by Marla Monroe
“Mmm, smells wonderful, but I wonder if that is the lotion or just you?” He let her remove her hand from his grasp. “May I smell your other hand? Just for comparison, of course?”
Before she realized what she was doing, Cynthia had lifted her other hand to his, and he turned it over palm up to breathe in her natural scent. Her heart was going to race right out of her chest at the rate it was beating. When he pressed a kiss to the center of her palm, she almost did climax on the spot. Where were a fan and a shot of whiskey when you needed them? Hell, after that she might even think about taking up smoking.
“They should make a lotion that smells like you and bottle it. Absolutely exquisite.” He smiled at her again.
“Um, it’s probably the lotion I wear that you smell.” Once again she wished she hadn’t spoken. Why couldn’t she just accept a compliment when it was given?
“And what lotion is that? Do you sell it here?” he asked without looking away from her face.
“Ah, yes. I do.” She stepped away from him, glad to have a brief reprieve from all that sexual tension he had going on.
He followed her over to another display of sensual creams, lotions, bath oils, and candles. She picked up the bottle of lotion she liked to use and showed it to him.
“This is Virginal Awakening. It has a mixture of vanilla and mint as part of the sensual allure and adds a slightly stimulating feel to the skin. The lotion can be used all over the body. The bath oil and beads have a slightly stronger aroma to aid in the bath experience. We also have the candles that are safe for wax play and the creams that are safe for more intimate uses.”
When he grinned with a sparkle in his eyes, Cynthia thought about what all she’d said and instantly felt heat climb up her neck into her cheeks. She’d never been self-conscious about discussing the products she sold before. Why now?
“Um, wax play? As in dripping hot, wet wax all over a woman’s body until the stimulus is akin to white-hot pleasure with each succeeding drop?” he asked in a deep, soft voice.
A shiver started at the base of her spine and crawled up until she felt her nipples harden into sensitive spikes. God, what this man did to her. She had to draw in a deep breath—twice—before she could say anything.
“That is the intent. Um, would you like the lotion? I’ll be glad to gift wrap it for you.” She took a step back, looking over at the counter with the cash register like it was home base where she would be safe from the turmoil of sensations coursing through her body.
“I’d like the lotion and a candle, if you don’t mind.” He picked up a candle and held it out to her.
She had to step closer to him to take it since he didn’t extend his arm all the way. When she did, he captured her wrist and drew her in, a master fisherman landing his catch.
“My name is Aden. What is yours?”
“C–Cynthia.” It came out in a whoosh of breath.
“Cynthia, I’d like to take you out to dinner. Would you allow me to? Saturday night?” he asked.
“Dinner? Saturday night?”
What am I, a freaking parrot?
“Say yes, Cynthia,” he whispered.
“Yes.”
Oh, my God! I am a parrot.
His sensual smiled turned into a full-blown grin complete with dancing dimple once again. She could see laughter and relief in his expression, while at the same time, there was something not quite there, hidden that he quickly covered. Cynthia couldn’t help but wonder what it was and why it was there. Instead of feeling uneasy for seeing it, she felt sad and curious all at the same time. It was as if he’d had to make an effort to smile for a second.
“How do I find you to pick you up Saturday? Is seven okay?” he asked.
“I close the shop at six, so you can just pick me up from here if you don’t mind.”
“That’s fine. I’m already looking forward to Saturday night.”
Cynthia carried the candle and bottle of lotion over to the counter to ring the sale up. As she wrapped the gift, he watched her as she moved. It was a good thing she could handle gift wrapping in her sleep because his watching her was nerve-wracking. He did it with so much intensity. He’d had the same type of single-minded determination in how he’d asked her out. She had no doubt now that the entire lotion scenario had been a ruse to talk to her and ask her to go to dinner with him. It was flattering and arousing all at the same time.
“Virginal Awakening. I like the name of the lotion, Cyn. And on you, it mimics your name. Pure Cyn. See you Saturday.”
She watched him walk through the door carrying the package she’d just wrapped. There was nothing wrong with his ass either. Both men had bodies that filled out their jeans in a most uncomfortable way. She could only imagine what their top halves looked like without the buttoned shirts they’d been wearing. T-shirts would have given her more of a clue to their physiques.
She shook her head. What was she doing thinking about both men when Aden was the one who’d stuck around and asked her out? Obviously the other one hadn’t been interested. Besides, what would she have done with two men asking her out? She could barely handle one anyway. Most of her dates when she’d actually dated had ended with I’ll call you later, but they never had. With her luck, this one would end the same way.
Chapter Two
Aden noticed that Roy hadn’t said a word on the way back to the farm. It was so unlike his friend that he wondered if he’d really put a strain on their friendship by asking Cynthia out. At the time, he’d been almost compelled to do it, but now he wondered if he’d made the right decision.
“You’re pissed at me, aren’t you,” he finally said.
Roy frowned and looked at him. “No. I’m just a little confused. You haven’t wanted to do anything in a long time, but all of a sudden you’re asking a strange woman out to dinner.”
Aden sighed. “I don’t know. There’s just something about her that made me lose my head.”
“Yeah. I know the feeling,” the other man mumbled, looking out the passenger window.
This wasn’t going to end well. Aden could already see it. Either she’d choose one of them to date on a regular basis, or she’d walk away from both of them. Both ways didn’t bode well with their friendship unless he put a stop to it here and now and called off the entire thing. But he didn’t want to. He really wanted to get to know her. She called to him like a siren of old. He hadn’t felt anything but anger and disgust in months. There was even that little bit of fear that kept chasing him in his nightmares, until he’d seen her, and everything just sort of shifted into a clearer focus for him.
“Roy,” he began.
“Let it go, Aden. We both like her enough to want to piss about it like junkyard dogs. Nothing’s going to change that. All we can do is see where it takes us and deal with it then,” Roy said with his usual crazy interpretation of things.
When they’d first met in boot camp, or basic combat training as it was referred to, Aden had thought Roy to be a Southern redneck of the worst persuasion. He’d grown up in a backwoods town called Panther Burn in rural Mississippi. Roy was a year older than Aden, who had been eighteen. It wasn’t until they’d gotten past their initial distrust of each other and bonded after a particularly intense day of punishing training that Aden found out why Roy hadn’t enlisted until he was nineteen.
Looking back, he still couldn’t believe how they’d become buddies with their friendship continuing and evolving until they’d been inseparable. Roy had become the one man he would have trusted with his life and that of his family’s. When they’d been out battling the courses set out for them to follow, it had been Roy and his redneck attitude that had helped keep him going, and Roy’s insistence on sticking with him despite the fact it slowed him down that had given Aden a new side of the annoying asshole.
Later, they’d talked about why they’d put themselves in the position they were in, being tortured by their CO. Aden had joined with the intentions of making it a career. He’d had the star
ry-eyed idea of helping to make the world a safer place for his family and friends. Roy, he’d found out, had joined because he had nowhere else to go. He’d just lost most of his family to a house fire that had destroyed everything they’d had, including their only vehicle. He and his only surviving sister had managed to get out, but he’d lost both parents and his younger brother.
Even now, it tightened his chest to think about how Roy must have felt losing everything he knew except his sister, Grace. If he’d lost his family, Aden wasn’t sure he would have had the will to go on. Instead of giving up, Roy had bundled up his sister and gone to their only other living relative’s house and begged them to take Grace in. He was nineteen and could figure something out, but Grace had only been fifteen at the time. She still had high school to finish and had the chance of scholarships for college. Roy said he’d been worthless in school but good with his hands, so he’d worked with his dad working as a mechanic.
Aden remembered asking him why he hadn’t stayed with his sister at their relative’s house, and he’d explained matter-of-factly that they wouldn’t have a Simpson man in their house, but they would take in poor Grace out of love for her mother. So he’d joined the army as a way to have a roof over his head and food in his belly.
“Plus, they’ll give me a skill that I can use to make a living with when I get out. Can’t ask for more than that.”
Aden swallowed down the bile that threatened to choke him at the thought of the skills they’d been taught. He wouldn’t think about that. It was behind him now.
He needed to figure out how to make things right with Roy because the man had always been there for him. When Aden had just wanted to give up and die, Roy had refused to let him. His friend had damn near been dead himself, but he wouldn’t let Aden take the easy way out.
They pulled up outside the storage building, and both men climbed out of the truck. Roy headed straight to the equipment barn, leaving Aden to unload the empty crates that had held the fruit they’d carried to one of their customers in Gatlinburg. He sighed and let down the tailgate. Might as well get busy. They wouldn’t unload themselves.
* * * *
Cynthia stretched as she got out of her car that night once she’d arrived home. She was tired. It had been a long day. There had been a lot of merchandise to unpack and put out, and since she’d let Angie, her helper, off to study for a test, she’d had it all on her own all day. She hadn’t done that since she’d opened the store several years ago. Normally, she would have saved putting out inventory for when she had help, but the shelves were almost bare after the record sales she’d had the previous two weeks.
As she unlocked the door of her little bungalow, her mind slipped back to the two men who’d surprised her that afternoon. Aden’s strong face with his super short, light brown hair and the intriguing dimple at the corner of his mouth had stayed close in her thoughts all evening. She couldn’t help but wonder about his friend who’d left with the dark brown hair that was much longer than Aden’s but hadn’t reached his shoulders yet. She was certain his eyes had been dark brown, like rich chocolate, but she couldn’t be sure since she’d only gotten a glimpse. Between the two men, it was a wonder she’d been able to finish anything she’d started after they’d left.
Flicking on the lights as she walked through the house, Cynthia left her keys in the little bowl on the table by the door, and her purse found its home on the little island in the kitchen. She continued on around to her bedroom and undressed, enjoying the way her sexy underwear made her feel, though no one ever saw it but her. She’d always enjoyed dressing sexy and had hoped by now she would have had a man in her life to appreciate her love of sensual clothes.
She sighed. It just wasn’t meant to be. It had been a long time since she’d gone out on an actual date. She didn’t think there were any men left in the Gatlinburg area who were interested in plus-sized women anymore. As much as she wished it wasn’t so, Cynthia had long since come to terms with the fact that she wasn’t going to be any smaller than she was. She wasn’t lazy and didn’t sit around eating bonbons. She walked every morning before work and often hiked the many trails on her days off. She just wasn’t meant to have a thin body and had long since stopped killing herself with diets and wild exercise programs trying to attain one.
If God had meant for me to be small, he’d have made me that way.
Instead of worrying about it any longer, Cynthia spent her time enjoying what she has. She was blessed to have a loving family who, though nosy, supported her despite her quirks, like Spice It Up, her store, and her fondness for reading erotic romance.
Speaking of which, she had a brand new author on her Kindle she couldn’t wait to start reading. First a shower, and then she’d fix something for dinner and read. She’d discovered the author while ordering books for her store and among her favorites, Dixie Lynn Dwyer, Tymber Dalton, Melody Snow Monroe, Heather Rainier, and Sophie Oak, was a new name she hadn’t seen before, Shae Shannon. She couldn’t wait to see what this new one had in store for her.
When she stepped into the shower, she nearly yelped as the scalding hot water hit her skin.
“Crappy hot water heater!” It was nearly impossible for her to get the water temperature right.
She needed to see about getting a new one but hated to spend the money. When she’d put in the tankless one last year, it had been hailed as the best thing since sliced bread, but it was proving to be a bad decision on her part. It had it in for her. One time she’d scald herself, and the next time she stepped into ice-cold water. The one time she’d had someone out to look at the damn thing, they’d assured her it worked perfectly and nothing was wrong with it.
“Dumb-ass plumbers.” She quickly adjusted the water and tested it before she stepped back under the spray.
As she used her favorite body wash that smelled more of vanilla than her lotion did, Cynthia again allowed her mind to conjure up the two men from that afternoon. She wished she’d asked what his friend’s name had been, but that would have been rude when he’d been the one asking her out.
“Aden.” She said the name out loud and sighed.
It was odd that she’d never seen him around before. A sudden thought had her stomach sinking. What if he wasn’t from around Gatlinburg and would be leaving soon? Here she was getting all excited over a date and hoping there might be more of them, and he probably wouldn’t even be around for long. She sighed in dejection. It would sure be her luck. Neither man had looked the least bit familiar. They were probably here for a few weeks of vacation and that was all.
Once she’d washed up, she stepped out and dried off before selecting the lotion she liked to put on at night. It was more relaxing than the Virginal Awakening scent she wore during the day. Midnight’s Kiss had a soothing quality to it with a light lavender scent. She smoothed it on, making sure to get every inch of her body. She didn’t shy away from stroking her breasts, taking the time to tweak them lightly as she did. These days they didn’t get much attention unless she gave it to them.
She chose a satin teddy in pale lavender with matching boy shorts then slipped on a pair of slippers. She didn’t bother with a robe since she didn’t expect company. She rarely did. Cynthia’s little bungalow was situated about thirty minutes from her shop in Gatlinburg, off Maples Branch Road, north east of the popular town. She didn’t mind the drive to and from work each day. It gave her time to relax and ready herself for work on the way in and relax and think through the day on the way home in the evenings.
As she warmed up a frozen dinner in the microwave, she wondered what she should wear Saturday since she would be going out in it after work. She needed to be dressy for work anyway, but she didn’t want to wear anything too dressy all day at the store. She wouldn’t be comfortable, and she needed to be able to work in the back if she needed to handle inventory.
The microwave dinged, announcing her meal was ready. She pulled it out and promptly burned her fingers with the steam when she pulled bac
k the cover. She quickly trashed the plastic cover and blew on her tender fingers before carrying the dinner over to the little table situated in front of the bay window looking out over her back yard. As she settled on the chair, Cynthia wondered again if Aden was local or not. If he wasn’t, she would be getting her hopes up for no reason.
I shouldn’t be this way. Just because he might not be long-term potential doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy his company and a night out with a nice guy.
Of course there was the worry that he’d only be interested in sex and figured she would be an easy target since she had the type store she did. Still, maybe she was overanalyzing as usual. Maybe he was just a nice guy who wanted a dinner companion other than his friend.
She made herself stop thinking about him and finished her meal. Then she cleaned up and grabbed her Kindle and curled up in her favorite reading chair to lose herself in the book. It didn’t take her long to decide that Shae Shannon was going to be another author to add to her favorites list.
The next time she looked up, it was nearly midnight. She sighed and closed the reader. She didn’t want to stop reading, but she’d long ago come to realize she wasn’t young any longer and couldn’t function on little or no sleep from staying up all night reading. She’d be wondering about what was going to happen next all day the next day. Since she tended to get lost in reading, she couldn’t take her Kindle to work with her. She had once left the door locked for three hours when she’d only meant to take a thirty minute lunch break in back.
Slipping between the sheets, she slowly relaxed into the comfy mattress and closed her eyes, willing sleep to come fast so she would be able to get up the next morning. It did, but she found herself in a confusing dream involving the book she was reading with the two men she’d had in her shop as the heroes and her the heroine.
