Page 67 of I'm Not Yours
“I didn’t mean that.”Not again, June. Focus, focus!“I didn’t mean the flowers were sexy. I meant that they’re beautiful. The flowers. Not you.” He was a tall and broad specimen of a man.“Not that you aren’t, too. I mean! Aw.” I felt myself boil up like a furnace. “I have to go.”
“Please don’t go,” he rumbled out, still smiling. “Come on in. I thought you might need some color after you took a tumble in the ocean.”
“I do. I did. I do need them. Yes, and color. That was nice. Well.” I ignored the fact that my knees were shaking. If only he was a temperamental green centaur, this would have been easier.
“Thank you again.”
“You’re leaving already?”
“Yes and no. No and yes. No, no.” Sheesh.
“How about no? Come on in. I have lobster.”
Lobster was my favorite. I love lobster. Heaven is filled with lobster in tiny oceans where you can reach down and grab one at any time and theywantyou to eat them with a side order of coleslaw, thick, hot, white, buttered bread, and lemonade.
“You do?”
“Bought it an hour ago. Come on in, June.”
I hesitated. That man pinned me down and shook me up. He turned me inside out. I berated myself, out loud. “Who’s the boss here?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all.” I waved a hand in front of my face.
He stepped back, welcoming, and opened the door.
I tripped a bit in the doorway as I bumbled on in. “Nice, June,” I muttered.
“What’s nice?”
I turned to him. I thought of him naked. I blushed. I thought of him in bed naked down the hall. I blushed further. I thought of us naked in the bed down the hall. I turned away and said, again, so ridiculously, “I love lobsters in bed naked.”
He laughed.
I blushed further. “Stop blushing, June!” I muttered out loud.
Humiliated.
“So, you’re renting this home?” I took another bite of lobster, dipped in butter and garlic sauce. It was absolutely delicious.
We’d set up a table outside on his deck, the ocean panoramically displayed for 180 degrees in both directions, the summer air warm, the smell of salt wafting in and out.
“A friend of mine’s mother owns it. Her name is Frankie Schaeffer. Frankie fell in love with a man she met on a wild girls’ trip to France and stayed in Paris. Sixty-two years old and she said she’s found true love for the first time in her life and isn’t leaving.”
I laughed. “Good for her. So that’s what happened. I’ve never met the owner and no one is ever here.”
“She’s here in spirit.” Reece laughed.
“I doubt it. The woman fell in love with a Frenchman in Paris. She’s having the time of her life eating croissants and coffee in tiny white cups.”
“Okay, you win. Her spirit is in France. By the way, I like your hair.”
“You do?” I self-consciously pulled on it.
“Yes. I can only compare it to gold moving.”
Gold moving?
