the wrinkles in her top. She might need to make a few shopping stops once she got to New Orleans. She turned to him in time to see him adjusting his jeans. She hated to see his cock put away. He was gorgeous enough that he should walk around naked all the time.
She giggled at her fanciful thoughts. Must be the after hot sex in the truck giggles.
He handed her her purse and reached back for her laptop and carry-on bag and handed both of those to her as well. “You ready?” He got out of the truck and shut the door, locking it behind him.
“Yeah.” She wasn’t really. She didn’t want to leave him, but at the same time, she needed to get away from him. When he was near, it played tricks on her mind and all she wanted was him, day and night, night and day. She needed a break, her body needed a break, her head needed a break, but damn…. Leaving him again was hard. Leaving him again without knowing what was going to happen next was hard.
She took one step and another and had just started to take another when a gust of wind blew through the garage. The scent of sex coming from her was stronger than she’d imagined it would be. It was as though he held his come-coated fingers right beneath her nose.
Heat crept up her neck and into her cheeks. She dared a look up at him, and the grin on his face told her that he’d caught a whiff of it too. Damn.
He took her hand. “C’mon baby. I don’t want anything to delay you coming back to me.”
She didn’t budge when he tugged. He turned to her with a raised brow. The challenge was there in his green eyes, and she hoped there was challenge staring back at him from hers. “Coming back to you? I thought you said it was my decision where we went from here?”
“It is your decision.”
“Then why did you assume I’d be coming back to you?”
He tugged and she started walking, her hand firmly clasped in his and though she might be a bit irritated at him, she didn’t want him to let go of her. Not by a long shot. Instead though, for good measure, she huffed out an irritated sigh.
“I wasn’t assuming anything.”
“You said coming back to you. That’s assuming that that’s what I will decide.”
Buy Links: All Romance eBooks | Amazon | Barnes and Noble | iBooks | Kobo | Samhain Publishing
I need to get writing and editing and you have the following blogs to visit for more snippets…
Lauren Dane
Caris Roane
Eliza Gayle
McKenna Jeffries
Shiloh Walker
Taige Crenshaw
Delilah Devlin
HelenKay Dimon
Myla Jackson
Felicity Heaton
TJ Michaels
~lissa
by Mlissa | Aug 17, 2013 | Uncategorized
Smooth operators.We’ve all known them, right? They deliver smooth lines, quick with compliments, and in general give you the willies. They make your spine feel as though a snake is slithering and you can’t wait to get away.
The Sade song, Smooth Operator, comes to mind when you see the words. At least for me it did.
But, maybe there’s another kind. The one who means the lines, who means the compliments, who doesn’t give you the willies, but instead works his way under your skin before you even know what’s hit you. He can be the good one, the fun one, the right one…
Of course, what about the smooth friend? The one who tricks you without you even realizing what he’s up to and all for your own good…
“He drove all the way into the city, and he left just like that?” Edward questioned. He drained the rest of his latte and carefully wiped his mouth. Jane wanted to slug him for always being neat and tidy and so put together when half the time, she was less than all that.
“Yep.” What the hell was up with that? All because she told him to go? He didn’t have to give up so easily.
She really was better off that he did go, she knew that. There were just too many complications that came with being involved with a man like him. Life would be simpler without the want, the lust, the sheer hunger to crawl naked all over him.
If he had stayed, would she have given in? Of course she would have. She huffed out a frustrated sigh. She needed to shed the leftover shit from her relationship with Phillip. More than anything, reminders lingering in the house weren’t helping her move on. What was that thing about writing a letter and then burning it being somehow cathartic? Would the same hold true if she burned all the stuff he’d left at her door? Most of it was what she’d given him as gifts, so perhaps that would count as sort of her “letter.”
Indecision gnawed at her. Might be worth a shot. She didn’t want to hold on to someone that had walked away without a backward glance. She didn’t want to hold on to someone she had proved to herself she could live without, even if she had done so while consuming untold pounds of chocolate.
“Hey.” Edward snapped his fingers in front of her face. She blinked and focused on him.
“What?”
“Where’d you go? I was talking to you and you zoned out on me.”
“I’m tired,” she lied. “You know I don’t get up until the sun is high overhead.”
“Time to get over that. C’mon, finish up.”
“It’s illegal to be this perky this early.” Jane lowered her head to the table. “I don’t want to go shopping.”
“Liar.”
“Am not,” she whined. “You said we were going out for breakfast and coffee.”
“And we did. Now, I want to go shopping and don’t want to go alone, so you’re going with me.”
“What about your date from last night. Why not call him to go with you?”
“Because he’s the reason I’m going shopping.”
Edward usually didn’t need a reason to add to his wardrobe, but this was kind of interesting. “Are you ever going to tell me about this guy?”
“Are you ever going to stop moping around the apartment?”
Oh that was low. He was right, but still a low blow. “I’m not moping at the apartment right now.”
“No, you’re moping in this lovely little café.”
“I wouldn’t have to if you hadn’t promised me espresso drinks and pastries I don’t have to make.”
“I’m a sneaky bitch.” Edward winked at her and Jane couldn’t stop the laugh that bubbled up but she did her best to cover it up with a sip of espresso. Straight, unsweetened, smooth, rich espresso. If that didn’t wake her up, nothing would.
“That you are.” She took a big gulp of air and let it out in a huff. “Two stores. No more and if you don’t find what you’re looking for, tough.”
“Four stores and I’ll buy you lunch.”
“Three stores and you buy me lunch anyway.”
“Deal. And you have to try on this hot little black dress I saw yesterday.”
“No deal on that. I don’t need a little black dress, hot or not. I don’t want any new clothes. You can’t tempt me with them.”
“Again with the lies.” Edward shook his head. “Jane honey, you do need that dress and you do need new clothes.”
“Can we just go and get this over with? I want to get back to my sweat suit before it thinks I don’t love it anymore.”
“I’m going to burn it when we get back.”
Jane got up and set the pretty cup and dessert sized plate on the counter. “You’ll do no such thing.
“You’re right. I won’t. At least not the gray one. That one I tossed it in with the trash this morning when we left,” Edward said in his sing-song voice as he pushed the door open and walked outside. Jane was speechless. Momentarily so before she went chasing after him.
“You did what?” she asked, out of breath from jogging to catch up.
“I stuffed it in the trash bag while you were in the shower.” Edward paused outside his favorite kitchen store. “Do you want to go in? We could use a few more silicone spatulas.”
“Don’t change the subject. Why would you throw out my sweat suit?” Edward pushed open the door to the store and disappeared inside. He kept walking away. Did he think she wouldn’t kick him in the shin if they were in a crowded place? “And stop trying to get away from me,” she hissed.
“I’m not trying to get away from you. We need spatulas.”
“Oh you are so full of it. We have a whole drawer full of spatulas.”
“But I like these.” He pulled a wood handled silicone spoon out of a canister sitting on a small mosaic garden table. It was white with orange dots and Jane had to admit they were fun and that she would love to have a few of them in a variety of dot colors, but right at that moment…
She ground her jaw together and forced words through barely moving lips. “What are you up to, Edward?”
“I’m up to seeing you come out of hiding, Jane. I’m up to seeing you get over this depression.”
“I’m not depressed and I’m not hiding.”
“Oh?” He looked at her. “Then what would you call it?”
What did she call it? “Minding my own business,” she offered. “Something you should maybe think about.”
“Nice try.” Edward pulled three more spoons from the canister. One with green dots, one with blue dots, and one with yellow dots. “Do you want the red one, as well? We could have a complete set.” Jane flipped her hair and turned her back. She didn’t want to talk to him anymore. “Pouting won’t get you anywhere, but fine, I’ll get the red one, too.”
“While you’re being generous, I need a new cookie scoop too.” She walked around the end of the row to the next row over. In another canister, this time on the shelf of a book case, Jane picked up two different sized cookie scoops. One with a purple squeeze handle and one with a pink squeeze handle. She really didn’t need new cookie scoops for the truffles, but she and Edward were a lot alike when it came to kitchen stores. She found it impossible to resist them. Before candy making, she’d never really cared for cooking or baking, but she’d learned a lot by devoting and dedicating herself to her craft. The success of their boutique business, dreamed up over a box of candy and a good bottle of wine, was proof of that.
Which, now that she thought about it, Phillip–
“Do you want to look for anything else?” Edward nudged.
Jane shook herself from the puzzle pieces that still didn’t fit from her break-up with Phillip and turned her gaze to Edward. “No, I’m good.” She handed the scoops over and Edward fairly skipped to the counter and the sweet man manning the register. To see the two men flirting, she had to smile. Edward was really the sweetest, most adorable man she could have ever hoped to fall into lifelong friendship with.
She was still pissed at him though.
Do you have friends like Edward? I think we all should have at least one…
I’m headed off to work on edits, and you can head off to read more Smooth Operator snippets from the following authors:
Lauren Dane
Caris Roane
Eliza Gayle
McKenna Jeffries
Shiloh Walker
Taige Crenshaw
Delilah Devlin
HelenKay Dimon
Myla Jackson
Shelli Stevens
Jody Wallace
Felicity Heaton
TJ Michaels
Leah Braemel
Mari Carr
It’s the third Saturday of the current college football season and so far so good…
