by Troy Storm
HAVING IT ALL
Troy Storm
Erotic Romance
Secret Cravings Publishing
www.secretcravingspublishing.com
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A Secret Cravings Publishing Book
Erotic Romance
Having It All
Copyright © 2013 Troy Storm
E-book ISBN: 978-1-61885-635-7
First E-book Publication: April 2013
Cover design by Dawné Dominique
Edited by Kyle Lewis
Proofread by Courtney Karmiller
All cover art and logo copyright © 2013 by Secret Cravings Publishing
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
PUBLISHER
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Dedication
To Sandy Lea Sullivan and her amazing crew who took a chance on me, and all the members of RWA/NYC who are always an inspiration and a supportive family of friends. Thank you, all.
The author acknowledges the trademark status and the following trademark owners mentioned in this work of fiction
Diane von Furstenberg
DKNY
Levi’s
PowerPoint
Easy Spirit
Target
Powerball
Lean Cuisine
Speedos
Bike
Mr. Coffee
Facebook
Kleenex
Breathalizer
Handi Wipes
Amtrak
Vallejo
Brillo
Twitter
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Rachel Hayes' father set out to prove the existence of the Miloni temple and the Jaguar people. Tumi is a descendant of the Miloni race and is sworn to protect their secret with his life. Will he be forced to uphold his vow at the cost of his heart and Rachel's life?
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HAVING IT ALL
Troy Storm
Copyright © 2013
Chapter One
“Hi.” It was a quiet male voice she didn't know. “I need some information…” There was a pregnant pause. “About sex.”
Syble hesitated a moment before looking up from the computer screen. The voice coming from in front and slightly above her was young—but not that young—and slightly tinged with bravado, as if testing the limits of how far he might tease her concerning the subject he was after.
She arched an imperious eyebrow, befitting her status as the town’s only professional librarian, and slowly raised her head.
The two twinkling cerulean blue orbs set in the handsome, young face caused her tight jaw to instantly loosen. Syble had never quite understood the term ‘twinkling’ in relation to eyes, especially guys’ eyes, but there they were, sparkling above the ruddy cheekbones, rosied further by an embarrassed blush. His full mouth was spread in a Cheshire grin that immediately spread wider, revealing large, white teeth and deepening the dimples bracketing his open face.
No doubt he was the good-looking, young assistant coach her coffee klatch had slathered over. He was the killer dude in the sports section, whose photos she herself had licked her lips dry over and had caused her to finger the neck of her cardigan to let the heat out—even when she wasn’t wearing a cardigan.
“Teenage sex?” handsome killer dude clarified, head cutely cocked, accompanied by a slight nonchalant shrug. He was now running the ‘endearing’ pass.
She intercepted and took off down the field.
“From all accounts, you’re already an expert on the subject,” Syble purred in return, notching her already arched dark brow a tad higher. She was, after all, his senior and though she was the official town librarian, she was also the unofficial town historian, charged with knowing all and filing it away for future reference
in the library’s dusty back stacks. Or at least the ‘all’ that was documented in the sparse pages of the local, struggling, small town newspaper.
Not only was the newly appointed assistant coach’s efforts with the aspiring high school sports studs well documented, but his photos had also appeared in the slim social section as he squired various young women about the town’s decidedly equally slim social scene.
He looked almost as good in well-fitted polos and slacks as he did half-naked, his muscled, broad chest bared above snug practice shorts, berating his young, sweating charges.
“Faced with trying to keep several dozen hormonally challenged male high school athletes in some kind of respectable social order…” His easy-going laugh rippled over Syble like a shaft of warm afternoon sunshine cutting into the cool of the ancient library, doing nothing to cool the heat rising in her midsection. “Turns out I’m pretty much an expert, not! Or…even very good at faking it. Hopefully, you have a stack of How Not to Panic at What’s Happening to Your Body for fourteen to sixteen-year-old, half-formed males. Like, maybe, the girls’ bible, Our Bodies, Ourselves, except for young dudes? I looked around, uh, Ms…”
“Thornton. Syble.” She indicated the brass nameplate on the information desk. “It’s a little odd, the spelling of my first name, but it’s the only thing odd about me, I like to think…that I parade in public. Please call me Syble.” She stood and held out her hand.
He took it eagerly. “Syble-a-little-odd, it is. I’m—”
“We, that is, all the females in town know who you are. Do I call you Coach Parks? Or…?” Hot Coach Parks, sprang to mind. Or Coach Parks with the Hot Parts?
“Chad, would be better. Please, not Chadford, my given name. And, I’m the assistant coach. Coach Branfield has been here forever and he—”
“I’m not into team sports.” She spread two self-deprecating hands, interrupting him. “Sorry. My high school assistants tell me when I’m to look impressed or saddened by whatever the teams have accomplished or not accomplished. And your Coach Branfield has never been in the library, as near as I know—though I’ve only been here a few years. But then, to be fair, the high school has a pretty good library. I’m afraid the few offerings we have in the teenage sex department are kept in the back stacks, under lock and key. And even they are woefully out of date.” She answered his raised eyebrows with an easy-as-she-could-manage smile. “Some delicate sensibilities around town might be offended, I suppose. Wouldn’t want our kids learning something their parents might not be too sure about. We are not a very sophisticated suburb.”
“Wow. That’s a little depressing. I was hoping for some help.”
“Doesn’t the high school have counselors, social workers, a motherly nurse you could pump? For information about sex…teenage sex, that is.” Her attempts at trying not to sound too flustered were quickly making her feel even more dorkish in his presence.
His rueful laugh was not much help. “My boss is the ‘motherly nurse’ and he’s fifty, paunchy, and doesn’t think kids should have sex until they’re thirty. And that includes me.”
The assistant coach was twenty-five, according to the local paper. And hot, as reported by Syble’s next-door neighbor, and now more than proven by the very real, muscular presence in front of her. And caring, Syble could now also add. He was interested in dispensing accurate information for his charges, which was more than commendable, and the struggle to put her hormonally induced nervousness aside began to win out as her professional, librarian demeanor resurfaced. She brightened at the possibility that she might have found another ally in trying to drag the town into the twenty-first century.
She took a deep breath. Young, good-looking, hot, and caring Chadford “Chad” Davis Parks, Assistant Coach of the local consolidated high school, was looking better and better with each adjective. The warm breeze blowing through her, which she had so badly missed these last several months, was still warming all parts of Syble, but those parts were now under control.
More or less.
“Well, darn it,” he frowned. “Thank you, ma’am, for the information. Guess I’ll have to go into the city and try to find something useful.”
Ma’am.
Syble sighed. For a few moments, she had forgotten she had seen thirty summers come and go…several seasons back.
“I can show you what we’ve got, if you like. And please call me Syble. It makes me feel not quite so ‘ma’am’ like.”
He blushed and grinned. Endearing, again. Dimpled, again. “Sorry. You certainly don’t look like a ma’am, I just…” His words trailed off as she stood, straightening her dress.
A dress, for God’s sake, she thought, even if it was a von Furstenberg wrap from a classy, east side, resale shop in the city. Would a hunky, twenty-five-year-old assistant coach know? Or care? It’s still a dress, on a fusty librarian. Why hadn’t she worn her sexy DKNY slacks, the ones that fit her ass so beautifully? She noted the neat polo shirt stretched across his broad chest, a darker blue than his eyes, and the trim jeans that fit snugly over his trim hips. Standard issue Levi’s perhaps, but certainly not standard issue fit.
She’d have to check out his backside in order to see if the leather patch was there.
I feel like something out of a bad production of The Music Man, she muttered to herself. Fussy, embarrassed, fusty librarian—in a dress. “It’s the town,” she said, aloud, overly brightly, startling the young man with her non sequitur. “It can do that. Make you feel like you’re in some other era. Ma’am. Sir. Young…young man,” she quoted absently, staring at him, her literary train of thought sidetracked by his eyes, now honed in on her, quizzically full of amused life and excitement and energy. ‘Young, young man,’ she repeated quietly to herself, from a Tennessee Williams play. Of course. She, an unrequited, desperate, plain-looking woman aspiring to greater things, and he a handsome, young, young man who…Syble blinked. Where on earth was her mind going?
“Although that can have a certain charm. A quiet town, that is,” she continued pleasantly, conversationally, as if she had not been caught ruminating on the handsome, well-built, hot, young…young man. “Where generally they don’t bother you. Andy!” she abruptly called, too loudly and too quickly. Remembering where they were, she called again, more sedately, to an overweight teenager sluggishly shelving books nearby. “Andy, the coach and I are going into the back stacks to, um, do some research. Look after the desk, would you, please.”
Andy’s dull eyes widened and brightened as he eyed the two of them. He snickered. Syble rolled her eyes. “He’s a good kid, but he watches way too much of the CW channel. Everything is high drama.” She led the way through a near-by locked door. “If only.”
“I could use a lot less of the teenage drama they’ve handed me,” Chad remarked behind her. “We’ve got a couple of teenage pregnancies and the shit is hitting the fan, so I’ve gotta come up with some sort of…oh, sorry, Ms, uh, Syble.”
She snapped on dim fluorescent lights and led him up an iron circular staircase onto the glass-floored second tier of bookshelves. “Teenagers do seem to be a lot more active than when I was one. Dark ages,” she added deprecatingly, turning back, the phrase collapsing as she became distracted by her view of him from above. His shoulders were very, very wide.
He looked up and caught her staring. His forthright look slid down to her breasts, and then lower. “That’s a really nice dress you’re wearing.”
“Oh…this old…uh…” Snap out of it, girl! “Thank you. You look good, too.” She turned and started down the glass-floored aisle, the soft glow of the fluorescents lighting her both from above and below. Her Easy Spirits made an odd squeaking sound on the glass floor and were not conducive to making her hips sway. Easy Spirits. Good, sensible shoes. After all, she might be on her feet all day. Comfort was important. She had a pair of great heels, somewhere, that make her legs look spectacular. She made her hips sway.
“Thank you.” Maybe he was referring to the effo
rt she was making.
“What?”
“You said I looked good, too.”
“I…did? Yes…well, you do look good. For this town, especially. Usually…” she couldn’t remember what she was going to say. She had told him he looked good? She didn’t remember saying that out loud. Usually she was very careful. Usually. Something very different was going on. Something Syble wasn’t sure she wanted to define. But something she definitely didn’t want to interrupt.
“I appreciate that. I try to keep in shape.”
“Well, you are the assistant coach of a bunch of rowdy, team sports, right?” She couldn’t imagine there being a croquet team at the high school. But she bet he’d look great in those neat-fitting whites, swinging his…stick. “I mean, athletics, and all.”
“Yeah. Gotta keep the kids motivated. And in fear of their lives.”
“Wouldn’t a less intimidating…I mean, if you’re going to be giving them information that relates to their sexual…”
“Nah. Most of them are gonna do it, anyway, if they’re not already doing it. If they screw up,” he laughed. “When they screw up—and I guess I mean that literally—and they have to answer for the consequences, well, at least they should know what their options are going in.”
“That would seem rather sporting of you. Don’t guys usually get factored out of the equation if there are consequences?” She hadn’t meant to preach. “What’s happening to the girls? The pregnant ones.”
“There’s probably going to be a couple of abortions; couple of ‘Going to visit her sick grandma for nine months.’ Maybe give it up for adoption. Maybe move to another town and keep it.”