Intimate Desires (The Love and Danger Series)
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Authors: Elizabeth Lennox
Intimate Desires
By Elizabeth Lennox
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Copyright 2014
ISBN13: 9781940134741
All rights reserved
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Any duplication of this material,
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Those
sirens were really becoming a nuisance!
Hannah looked out the window as yet another
noisy police car swerved around the corner, heading to who knows where! Out of the corner of her eye, she watched the police car veer slightly but then straightened and drove out of sight. Trying to block the outside chaos, she focused on the man in front of her. “Here you go, John. Good luck on your presentation!” she called out to him as she handed him his latte with extra cream and cinnamon.
Debbie, her assistant manager and good friend, came up to stand beside her as they both watched the police cars
speed past, even while they prepared the next coffee or tea order. “What do you think is going on?” Debbie asked, concern and curiosity showing on her kind features. It was normal for police officers to come into the shop for coffee. It was not normal for them to careen around the corner of the coffee shop as if there was a hostage situation.
Hannah shrugged
and shook her head, irritated since the police were speeding around and causing a dangerous situation. But it wasn’t like she could call the police and tell them to slow down. “No clue,” she finally replied. Her eyes might be on the front window but her hands were swiftly making the next three specialty coffees and almost simultaneously dumping a giant bag of coffee beans into the grinder. “Whatever they’re doing, I wish they’d be a bit more careful about it.”
Turning back to her customers, she smiled to the woman waiting for her coffee.
“Hi Jessy!” she said, stepping out from behind her massive espresso machine. “Vanilla cappuccino with cinnamon, coming right up. How is your cat doing? Better after the surgery?” she asked the twenty-something woman with a purse, a briefcase and a gym bag slung over her shoulder. Jessy was one of those women who was trying to “have it all” but she was really just a softy who would rather rush home at five o’clock each night and knit.
Jessy took the coffee with a sigh of anticipation.
“She’s all recovered. Thanks Hannah,” Jessy said with a huge grin as she accepted her cappuccino and headed off to her high stress job as a public relations guru.
Lilly,
a college student who worked at the coffee shop, craned her neck to see out the front window, along with almost all of the other customers. “This can’t be good, whatever it is.”
Hannah had to agree, but probably not for the same reasons. She loved the police coming into her little shop and always gave them free coffee and muffins. The gratis
food and coffee brought them into her shop and reduced the possibility of criminals harassing her store. Not to mention, the police officers needed a break. Their jobs were hard enough already, dealing with the worst that humanity had to offer the world. Free coffee was the least she could do to thank them for risking their lives every day.
The two other staff members were too busy taking orders to look around and question the higher than normal police presence and Hannah
smiled in anticipation of yet another record breaking sales day.
She’d opened Quirky Coffe
e two years ago, right after a miserable divorce. And every day, every time she opened the front door and smelled the amazing scents, she knew she’d made the right choice. Both about opening her little coffee shop and getting rid of Horrible Henry, her ex-husband. Of all the decisions in her life, marrying Henry Wain right after college had been the absolute worst.
She pushed Horrible
Henry out of her mind, refusing to allow him any more space in her life. She’d cooked and cleaned for him, even while finishing up her own degree on the same schedule as Henry. After college, they’d both gotten high pressure jobs, both worked full time, but Henry complained that his job was too stressful for him to do any of the cooking and cleaning. Hannah had worked for a marketing company, which is a nice way of saying she worked for a stress factory. Oh, she couldn’t even count the number of times she’d come home to find him sitting on the sofa, remote in his hand and his feet up on the coffee table. She would just cringe when he’d ask her what they’d be having for dinner.
No more!
If she wanted to have Oreos and wine for dinner, that’s what she had. No more making dinners for a lazy slob, no more picking up his dirty underwear off of the floor and cringing at his dirty socks. Nope! She might have a tiny apartment, but it was free and clear of stinkified layers of laundry. And what was even better? She had full control of the remote!
Yep! This was the life, she told herself as she smiled to yet another customer, handing her a huge cup of
joe. “See you later!”
She had four coffees all set up and ready with
several muffins ready in a box for the next customer when she felt a strange sensation come over her. Looking around, she wondered what could possibly have changed. The sun was still coming up over the horizon, the customer line was almost out to the door and her shop smelled like sweet, blueberry muffins and coffee. Nirvana, she thought with pride.
And then she saw him.
There was more than one official looking guy, but the first one through the door was…
Her
toe-curling, mind-blowing, heart-slamming reaction as the enormous, gorgeous guy walked to the counter was...Hannah swallowed painfully, her brown eyes taking in the giant man walking towards her with terrifying purpose.
She
couldn’t stop watching him and it was as if the world had slowed down. Her eyes and her breath were captured, the low level noise of the coffee shop disappeared, the crazy pounding of her blood through her veins was the only sound she heard besides her pounding heartbeat. Her eyes dropped lower, noticing the hard mouth, the bulging biceps as he lifted his hand and removed his sunglasses. And he had the most muscular forearms she’d ever seen in her life. Not the gross, body builder kind. His were different. These were….hot! Sexy!
And then her eyes traveled lower, her gaze skimming along his flat stomach and lean hips…and even lower she noticed that his thigh muscles actually showed through the jeans he was wearing.
“Oh my,” she whispered.
Debbie bumped into her and looked up as she steamed some
milk. “Are you okay, Hannah?” she asked.
Hannah blinked. Then blinked again, willing her eyes to move away from the Adonis that was walking towards her.
She desperately wanted a few minutes to get her mind back under her own control, but the giant man with the great arms was suddenly standing in front of her, leaning against the counter and those muscles were even closer! She felt her mouth go dry and, darn it, she actually reached up to make sure her tongue wasn’t hanging out of her mouth.
All of that was before he spoke!
“I need to speak to the manager,” his deep, sexy voice said, his crystal blue eyes staring right into her own boring brown ones.
He was tall! Goodness was he
tall! And gorgeous! His sandy blond hair was cut short and he had just the barest hint of darker stubble on a jaw that looked like it was carved out of granite. His nose had obviously been broken, more than once she suspected, because of the slightest bump on the bridge of his nose. But that didn’t detract from his appeal. Nope, not one little bit. In fact, that bump had her stomach turning flip flops even as she wiped her hands down her apron.
“Um…I’m Hannah.” She stammered out a few more ridiculous and uninformative responses before she closed her eyes and shook her head. “I’m
sorry. I’m the owner,” she explained and took a deep breath. Opening her eyes again, she forced herself to be professional. Police officers came in here all the time. This one might be bigger. And hotter. And more muscular. Okay, so he was buff in ways that was boggling her mind. But that was no excuse to act like a bumbling idiot.
And then the man smiled. Every muscle in her body just changed over to mush with that smile and Hannah gripped the edge of the counter, not wanting to fall down and make an even bigger fool of
herself.
“Hello, Hannah the Owner.
I’m Detective Sam Jeffers. May I have a few words with you?” he asked.
Darn it, he was polite too! Couldn’t he be rude and
obnoxious?
“What’s going on?” she asked, wiping her hands once more down the front of her apron. She didn’t think there was anything on her hands any longer, other than her ridiculously sweaty palms because she was acting like a high school geek confronted by her long time crush.
Mr. Extra-Tall Police Officer shifted his head slightly, indicating they should move towards the back of the store. “It’s better if we talk in private. Is there some place we can go where we won’t disturb your customers?”
Hannah thought about her tiny office in the back,
then discarded that idea. This man’s shoulders were wider than her whole office. She was already acting like a fool out here where there was more room. There was no way she’d be able to think properly if she were in a closed, confined space with this man.
“Um…we
can go out back,” she offered and started moving in that direction.
As soon as she was around the counter, he stopped her with a touch to her arm. “What about an office?” he suggested.
Hannah looked down at the man’s hands and stupidly noticed that he had very sexy hands. His fingers were long and his nails clean. Not manicured, but masculine with that light sprinkling of dark blond hair on the top.
She closed her eyes, then forced them to pop right back op
en because the image in her head, of his broad, muscular chest with the same sprinkling of dark blond hair, popped into her mind. “Um…Yes. The storeroom,” she finally offered.
She
turned her back when that blond eyebrow went up over one of those all-seeing blue eyes and she fisted her hands at her sides, wondering why she was reacting so intensely from just the man’s presence. Hadn’t her experience with Horrible Henry gotten her over men? For life?!
She shook her head again and carefully put one foot in front of the other, hoping she wouldn’t fall on her face.
Sam watched the cute brunette walk towards the back of the coffee shop, his eyes immediately noting her perfectly round, adorable butt in the loose jeans. She needed tighter jeans, he thought as his eyes scanned the rest of her. Tiny waist, long legs but she was short. Too short, he told himself. He was six feet, three inches tall and preferred women that could at least reach his shoulder. He hated stooping when he wanted to kiss a woman. But he might make an exception for this one. A butt that perfect deserved to be exception worthy.
He noticed that they skipped by a tiny office with the oddest desk inside, then the woman pushed open a door marked “Employees
Only”. Inside the smell of coffee was even stronger.
“What can I do for you officer?” she asked as she turned around in the small space. Crossing her arms over her chest, she looked up at him, noticing how nice his lips were. Funny, she’d never thought about a man’s lips be
fore. But this guy had nice ones. Thin, strong. Compressed in what she guessed was irritation because she was probably acting rude.
“Do you know the…” Sam hesitated, trying to think of a kind term for the homeless in their area, “local residen
ts without a permanent address?” he finally finished, coming up with the most politically correct term for the homeless population he could think of.
He was trying to be nice, to be good, but his mind was already moving away from the most pertinent issue
- the investigation he was overseeing - and wondering how long her hair was. It looked to be thick and curly, with a touch of red in the brown tresses. But he didn’t know if it was shoulder length or longer because it was all scrunched up on top of her head in some sort of messy bun. His fingers actually ached to pull that elastic band out of her hair and discover the texture. Mentally chiding himself, he firmly told himself that he preferred blonds to brunettes.
“Do you mean the homeless people around here?” she clarified, her pretty brown eyes confused.
Sam was lost in those brown eyes so it took him a long moment before he remembered to nod his head to confirm.
“Um…yes, I’m very aware of them. They’re mostly men but they aren’t a problem. They’re all very kind, very considerate. Why? Did one of them say something?”
Sam sighed, not sure how to tell her about the man in her back alley. He was reminded of his sisters and mothers, how they took even the smallest problem and made it into a huge drama. He didn’t want to hurt her, but he couldn’t lie either. She was bound to hear about the man at some point. Better she hear about it from him so he could help her through any concerns she had.
“I’m sorry
to tell you, but one of the men, we don’t know the name yet, died of a drug overdose in your alley.” He waited, his body tense for the burst of horror and tears that were sure to quickly follow. He started to become uncomfortable when the lady simply stared back at him with those soft, confused, brown eyes.
Hanna couldn’t believe what
she was hearing. First of all…dead? Nope. That simply didn’t happen in her life. Horrible, lying, obnoxious ex-husband? Yeah, checked that box and moved on. But dead?