AllFreeNovel
Share Us
With that, I hung up and mentally prepared myself for a long day of reading. At least there would be coffee. And maybe a cinnamon sugar donut. A winning combination sure to make my morning just a little bit better.
ELEVEN
jax
So far, it had been a crap morning.
A land deal I’d been working on for more than a year, one I expected to fall through, had finally received its final nail in the proverbial coffin. Not five minutes after I’d opened that email, my older brother called to tell me his wife had a miscarriage. It was her third and into the second trimester.
There had only been one bright spot.
Pulling into an empty space, I parked and got out of my truck. I wasn’t usually a sweets guy, but I’d been hearing about these cinnamon donuts since I got to town, and I needed to get away from my computer. I tried not to think about that bright spot now.
What kind of a masochist was I that a woman who hated me was the best thing that had happened all morning? Natalie wanted nothing to do with me, and honestly, I didn’t blame her. The problem was that I couldn’t get her out of my mind. Dancing with her Saturday night had been madness, but the urge to touch her, to feel her beneath my hands, was just too strong.
No fucking way.
Although her back was to me, I was positive that was Natalie sitting at a table outside the coffee shop. Computer open, she seemed to be working, and I knew exactly what she was working on too. My case.
I wasn’t gonna lie, when she called to tell me she’d been assigned to it, I’d smiled into the phone. Something about the woman intrigued me. Maybe the fact that she didn’t fall at my feet? Nah, it was more than that. More than her looks. Usually the crunchy, granola type wasn’t appealing to me, so it definitely wasn’t that either.
But no doubt, there was definitely something. Trouble was, she was extremely resistant to letting me explore that something.
“How’s it looking?” I asked, walking up to her table.
Natalie spun around. Looked up at me with those innocent-but-not-so-innocent, eyes. A vision of her on her knees in front of me, looking like that—but with my dick in her mouth—stopped me cold.
Christ. Where the hell had that come from?
Her expression was all the answer I needed. As she dug into the reports, Natalie wasn’t likely to be very pleased. Aside from a small hiccup this winter, this inlet had been one of the most straightforward pieces of property I’d ever purchased.
“Need some help?” I asked when she didn’t respond.
“No, thank you.”
“Coffee? Donut?”
“Already have both,” she said, her clipped tone at odds with the look in her eyes. “Just looking to get some work done and catch some air at the same time.”
Natalie wanted me as much as I wanted her. That had been more than clear on Saturday night even though she fought like hell to hide it. I’d been trained to read peoples’ eyes, to anticipate their next moves. Sometimes, my life and the lives of my battle buddies were at stake, so getting it wrong wasn’t an option.
I stepped forward. “Had,” I corrected. Her mug was nearly empty. “Looks like you’re out. I’ll grab a new one. You take it with milk and sugar, yes?” I asked, already knowing the answer from when she was at my place.
Sighing, Natalie finally resigned herself to me, but I wouldn’t crack a celebratory smile. Today I would be on my best behavior. No instigating.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
Turned out, the woman behind the counter knew exactly how to make Natalie’s coffee, so with a bag full of donuts and two fresh coffees, I joined her. Without asking, mind you, as I was pretty sure of her answer.
“One coffee,” I said, putting it in front of her and sitting down on the wrought-iron chair across from her. “Donut?” I asked, taking one out of the bag.
“No thank you.” She picked up the fresh coffee. “I don’t remember inviting you to sit down.”
“No?” I asked, taking a bite.
Damn. That was good.
“No.”
