Even if I knew his name – even if I saw his photograph – it wouldn’t change how today is going to go.
“If you don’t mind,” I say. “I’m going to take a look at a few work emails while we wait.”
“Oh, what do you do for work?”
“I’m a freelance illustrator. Well, I’m a cleaner and I do some freelance illustrating on the side. I’m hoping to make it my full-time career one day.”
“Hence the emails. I get ya. Sure. Go ahead. I need to do some tinkering anyway.”
I walk over to the seat in the corner, next to the refreshments table, wishing I’d delayed getting here.
But I’ve always been the sort of person to arrive at everything early, dreading the idea of coming in late with dozens of eyes on me. Even if this would only be two pairs of eyes on me, the thought of it still makes my skin tingle with anxiety.
I take out my phone and check my freelancing account.
I’m working with an author who’s self-publishing a children’s book, and their specifications for the main character’s appearance keep changing. We’ve been going back and forth for a week now, but they can’t settle on a solid outline.
I get into a conversation with him for a few minutes, discussing the waviness of the character’s hair. He thinks it should be extremely wavy, windswept, but every time I send him a windswept look he says it’s too wavy.
But even if I’d normally find this annoying, it’s far better than staring at the door and wondering who’s going to come in here.
Soon the delay is over.
I hear footsteps outside the door and the receptionist’s voice.
“Just this way, sir.”
“Sure.”
My mouth falls open when I hear his deep gruff voice, the same voice I’ve heard hundreds of times in MMA interviews, in his home when I was a teenager before he went to Thailand. It’s the voice I’ve dreamed about ever since I was a kid with a crush… and even if I’m a woman now, I’ve still got that crush.
It never went away.
Surely I must be wrong.
The door opens and I see I’m right.
My blood goes hot. My heart thumps.
Kaleb Keller, my best friend’s dad, walks into the room.
I expect his eyes to widen when he spots me. I expect him to look surprised, as he stands there in a white dress shirt and slacks, his eyes are even brighter and more intense than I remember them, his body so huge and hard-looking it makes me want to leap across the room and grip onto his bulging muscles.
And then it hits me.
He doesn’t recognize me.
Chapter Four
Kaleb
I stare at the woman sitting in the chair, hellfire moving through me, fucking flames like I’ve never felt before.
I stopped believing I’d find the woman of my dreams, the woman I was destined to be with, the woman who’d awaken the animal need in me.
Nobody ever came close.
Nobody ever stoked a hundredth of the fire this woman has ignited.
She stares back at me with wide emerald eyes, the sort of eyes that make me wonder how wide and innocent and surprised they’ll go when I bury myself up to the hilt, pumping as she moans and shivers on the end of my manhood. Her hair is shoulder length and a deep brown, making me want to run my hands through it. Her face is free of makeup, fresh and innocent and young and mine.
And her body…
Fuck…
As she stands up, I drink in the sight of her gorgeous curves. She’s wearing a cardigan with a tan tank top and black pants, but neither does anything to hide the beautiful shapeliness of her, as though she was made especially to bring my children into this world, to give me a second family I didn’t know I needed before I laid eyes on her.
I want to bury my hands in those gorgeous round breasts, pull her shirt so roughly it tears in half. I want to rub my hand along her hips, around to her thick ass, burying my hands greedily in her flesh.
I’m getting hard thinking about it. I can’t stop.
“Hello.” I turn my gaze when a tall woman with short hair approaches, presumably the photographer. “I’m Janie. You must be Kaleb.”
I nod, struggling to keep my gaze on the photographer when all my eyes want to do – need to do – is drift back to the woman I’ve already mentally claimed as mine.
I imagine somebody busting in here and trying to take her from me.
I would do vicious things to protect her, and I don’t even know her damn name.
What the hell is happening to me?
I always thought this was possible, but I never knew it would be so sudden, so violent, so all-consuming.
“Yes,” I say after a long pause.
“I’m Janie. I’ll be your photographer for the session. And this is…”