Swoop on Love (5 page)

Jeanie traced the planes of his face as she listened. She
felt so comfortable with him, as if she’d always known him. They wrapped their arms around each other. Nearly an hour passed, as they talked and cuddled, and then they got up to have cool drinks in the garden.

They sat at the bottom of the long garden in the shade of the massive apple tree.

“This is a lovely place, a great tree.” Reed looked up into the gnarled branches.

Jeannie grinned. “You can sit here any time you like.”

They inched closer to each other until Reed put down his glass and slid his hand along Jeanie’s cheek, across her ear and into her hair. He kissed her lovingly. He picked her up easily and took her back to bed.

They made each other come hard and fast.

Late in the afternoon Reed spoke, regret in his voice. “I have to go home.” He kissed her lingeringly, sighed, and then he stood to put on his clothes.

Jeanie reached for her cell phone and as Reed dressed, she took a photo of him. His back
was turned and she wanted at least the view of his muscular shoulders, bottom, and thighs to keep her company in the night.
Suppose I don’t see him again.

She got up and pulled on some shorts and a T-shirt to go downstairs to see him off home. She went out to the bottom of her front drive where he
’d parked his car and they hugged each other.

“Can I visit you tomorrow?”

She smiled in delight. “I’d love that. Say about eight. I don’t get home from work until late on Mondays.”

Reed grinned. “That’s perfect. Thank you for today. I can’t tell you how much it means to me to have met you.”

Jeanie watched him drive off.

Chapter
Eight

Late that night, Jeanie couldn’t sleep with the soft scent of pine left by Reed on her pillows. She reached for her phone. She swiped to the photograph she’d taken of him and there to her complete astonishment was a huge bird. It stood in her room, beside her bed. Its wings, where they were tipped with white, shone in the sunlight glinting through the big side window. Jeanie sat bolt upright and put her hand to her forehead.

“Fucking hell, he’s a bird
, too.” Her voice aloud in the silence of the night actually spiked her with fear and she leapt out of bed. She stood for a few seconds staring at the screen of her phone. “I’ve just had sex with two birds. What are they? Eagles? Maybe I’ve had some kind of mental breakdown and imagined this weekend?”

She talked aloud as she walked to her wardrobe and took out jeans to put on. She pulled a T-shirt from in there and dragged that over her head. “I need to do something normal. I need to check with someone to find out if I’ve gone mad.” She couldn’t think of who for a moment, and then realized she could drive to the office building.
Night guards were there. She’d test herself there.
They know me. If I drive there, they see me, and I talk with them, then it will mean I’m not crazy … won’t it?

She hurriedly wound her hair up in a clip and grabbed her bag. She thrust her cell phone in there, checked
it also contained her wallet, and picked up her car keys. She was on her way to the slip road leading to the motorway when she realized it would mean nothing. If she’d gone mad then she’d imagine this, too. She turned her car and drove home. All the way, she told herself that there was no reason, apart from loneliness that she might suddenly lose her mind. No history of illness in the family that might indicate she’d flip out. Tears welled in her eyes and coursed down her cheeks. They fell in big drops onto her jean-clad thighs.

Once
home, Jeanie rushed back into her house and made tea. She took it up to her bedroom. She stood at the back window. She could see a little way down her garden because of the solar lights.

“Tomorrow I’ll show someone the photo and ask what they see. If it’s a bird
, then I’ll know I’m not mad.” Her voice seemed to echo. She crawled into her bed and lay for a long time sleepless. Around dawn, she drifted into an uneasy doze and dreamt about Nathan and Reed. They were both hugging and kissing her. A great wave of sexual pleasure woke her up.

E
xhausted, she slowly got ready to go to work, determined to find out if anyone saw a bird on her cell phone. As she arrived in the underground car park at her job, Jeanie felt more normal. The drive had been as usual, everything seemed real. A man who worked in a real estate office on the floor beneath hers, walked to the elevator with her, talking normally, and complaining about the unusually hot summer.

L
ater than usual getting to work, when Jeanie arrived in her office her secretary was already there. Jeanie pushed open the smoked glass doors.

Her secretary looked away from the computer screen in front of her.
“Hi Jeanie, did you have a good weekend?”

Jeanie couldn’t wait. She took her cell phone from her bag. “Unusual would be the word. Hey
, Samantha, check this out.” She scrolled to the photo of Reed.

Samantha looked at the cell phone screen and then back at Jeanie. “Yikes
, that’s some bird and indoors by the look of it. Did it get in your house somehow?”

A
weight lifted from Jeanie’s shoulders and a smile spread on her face. “It did.”

Samantha star
ed at her. “You look good, Jeanie, kind of relaxed and happy. How’d you get the eagle out? That would have been scary.”

Jeanie took a deep breath. “I opened the door and it just left. Samantha
, I didn’t sleep much after the bird thing. I think I’ll take the day off.” Her shoulders drooped with fatigue and relief that she hadn’t imagined the bird pictures.

S
amantha raised her eyebrows. “That’s really awkward, because just before you arrived I told a new client you’d see him this morning. He wanted an urgent consultation and you have no appointments. He sounded so nice, lovely voice, and I thought you’d see him. You don’t have to get that A-frame design to the Rawlins until the end of the week.” Her expression was hopeful.

Jeanie smiled. “Okay
, what time is the appointment?”

Samantha smiled back. “Nine
-thirty.”

Jeanie checked her cell phone. “Just enough time to have coffee then.”

She walked down to their office kitchen. She started making Samantha and herself coffee feeling happy. As the water boiled, she went to her office. She dropped her bag onto her desk and booted her computer then went back to the kitchen.
This is all real. I’m not mad after all. Amazingly, they are shifters. I like them both. Well, more than like, and Reed wants to see me again.

When she took Samantha a cup of coffee, she perched on the edge of the desk.

“Do you believe in supernatural things, Sam, like shifters or vampires?” She added vampires so that her question wasn’t so specific.

Samantha laughed. “What a weird question.” She looked hard at Jeanie. “You’re serious. Well no, they’re fiction. Surely you know that.”

Jeanie nodded. “Yes, just sometimes I wonder, you know … if there’s not more in the world than we know.” She trailed off and shrugged.

Samantha grinned. “You’ve been watching too many movies.”

Jeanie wanted to cover her tracks. “Yes. I did watch a movie this weekend. Okay, better check my email before that guy arrives. What’s his name?”

“Aquila
. Weird, huh? Never heard of it before. Mr. Aquila, that’s all he gave.”

Jeanie went back to her office. Drank her coffee and checked her emails.

At nine-thirty, her client arrived. Samantha showed the man in. It was Nathan.

Jeanie stood up shocked for a few seconds and heard as if from far away Samantha telling her, “Mr. Aquila for you.”

Samantha turn back to Nathan. “Can I get you coffee?”

He shook his head. “No
, thank you.”

Samantha left
, closing the door to Jeanie’s office behind her.

Nathan sat down in one of the chairs next to the desk and gazed at her. Jeanie’s heart
pounded.

“What are you doing here?” Her voice came out scratchy as she sat down too. Nathan smiled and she experienced a rush of attraction to him that
was almost longing.

“I need an architect and you are one. I wanted to see you again. I missed you yesterday. I was sure you’d come back to Owlswick. Reed was out all day too, we could have picked up where we left off.” He got up, leaned over her, and kissed her.

Jeanie kissed him back. It was enthralling, and so sexy she felt consumed with need for him.

He drew back, but took hold of a strand of her hair and caressed it between his fingers.

“I mean it. I can’t stop thinking about you. Is there any chance for me?”

She took a deep breath. “I know what you are. Reed told me.” It sounded as if she
’d somehow decided it was a bad thing and she could have bit back her words as she saw Nathan flinch.

“Did he tell you he’s the same? Did he?”

“I discovered it.” She tried to fix things. “When I said ‘what you are’, I meant both of you, although he didn’t tell me.”

Nathan sat down and
caught her hand. He brought it to his lips and Jeanie had to lean towards him. “I hope we can see each other, be together.” His eyes held hope, his tone gentle.

“I do want you so much, but there’s a problem, I want Reed
, too.” Jeanie heard herself say it and couldn’t believe she had.

S
he looked questioningly at him when he smiled and gave a sigh of relief.

“That’s good. That’s great. We hoped that you would. Reed was going to ask you tonight, but I couldn’t wait. I want you now. I want to fuck you here on the desk.”

A melting sensation warmed the bottom of her stomach and a surge of wet heat coated her pussy, but at the same time, her heart made her say, “It’s not just sex. I see myself caring, loving.”

He didn’t let her finish.
He kissed her and then nodded.

“
It’s not just sex for me, even though it’s great. I think I already do love you. Love at first sight, Reed says. Ridiculous as it always seems in movies and books. It could be something in our DNA.”

Jeanie’s smile reached her eyes and she
laughed. “You watch movies? You read? What do you mean your DNA?” For some reason, although he was a man before her, she imagined when he and Reed were alone they’d be two huge birds sitting on a perch in that low roofed building, in the dark.

Nathan frowned. “Yes
, of course. We are men, just normal guys, other than the becoming a bird thing. That’s what I mean by DNA, the bird thing.”

Jeanie took his face in her hands and kissed him.

“I need to know all about it. I need to get a photo of you too, right now.” She took her cell phone from next to her keyboard and took the picture. The white wall behind him might have been anywhere. “I have to prove to myself that I’m not completely mad.”

Nathan shook his head. “No
, don’t.” He put up a hand, but she already had, and she turned the cell phone screen to him. He looked at it sadly. “Proof, is that it?”

Jeanie didn’t understand for a few seconds.
He doesn’t know about the other photographs. Reed hasn’t told him.
He thinks I’ll use this one against him and Reed.

“No, Nathan, not proof to threaten you
. Proof that I’m not imagining all this. Please believe me.”

“Will you destroy it, the photograph? Delete it.”

“Yes and the others. I’ll show you. I’ll do it in front of you.”

“The others, Jeanie, how many do you have?”

She shrugged. “Five, but one is of Reed.” She hugged him after he gasped, clearly distressed. “Wait here.” She stood up and left her office.

“Samantha, he’d like coffee after all, will you make it?”

Her secretary grinned. “Sure.” She got up and walked to the kitchen. Jeanie tried to be nonchalant as she wandered after her.

“He’s very good looking. What’s he like?” Samantha’s question unnerved Jeanie.

She stammered, “N-nice, polite.” She pushed the cell phone under Sam’s nose. “I didn’t show you the other picture I got of the bird.”

Sam drew back a little to
look the screen of the cell phone with an amused look.

“That is an eagle
, you know. I didn’t think they lived this far south. I’ll bring the coffee, okay?” She gave Jeanie a serious look. “You should call the wildlife people or something, especially since it got in your house, it could be sick.”

Jeanie shook her head. “I think it got disoriented in the heat and just flew through my big window. Okay, I’ll get back to Mr. Aquila.” She turned and left Samantha staring after her.

In her own office again, she gave Nathan her cell phone. “Delete the two photos yourself, that way you’ll know they are gone. Later we can go to my house and I’ll delete the ones I have on the computer.”

He took her phone and deleted the pictures. Samantha brought the coffee and placed it on the desk in front of him with a smile. When she’d left the office, Nathan stood up, took Jeanie by the hands, and pulled her against him. “It
’s fate, you know. We were meant to meet.” He kissed her lingeringly and then sighed against her lips. “I want you so much.” He pressed her hips to his and Jeanie felt the hard column of his erection against her stomach.

She moved away from him gently.

“Let’s go now and delete the photographs.” He nodded at her request. She packed up her desk. He kept kissing her. Little kisses on the neck, on her cheek. Jeanie felt loved.

She led the way to Samantha’s desk. “Samantha, I need to see the premises Mr. Aquila wants to renovate. I won’t come back to the office today.” Samantha glance
d quickly at Nathan and then back at her.

“Sure
, Jeanie. I’ll lock up. See you tomorrow.”

Jeanie
had trouble not holding Nathan’s hand as they exited the office.

Next to her car, Jeanie turned to him. “I didn’t think about how you got here. Do you have a car parked somewhere?”

“No, Reed dropped me. I told him I’d persuade you to bring me back.”

Jeanie unlocked her car doors. “Let’s go. I really need to talk with you both. How’s it going to work? I see both of you and neither of you mind?”

She walked around to her car door and Nathan followed. He put his arms around her.

“Yes. That’s exactly it, and sometimes we see you both together.”

Jeanie’s heartbeat speeded up. Overwhelmed with desire, her voice shook. “The three of us together in bed?” The idea filled her with longing. She wanted it right then. To kiss Nathan hard, and then turn to Reed and have his gentle lingering kiss.