Satin Pleasures by Karen Docter

Author:Karen Docter [Docter, Karen]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Romance, Contemporary, Fiction
ISBN: 9780988258600
Google: K5hQLwEACAAJ
Amazon: 0988258609
Publisher: CreateSpace
Published: 2012-04-03T21:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

“Is this the one, honey?”

Startled by the abrupt question, Tess dropped Irene Emory’s favorite vegetable peeler down the garbage disposal, right behind the apple she’d been paring for her mother’s fruit salad. She checked over her shoulder to make sure Dan hadn’t returned from her father’s small greenhouse in the backyard. “I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about, Mom.”

Irene reached around her to dig the utensil and bruised apple out of the hole. “I prefer the fruit tossed in a bowl, Tessa Lynn, and you know exactly what I’m talking about. You’ve been here more than an hour, but you’re still flitting around like a nervous seagull with a kite string caught in his tail feathers.”

Tess laughed at the childhood memory so she wouldn’t have to deal with her mother’s questions. The last thing she needed to know was that her daughter’s antsy behavior had begun the instant she opened her eyes this morning and found a real, live, naked shopkeeper in her bed!

“You’ll never let me forget that one, will you?” She’d been a precocious ten-year-old when she designed a leash of kite string to wrap around her pet seagull’s tail. “I didn’t raise Salty to teach him how to fly away with the first lady seagull he met. He needed to know where his home was.”

“And he found it when you let him go.” Irene gently pushed her into a kitchen chair on the heels of the reminder.

Handing Tess a bunch of red grapes to pull apart, she rinsed the apple and quickly finished paring it before sitting down, too. “You couldn’t control Salty’s nature, any more than you can control the look in your eyes when you’re in the same room with that young man you brought home today.”

That’s what Tess was afraid of, her abysmal lack of control recently. Dan didn’t need to be in the same room with her to push buttons that had remained inoperable for years. Dreams. Fantasies. Need. Desire. The myriad of unfamiliar emotions that had surfaced in the past two weeks was unnerving.

The man had quickly become a distraction—one she could ill afford to indulge. Or resist. She didn’t know if last night’s lovemaking was an aberration, a glorious night never to be repeated, or the beginning of an intimate relationship she knew in her heart would end badly. None of those possibilities thrilled her.

Is that why you invited Dan to meet your parents today? So he’d see what your ex-fiancé saw? So he’d run away, too, and take temptation with him?

“Are you engaged?”

Tess was conscious of sticky grape juice dripping through her fingers as she stared at her mother. “I beg your pardon?”

Irene shrugged. “The last time you brought a man to meet us, you were engaged to him.”

“I don’t get engaged to every man I bring home,” she said in her defense, dropping the crushed grapes on a napkin and wiping her fingers.

“Dan is the only man you have ever brought home, princess.” Tess’s father, Michael, stood in the doorway, his hands firmly wrapped around his canes.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.