AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Don’t call me that!” she hisses.
“Then don’t call me son of a biscuit.” I can’t help but chuckle around the last word. “If you’re going to curse, say it like you mean it. Call me a motherfucker and own it.”
“No!” She struggles some more, and I’m impressed by her will. I’m over a foot taller than her and easily have a hundred pounds on the little thing. “Mrs. Gloria Vanderbilt would have my hide!”
“Who?”
“Oh, fudge, me and my big mouth.” She presses her lips together and makes a big show of running a zipper over them.
“Maisy, you certainly are one in a million.”
Her eyes meet mine, and for an instant, I’m lost in the brilliant abyss. The fear is gone, and something unnamable remains. Is she flattered by my words? Surely, someone at some point in her life has told this woman how remarkable she is, right?
We remain in an oddly comfortable silence as I carry her across the winding pathway. Her eyes trail every bright flower, each butterfly that zips past. She drinks it all in as if it were her first time.
We finally reach the end of the park, the intersection where she spilled her salad just the other day only a few yards away. She presses her palm to my chest, and it looks so small against my torso. “Put me down, I need to try to walk.”
“You’re only going to hurt yourself if you put weight on it too soon.”
Her lively eyes taper at the edges. “Did you just call me fat?”
“Of course not.” I huff out an exasperated breath. This woman is beyond perfect, how could she ever think otherwise? “A sprain needs to be cared for or it’ll swell, and you’ll never be able to walk on it.”
“Just let me try, please.”
With a grunt, I gently release her legs. She slides down my body, and her eyes jolt open when my erection grazes her belly. Once she’s on the ground, my hands close around her hips, holding her steady. Her gaze remains pinned to mine, my cock wedged between us. With our drastic difference in heights, it reaches her bellybutton.
To my surprise, she doesn’t move for an impossibly long moment, those mossy green orbs locked on mine. Lust pulses through those blown-out pupils, and I’m so shocked by what I see in her gaze I tell myself I must be imagining it.
Could little Miss Maisy actually want me? Could the prim and proper lady be hiding a naughty side?
A scooter whizzes past us, blasting a bell and our gazes unlock. She clears her throat and takes a measured step back, but I keep my hold on her waist. It wasn’t only an excuse, she shouldn’t be putting weight on that ankle.
She shifts in front of me and winces as she tests out her wounded leg. “Oh, fudgescicles,” she mutters. “I don’t think I can walk on it.”
“Come, I’ll take you home.”
“No!” she cries out and nearly wiggles free of my grasp.
“Why not? You can’t very well walk there, and I have a car waiting just around the corner.”
“I don’t want you anywhere near my house.”
I shrug and press a finger beneath her chin, forcing her eyes to mine. “In case you’ve forgotten, I already know where you live. I know your security code, zero nine twenty-three, you should know better than to use your birthday, and I’m intimately familiar with the layout of your three-story townhome. Your mailman steals the coupons from the weekly mailer and your pest control provider takes a nap on your couch each visit.”
Her light brows jump up to meet her hairline. “Mother trucker…” she rasps out. “You really are stalking me?”
My shoulders lift again slowly as I ascertain her likeliness to bolt. “I was merely concerned with your safety.”
“My safety?” she shrieks. “You’re the only one who scares the bejesus out of me.”
“I don’t think that’s true at all. What about Jasper?”
All the blood in her face leeches out, darkening the appearance of her faint freckles. I was right, she is scared of that sneaky son of a bitch. In the weeks I kept her ex as my captive and errand boy, he often spoke of his beautiful, loyal ex-wife. That was likely when I became enamored by the idea of her.
He never did admit what he’d done to her. At the time, it wasn’t important, but now, the fear streaking across her face warrants answers. “What did he do to you, Maisy?”
She shakes her head, her lower lip beginning to tremble. “He’s gone; it doesn’t matter anymore. Jasper wouldn’t dare show his face around here. Dante would tear him apart for what he did to Rose.”
