Secret Desire
Secret Desire
Susan D. Taylor
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).
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious or have been used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real in any way. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Published By
Etopia Press
1643 Warwick Ave., #124
Warwick, RI 02889
Secret Desire
Copyright © 2013 by Susan D. Taylor
ISBN: 978-1-939194-65-7
Edited by Nancy Cassidy
Cover by Amber Shah
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Etopia Press electronic publication: February 2013
~ Dedication ~
To Douglas S. Taylor, my husband and cherished friend, the man who listened, encouraged, and always provided a source of inspiration, not to mention motocross tech advice. To my mother and daughter for their belief that wishes do come true. Namaste.
Thank you to Nancy Cassidy, my editor, for your time, endless patience, and commitment. Thank you Etopia Press and Annie Melton for this chance.
Chapter One
Seattle, Washington
Claire would not say his name for the one-millionth time. Would definitely not think of his hard body or his hot mouth or the things she wanted to do with him.
Perhaps denying herself was ridiculous, but it was an exercise in self-control. She had little or no other means to stop him from appearing in her dreams, flashes of him in her thoughts, filling her fantasies uninvited. He was living back home again; her father had told her when she called last week. He’d come back to renovate his parents’ house. She inhaled, banishing an image of him, and scribbled onto the yellow legal pad.
You’d think a broken heart would stop bleeding.
She pinched the pen between her fingers and drew a line through the words. If only forgetting were possible. She’d considered hypnosis but was too embarrassed to pursue it as a remedy. If she could be done with him by elixir or tonic, she would have ordered a magical potion from sheer desperation, even if only for some placebo effect.
All she had at the moment was an ink pen, moving and marking fine lines over her words. She didn’t stop until the letters were obliterated. But not the sentiment. Or the feel of his lips.
Dustin
, she sighed. Her personal critic groaned.
“Fine. One million one and counting,” Claire grumbled.
She took a last sip of her coffee and set the cup down on the table. She needed to occupy her mind so he didn’t keep reappearing in her thoughts willy-nilly. Only in her secret writing could she find an escape if she chose or seek to fulfill her fantasies of the man she’d left back home. Tonight Dustin seemed to take possession of her thoughts, but it was her body that wanted fulfillment. She half-closed her eyes and imagined the things Dustin would do to her. Her breath caught, her eyes fluttered, and he was gone.
Claire moaned, slamming her hand down in frustration. She had to stop imagining him. These fantasies tended to spill into her nighttime writing, and if she wasn’t careful, her next heroine might very well fall into the arms of a motocross-riding hero who closely resembled the boy next door. Even on the opposite coast, without seeing or talking to him for years, he was dangerous.
The words she’d written on the yellow pad might be hidden, but the lines did not erase her feelings. Her writing was more like her life than she’d rather admit. She hid all week at her desk at
Ethos
working in a job that was safe while she longed to do something else. At first she’d believed getting hired by a cutting-edge magazine like
Ethos
was the realization of a life goal. She was writing for a living. Each week she hammered out a story for her editor, until recently, when she’d realized her life was no different than before. She wasn’t happy as a journalist. She couldn’t make herself fit into a slot by never giving into her own desire to write from the heart. Deep down she was a card-carrying romantic, with an e-reader filled with love stories and an ever ready box of tissues.
There was one place where she could be alone and take control of her memories of him. A world of respite, where things might have a black moment, a darkest hour, but in the end things worked out for her fictional characters, two people who fell in love, with some form of happy ending and many, many steamy, sexy scenes. Her only curse was to have an ever present imaginary critic who constantly whispered sweet nothings in the form of harsh criticisms. At the moment, the critic was nowhere to be seen and Claire could bring her sexy fantasy world to life.
She reached for her computer. Her fingertips sat poised at the keys as the image of the scene within a story evolved. She bit her lip, thinking of Dustin, and shook her head.
“Stop that,” she hissed softly.
Claire readied her imagination. She refocused on the screen. She flexed her curled fingers in anticipation. As if a shot was fired, Claire’s fingertips began tapping out the rhythm of the story, a current flowing from her body into the computer. Claire leapt forward into the realm of creation, escaping her apartment kitchen, laying out the groundwork of her next story. The walls melted away.
Cynthia’s gray suit spoke clearly of business and nothing at all frivolous. Her skirt fell an inch or so above the crease at the back of her knees. The seams of her stockings ran perfectly straight down the back of her calves. But her shoes…they spoke an entirely different language than her suit did. Six-inch heels—sling-back stilettos in Madeira-wine-colored patent leather. She lifted one arched foot, dangling her shoe. There he was, coming through the front doors of the office with a cup of coffee and reading the newspaper. Her heart tripped and somersaulted. She held her breath, and once again he walked by her as if she were a piece of the reception room furniture.
It was foolish to keep trying to capture his attention. She doubted standing in her birthday suit with a rose between her lips would gather more than a side-glance from the Adonis in a Hugo Boss suit. She tried not to lose hope. There was always tomorrow. One day the handsome hunk might look up.
Cynthia exhaled a sigh and picked up the envelope she had brought with her. She crossed the room filled with people seated under the crisp office lighting. The room smelled of newspaper ink and buzzed with whispered comments. She reached the end of the reception area, coming to the hallway. Several high-pitched voices rose behind her and she swerved left.
She ran her hand over the smooth mahogany paneling, only stopping when she came to a doorway. She studied the sharply etched nameplate and inhaled with a hollow sense of satisfaction. There was no need for an invitation, not anymore. This was her office, a reward for spending evenings and weekends under a slush pile two feet high and always meeting deadlines. She pushed the door open and entered the office, gliding alongside the floor-to-ceiling glass wall. She flung the envelope onto the credenza and picked up her printed agenda for the day.
“Mamma mia,” she muttered. Every box was filled all the way to eight o’clock that evening. She twisted to look out the window and was caught by the image of herself in the thick glass.
Her reflection was the ghostly image of a woman who yearned for something missing. She griped the single sheet of paper as if it were a lifeline.
She walked around her desk, sat and read for the next hour nonstop. Finally, she sighed as she tossed the bound set of papers into a basket on her desk. She rubbed her forehead and stretched languidly, and then she lifted another packet from the nearby pile. She snapped off the rubber band and read aloud for a while, but soon set it down. Disappointed, Cynthia pressed the sensitive point at her temple. She tightened her mouth in annoyance. She scanned another page of the last submission plucked from the slush pile. Already two other sets of eyes had reviewed each story before she touched a page, but she still hadn’t found anything decent in the pile.
A quick knock sounded at the door, and Emily, her assistant, came in carrying another tray of manuscripts.
“Over there, please.” Cynthia pointed. Her assistant nodded and picked up an armload of stories marked “REJECT.”
“Not a decent plot line in the bunch?”
“Zero. Keep your fingers crossed for the next stack.” That wasn’t altogether true. One story had promise, but the author had portrayed the hero as weak and controllable. Not the alpha male this editor was interested in publishing. Maybe she was just cranky because each of the heroines had enjoyed a date that ended with a hot naked man doing everything under the sun with them.
She’d be happy with a clothed man, dinner…the image of the navy-suited Adonis filled her until she remembered eight o’clock tonight might end up as nine o’clock if she didn’t get cracking. A rapid double knock sounded and the door wedged open. Her boss stuck his head inside.
“Cyn, you up for lunch?”
She glanced back at him over black eyeglass frames. “No. Not with this stack. I’m camping out here until the pile is whittled down…far down. But thanks, J.P.”
“Right.” He chuckled. “I’d better watch out for my corner office.” The door closed, and Cynthia leaned forward, tapping her fingernails ruefully.
She lived here, sometimes slept here. Not so bad…if you counted the fact she’d made editor before turning twenty-five and now ran the most popular romance imprint. Still, it was not enough. The board would meet next week, and she expected another promotion. Yes. He’d better watch that damn corner office, she mused without feeling especially excited.
Cynthia pushed back into the cushy leather chair and swung her legs on top of the desk. She tossed another overdone romance into the reject pile. Already pages into the next story, she hardly noticed her door open. “Emily, I’m looking for more tension, more heat. I want something that sizzles.” Cynthia didn’t raise her eyes from the page. “None of these make me hot, never mind dripping wet.”
“Excuse me?” a deep male voice asked.
Cynthia lifted her gaze from the manuscript and locked onto a pair of deep brown eyes set in a tanned face. She swallowed and for a moment wondered if she was dreaming. She pinched herself. Adonis was standing right in front of her. Up close, she was convinced he must be one of the cover models. If only she had a digital camera in her desk.
“Photography is down the hall, make a left, and look for the red door.” She was suddenly too nervous to enjoy the eye candy break.
“Cynthia Lewis?” He stepped into her office before closing the door. The man’s broad shoulders were perfectly framed by the door behind him. Her eyes drifted down his body, lingered at the bulge in his pants, and eventually returned to his face. His lips clamped together, making the muscle along his jaw twitch. He walked toward her and didn’t stop until he stood in front of her desk. He towered above her, his fingers pressing the glass surface of her desk as he leaned over.
“Yes, I’m—” Christ, she almost forgot her own name.
The man’s gaze fell to her legs still carelessly strewn across her desk. Her heart thundered in her ears. Warmth from his sharp exhale caressed the skin at her ankles.