Afraid to Hope (Secrets & Seduction)

  Afraid to Hope Copyright © 2014 MJ Nightingale

  Published by MJ Nightingale

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, including electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products 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. This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.

  This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it to the seller and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Published: MJ Nightingale 24th June, 2014: authormjnightingale@gmail.com

  Editing: Brenda Wright

  Cover Design © Kari Ayasha

  Formatting by: Brenda Wright

  This book is intended for a mature audience of eighteen and older.

  I have to begin by thanking the inspirations for my books in the Secrets & Seduction Series. Fire In His Eyes, Afraid to Love, and Afraid to Hope would not have been possible without the people who inspired the characters in my books. Thank you Diana, Denise and Jay! You know the characters you have inspired and I hope I did justice to your back stories.

  I also need to acknowledge Lacy Daniels, Amanda Kay, Amanda Lanclos, Ronda Brimeyer, and Dina Alexander and MaryAnn Jordan. They are the best of my Facebook family and tirelessly support me and encourage me on this journey, and without you I may have given up this dream of mine to write. And all of you in my street team, and those of you who have beta’d for this book, thank-you for your wonderful ideas, insightful suggestions, and great advice on how to make this book better. I could not have done this one without you.

  My editor, Brenda Wright, has done it again. Brenda, your hard work on behalf is so greatly appreciated. You not only edit and format my books, but you give me advice, support and encouragement. Thank-you for sticking with me, and thank-you for being a friend and sticking by me on this whole journey. Your loyalty to me and continuous support has been unwavering. I hope you know you also have mine.

  Thank-you to the bloggers and the reviewers that helped my first two books get their initial exposure. We couldn’t do it without you. The power you wield with your words, your clicks, your shares, and your likes, help our books see the light of day. For new indie authors, gaining a readership is nearly impossible without your help. I appreciate each and every one of you who has reviewed my book and saw behind the steamy scenes to the messages I want to send out as well.

  I have to thank the readers next, all of you especially who have reached out to me and told me that my books touched you in some way. It makes all the hours, the days, weeks, and months, I spend writing, editing, revising, and marketing the books worthwhile. So, thank you for taking a chance on me, and a chance on my books.

  Wiping at her tear stained eyes, Louisa pulled into the parking lot of NAMI. She had to pull herself together before going back to work. How would it look for her to walk into the reception area of the mental health clinic that treated patients suffering from depression looking like she had lost her best friend?

  “Fuck,” she murmured as she searched her purse for a tissue.

  She had only been working there two months and she really didn’t want her new employers to see her upset. She had fifteen minutes before she had to go back inside. She still had some time to clear her head and put herself back together before heading back in.

  Even though her new boss and immediate supervisor, Dr. Phillip Fairbanks, seemed like he would understand her dilemma, she didn’t want to make a bad impression on her other co-workers and the patients that would be sitting in the waiting room. This job meant everything to her right now. It was her dream job to work in a field that helped people. Landing this job months ago had made her move to Florida from Maine worth it.

  “Get ahold of yourself, idiot!” she told herself and blew her nose.

  She didn’t want to disappoint the man that had given her a chance in this new field. She looked up to Dr. Fairbanks and respected how he handled his patients and dealt with business matters. He had been leaving more and more of that side of the job in her capable hands. Dr. Fairbanks was a licensed psychiatrist, a counsellor, and one of the partners in the suite of offices she worked in on the fifth floor of the Medical Arts Building adjacent to the Brooksville Regional Hospital. Dr. Fairbanks was very easy going and laid back with the employees and the patients, and was one the most popular counsellors in the community. His grey hair and kind grey eyes put everyone at ease. He wore sweaters instead of suits, and this little bit of informality in his profession put everyone at ease.

  Louisa usually worked in the back of the office, but on occasion covered the front desk. She handled the billing, coding, ordering of supplies for the office, and now handled the worker’s schedules and payroll, allowing the doctors to focus more on their patients. She had earned their trust in a short time, and didn’t want to let them down. That, and she felt her stupid tears were unnecessary and frivolous, yet she still continued to feel the hurt and think about what had saddened her.

  “Stop,” she told herself, and did. This wasn’t like her at all. Even if Dr. Fairbanks understood her predicament, she could not fall apart on the job she told herself, giving herself a mental shake. She couldn’t let the patients of the walk-in-clinic see her sniffling and wiping her nose during patent intake. God forbid, they passed her office, or stopped to ask her a question about their insurance when she was like this. She examined her eyes in the rear view mirror, and noticed they were very red and puffy. So silly, she thought, mad at her emotions for betraying her. She wasn’t one to cry. She examined her purse for some eye drops, and her make-up bag. She definitely needed to hide this mess.

  As she reapplied her make-up, she couldn’t help but recall the text message she had gotten from her daughter just as she left for her lunch break. Her daughter, Veronica, nineteen years old soon to be twenty, had texted that she wouldn’t be able to make it to see her for Thanksgiving. Her daughter was a sophomore at the University of Maine, or UMaine as the kids called it. She was studying Forestry and Environmental Sciences hoping to become a forest ranger. She had switched her major recently and needed the long weekend to do some field study projects. Excited for her daughter, and this new direction her life had taken, she understood, but she had not seen her daughter in four months. It was the longest she had gone without seeing her.

  Louisa felt like a fool as she rolled up her car window, and made ready to leave the vehicle and return to work. The Florida heat, even in November, slammed into her as she got out of her car.

  She had moved to Florida just three months earlier from Maine to embark on a new chapter of her life, and she had yet to explore, the way her daughter was doing now. She was thirty-five, had her daughter at sixteen, and had committed herself to raising her right. That meant after her fiasco of a teenage marriage had ended, she had to grow up fast, and she hadn’t wanted a parade of men to enter her and her daughter’s life. Her daughter was in college now, living and experiencing new and exciting things, and was responsible beyond anything Louisa had hoped and dreamed of. But, this had been the longest they had gone without seeing each other and she had been looking forward to seeing her, celebra
ting Veronica’s birthday and Thanksgiving with her. True, she would see her in just five more weeks at Christmas, but she missed her daughter. She wasn’t upset that she had moved away from her. No. She had needed the change of scenery from Presque’ Isle, Maine. It was a small town with little opportunities, and long memories. There was no future for her there, and she was still young enough to start over. Her life had been on hold for twenty years, and she had come here with one goal in mind; to live. That meant pursuing her dreams of having her own career, her own home, and possibly even find love, real love this time. Well, that is what she hoped for anyway. She slammed her car door, and clicked the control to make sure it was locked.

  Yup, Presque’ Isle did not have those opportunities for her, she thought as she began to cross the lot. Once she was back on the market after her divorce, the available men from her home town, the men her age remembered her as the wild child, who partied, and got knocked up at fifteen.

  Then there was Robert. Her ex. She didn’t want to go there. She could have gone to Bangor where her daughter was studying, but she wanted her daughter to have true independence and to live, and not be the mom who followed her child and lived across town keeping an eye on her daughter. She wanted to give her this chance to fly. The chance she had not taken. The path she could have chosen.

  Glancing at the time on her cell she picked up her pace, she realized she had just a few minutes to get inside and upstairs to her office. She turned her phone off, and began to hustle.

  The steaming black-topped parking lot, and the heat in November at noon was something she was still getting used to. Louisa stopped short half-way to the Medical Arts building when she noticed the man standing just outside. She recognized him right away, and how could she not from his massive bulky frame to the tattoos adorning one of his arms. And from the looks of it, he recognized her as well. He was staring quite devilishly as she approached. “Great,” she mumbled as she resumed her walking. “Just great.”

  He continued to watch her as she crossed the parking lot towards him. The butterflies began to swarm in her stomach, and she couldn’t help but wonder how long he had been watching her, and if he could tell by that distance that she had been upset.

  She was maybe twenty yards away, noticing, all right admiring, his massive arms crossed in front of his barrel-like chest. He gave her a slow seductive smile eyes slightly amused. Their greyness glinted in the sun. As she approached the crossway, his arms dropped to his sides. Her mouth dropped open in shock, and not from the amazing torso that was apparent from the tightness of his t-shirt. It was the t-shirt itself that had shocked her. It was red, and had large white lettering that surely made a statement like no other novelty t-shirt she had ever seen before. It read, “I fuck as hard as my body. Want to see?”

  The shock passed by quickly and turned into something else. Louisa couldn’t help it, and perhaps because of her earlier mood, she found it hysterical while subconsciously she was also answering the question in the affirmative. She burst out laughing, and that’s when Jay spoke. She hadn’t forgotten his name, not this man’s, Jayson Russell, and she had thought of him often since that brief encounter at the flea market a few months ago. He had told her very suggestively then that he worked on the weekends if she ever wanted to find him. He sold novelty t-shirts, and apparently, she eyed him up and down one more time, advertised them as well.

  “You never came back to see me,” he stated matter-of-factly. Oh, he remembered her all right. He couldn’t forget a rack like that, he thought.

  “Sorry,” she replied trying to make her way around him. “My weekends have been pretty busy.” It was an honest answer too. She had been apartment hunting recently. Since moving to Florida she had been staying with her best friend from high school, Ana. Ana and her boyfriend, Teddy, we’re getting pretty serious and she wanted to give them more space and privacy. Her friend, Ana, deserved this. She had been through the ringer, and life had not been kind to her.

  Jay must have taken her words wrong because his response not only surprised her, but shocked her as well.

  “Louisa, mmm.” It came out like a growl. “What a shame that you’re taken. I have been fantasizing about you. A lot.”

  “Me?” It came out like a squeak. She actually looked around to see if anyone else was approaching. Jay found that entertaining.

  “Yes. You.” The words were deliberate, and prolonged as they rolled off his tongue. His smoky grey-blue eyes sparkled with clear intent. “I am rarely wrong about woman, Lou. I was sure you would be back.”

  Lou’s eyes squinted narrowly at his presumption. It was one thing being hit on, but she found his cockiness a bit grating as if he expected all women to simply throw themselves at him, and her one of them. His ego was obviously huge, and she almost brushed past him. But if she was honest with herself, she had been tempted a time or two to pay a little visit to the USA Flea Market on the off chance she would run into this rugged and sexy stranger. Hearing the not so quiet Ana and her boyfriend in the wee hours of the dawn, she had to admit, she had fantasized about Jay a time or two. Well, more than that, but who was counting, she thought, as she eyed the magnificent male specimen in front of her. But his comment about rarely being wrong about women had her feathers ruffled. She stood a little taller on her five foot two inch frame, glad she had worn heels that made her three inches taller. Jay had to be over six feet tall. Like a gladiator. Mmm, she shook her head of long brown curls to push out the image that just popped into her mind.

  Jay laughed. His eyes narrowed and he gave her body a complete once over. Her hair was a riot of brown waves and the clip she wore on the side did nothing to tame them. He imagined her naked on a sheet, spread out before him with her hair fanned out waiting to be touched. Her pale skin was like ivory, the red lips full, and the tantalizing neckline on the busty small frame was just what he had in mind for a little diversion. She was wearing an emerald V-neck shirt, nothing too revealing, but enough to make a man wonder. Her ass was a little flat, he had noticed when she walked away at the flea market, but those tits had barely contained themselves in her little red halter top on that warm summer day. God, they had bounced as she walked down the aisles with her red-headed friend, the Amazon, and the blond guy that wasn’t her boyfriend. His cock began to harden as he remembered. Her legs were slender, shapely and pale. She needed to get out more. He imagined what those legs would look like on his shoulders, draped over his back as he licked her pussy up against a wall. She probably weighed 110 pounds. He could lift her with one hand. Maybe 115, with those tits, he thought as his gaze travelled back up over them. His hands itched to feel the weight of them. His cock was stone hard now, straining uncomfortably against the zipper of his jeans. He cleared his throat. “I am glad I was wrong about you,” he confessed. The fact that she hadn’t come running back the next day like most women he hit on did, said she was a bit classier than the rest. He wanted to probe her pussy with his tongue until she screamed for more.

  His last remark surprised her, but she didn’t have time to ponder it, or figure out its meaning. She had to get to work. She did not want to be late.

  “If you’ll excuse me, I do have to get to work.” His eyes just sparkled. His massive body blocked her way and there was no way he was moving just yet. His stance told her that, and the mischief she saw in his eyes. So she added, and she did not know why she did it. “Jay, please. I have to go. I know where you work, where to find you, and now you know where I work.” His eyebrows lifted in amusement. The slow smile that spread across his tanned, chiseled face sent those butterflies swarming once again. God, could a man be described as beautiful, she thought. Jay was. Not traditional or classically good looking, but he was rugged, and rough. She found him incredibly sexy. His arms and shoulders were built up, massively so. The man worked out. One arm sported a sleeve of tattoos, an intricate length of Ivy, and his other forearm sported a dangerous looking dagger. He had wavy brown hair with golden highlights. His nose was straight,
strong, and his jaw square. High cheekbones, and lips a tad too large, were all tempting her and making her late for work.

  “That I do, Louisa. Lou,” he added and drew the last word out. He remembered her nickname as well, she thought. The word Lou came out in a seductive whisper, a promise. He nodded at her then and moved to let her pass, but not without giving her another complete once over. It was like his eyes could see through her clothing.

  His wolfish expression indicated he appreciated the view. “See you soon, Lou.”

  She passed by him. Thoughts of her daughter were now gone, vanished. All that remained was the warm sensation that had spread to her groin.

  “Yes,” she murmured softly, a bit shyly as she passed in a rush to get to work.

  He wondered what office she worked in, he would have to ask his dad if he knew the girl with the amazing . . . best not, he thought. The building was too large anyhow for his father to know everyone that worked in the building. He watched her cross the rest of the covered walkway. She was in her thirties, he could tell by the faint lines, but she was not as experienced as most thirty year olds, he felt. Her blush had given her away. He liked the idea of it. He didn’t like to work for his woman. But Lou, well, she could be a fun diversion for a time. His cock popped to attention in his pants. He looked down, and in his mind promised it, “Soon.” He watched her as she paused while the glass doors slid open, her ass was not as flat as he remembered, and maybe it had been the shorts she had worn. Her ass looked much better in the skirt she was wearing now. He could get a grasp on that. He nodded and winked when she peeked back over her shoulder, and caught him watching her. He didn’t flinch or turn away. He licked his lips, formulating a plan.

  Lou couldn’t help herself and she tried to resist as she passed through the sliding glass doors into the Medical Arts building affiliated with Brooksville Regional Hospital, but she looked back, just a tiny peek. He was still standing there, watching her. He was like a wolf stalking its prey. It didn’t scare her though even though it looked like he could and would take her right now in the lobby. It made her feel wanted and desired. It was a heady feeling for her. His look was one of pure unadulterated desire. And, she felt it too. But something about this man made her feel unsettled. She wasn’t sure she should go down this route. Yet, she had moved to Florida to have these kinds of opportunities another part of her mind screamed. But this man, Jay Russell, he was wild, and untamed. Could she handle that? She wasn’t sure. Did she want him? Did she imagine him inside her? Oh God, yes.