Temptations: A Limited Edition Contemporary Romance Collection

by Blue Saffire

  “As a joke! I didn’t think you take my flight school suggestion seriously,” she said. “You hate flying. Also, phones exist.”

  “I don’t know if he would pick up the phone if I called,” I said, more to myself than to her.

  She shook her head. “You never even tried,” she said. She pulled into the airfield. I could hear planes taking off and immediately became nervous. Well, more nervous than I already was. I was already a real fucking mess, but my palms were sweating and my breath had quickened as Valerie began to look for a parking spot.

  I eyed the airfield as Valerie turned off the ignition. She turned around to look at the backseat.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Looking for my laptop,” she said. “That’s where all my information is.”

  “Aren’t you coming with me?”

  “As much as I want to see this guy from up close, I really think this is something you should do yourself,” she said. “Plus, I have that scholarship to take care of.”

  “What if he doesn’t want to see me?”

  “Then we got to see Austin.”

  “I’m serious,” I said. “What if this was all for nothing?”

  “Then you at least tried, Dev,” she replied. “And that’s worth something. More than you know.”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I’m scared, though.”

  “I know,” she replied. “Which is why it’s so brave that you’re here in the first place.”

  “Brave?”

  “Yeah. Even if it doesn’t go well, you did everything you could. And that’s important.”

  I rolled my eyes. “If this doesn’t go well, I’ll hold it over your head for the rest of the month.”

  “Deal,” she said. “Now go. You’re stalling.”

  I put my hand on the door handle and pushed it open. I could see a little office near where we were, where Logan was waiting for me to start out lesson. He would’ve seen my full name before he took on the class, so I knew that he had the opportunity to cancel it if he had wanted to.

  I practically sprinted toward the little office, but the moment I got there, I slowed my pace so that it looked like I was just naturally walking in. I scanned my gaze around the office. There was no one there, not even a receptionist.

  I spotted a water cooler, which seemed as good a spot as any to wait. I began to walk to it when I heard someone clear their throat behind me. “Devon,” Logan said.

  “Hey,” I replied, turning around and smiling. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “Where did you think I would be?” he said, cocking his head. He looked exactly the same he had a few weeks ago, except like he had gotten a haircut and had trimmed his beard. He looked good. I wanted to reach out and hugged him, but I didn’t know if that would be inappropriate.

  “I just thought you would be at work,” I said.

  “I am at work,” he replied. “I’m a private instructor when I’m not working commercially. Then again, you already knew that, didn’t you?”

  I looked away from him. “I mean, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”

  “Right,” he said, smiling at me. “And you booked a lesson because you just love flying.”

  “I wanted to talk to you,” I said. “If that meant I had to pay for your time, then I was going to do it.”

  “You could have just called,” he said.

  “Would you have answered?”

  He thought about that for a minute. “Yeah,” he said. “I think so.”

  I shook my head. “I thought it might be better to do this in person,” I said. “And, honestly, I figured we wouldn’t actually be flying on our first lesson. Right?”

  He laughed. “You should have seen your face,” he said. “You went pale just saying that.”

  “Listen,” I said, waving him off. “I didn’t come here to talk about airplanes. I came here to apologize. I came to…”

  “What?”

  “Ask you on a date,” I said, looking away from him.

  “You came all the way to Austin for that?” he said, a smile on his face. “I think you still have my contact information on that hook-up app. I never deleted our conversation.”

  I looked at him. “You didn’t?”

  “Nah,” he said. “I was sort of hoping you’d get in touch.”

  I blinked. “Really?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Why do you find that so hard to believe?”

  “Because. What about Aaron?”

  “Aaron?” he asked, looking genuinely confused for a second.

  “The guy who opened the door,” I replied.

  He looked taken aback for a second, then laughed. “Aaron? My coworker Aaron?” he asked. “Yeah, no. He’s just another pilot who didn’t have a place to stay that night and I thought I’d be nice about it, considering how my night had gone. Thought it might be nice for someone else’s night not to be quite as shitty.”

  “Did it work?”

  “He didn’t have to sleep in the lobby,” he said. “I heard the receptionists talking about you when I went downstairs. I asked if they were talking about the handsome man with the expensive coat.”

  “How did you know my coat was expensive?”

  He laughed. “I looked at it,” he said.

  “Right,” I said, then looked away from him. He had still not answered my question, but I couldn’t but be relieved at the fact that Aaron was nothing more than a friend. “I don’t know if I want a lesson.”

  “So what do you want to do?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Dinner and a movie?”

  “Right now?” he asked.

  “I mean, it’ll probably be a little busy to see each other,” I said. “With our busy schedules. I mean, I’m in Austin and… is this where you live?”

  “Yes,” he said. “A little far from Atlanta.”

  “Lucky you can fly,” I said. “Look, I know I fucked up but—”

  “No,” he said. “I mean, you did, but I overreacted. We could have just talked about it. You didn’t have to come to Austin to see me.”

  “I wanted to,” I said. “It’s better than working.”

  “Right. I guess if you’re like a multimillionaire, you don’t have to actually work, huh?”

  I felt my cheeks reddening. “You looked me up?”

  “After what happened, it was hard not to,” he said. “I wanted to know everything about you. You’re weirdly private.”

  I laughed. “Okay, how about this? I’ve tried really hard to outrun where I come from because I was scared. I don’t know if I’m gay, but I do know that I really like you,” I said. “I have a lot of money but I still feel guilty about using it. And I go by Devon because Jay makes me feel like a child that nobody likes.”

  He smiled at that. “I liked you,” he said. “I always liked you.”

  “You didn’t know me,” I said.

  “I knew you enough,” he replied. “But I do appreciate that bit of openness.”

  We held each other’s gaze for a little while.

  “So? What do you say?” I asked. “Do you want to go out with me?”

  “Yes,” he said. “With two conditions.”

  “What?”

  He got close to me, dropping his voice to whisper into my ear. “One, you take me somewhere so we finish the night we started having,” I said, then moved away from me. His eyes were glimmering. “Two, if we get married, we do it at home.”

  “What?” I asked, shaking my head.

  “I mean, I’m not saying it’s going to happen,” he said. “But if we do get married, I want a great big gay wedding in Danville, where everyone who knows us is going to see us. Deal?”

  I bit down on my lower lip. “Yeah,” I said. “Okay, deal.”

  “Good,” he replied, grabbing my hand. “I’ll hold you to that.”

  I laughed, shaking my head. “Fine,” I said. “Whatever you want.”

  “Oh, shouldn’t have said that,” he replied
. “Now, where are you going to take me?”

  The End

  Continue the Small Town Straights Series

  Small Town Straights

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  About the Author

  Lina Langley is a first-generation immigrant. She currently lives in sunny Florida and spends her time slashing hot strangers while getting coffee.

  * * *

  Her past is haunted by spies, thieves, tyrants, and murderers. A resident of the world, she’s lived on three different continents. She first saw a radiator when she was twenty-two years old, and one time she followed a cat instead of going to a house party.

  * * *

  She likes to read, watch TV, and play video games when she’s not developing them. The rest of her free time is spent recreating her own characters in The Sims and hoping that people don’t look at the back end of her games.

  * * *

  You can email her: lina@linalangley.com

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  https://linalangley.com

  Snowbound Siren

  Kris Jayne

  Snowbound Siren © 2018 Kris Jayne

  * * *

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Created with Vellum

  Snowbound Siren

  A seduction. A secret. A steamy, snowbound adventure.

  * * *

  Savannah Rosetti is stranded. Taking a break in Montana after her step-sister’s wedding, she’s going to regroup—personally, professionally, and, now, romantically. Why not? A storm leaves her snowbound with America’s hottest billionaire bachelor. She can hone her seduction skills and keep warm on a frigid November night.

  * * *

  Billionaire Ian Hart founded the world’s most successful online dating company, finding love for millions of people, just not for himself. After the disastrous end to his engagement, he decides to hide out in his mountain mansion and put women out of his mind.

  * * *

  Blustering snow sends Savannah to his doorstep—and into his bed. But will his complicated past extinguish their sizzling spark?

  1

  “Commit today. Your quest for love requires you to become a relentless feminine warrior who seeks every opportunity to catch your man’s attention and lure him in.”

  A warm-blooded Texan had no business driving in the snow down a ribbon of mountain road winding through towering evergreens. Or being north of Oklahoma past October. Hell, north of the Red River. Let alone this close to the Canadian border. For the moment, I swear, global warming couldn’t come fast enough.

  Michelle owed me like a gambling addict flop-sweating in a casino.

  We were all supposed to be excited. She had gotten married!

  “Finally. I don’t know why she waited so long,” her mother whispered to me after my toast at Michelle’s reception, then eyed me with pity and consternation.

  So long? She was 31. Two years younger than I was. And no one had been more determined to make it down the aisle than my sister. Or, technically, my step-sister. I was glad she was married, but I was mostly glad because she hadn’t settled. She’d waited and found a wonderful, devoted man.

  I always feared desperation—and the persistent hint-dropping of my stepmother Gayle—would one day drive Michelle to start emailing convicts.

  But then, six months ago, she met her now-husband Steve on a flight from Dallas to New York.

  Another bride might have waited to have a traditional spring or summer wedding, but Michelle had vowed to be married by the end of the year—before even meeting Steve. Last Christmas, her mom gave both of us not-so-subtle presents—copies of Siren: Unleash Your Feminine Power & Get The Man You Want, by Dr. Olivia De Laurence.

  Gayle slid the books toward us slowly like they contained volatile ancient secrets. “Moira’s daughter used this book last year to find a stockbroker. They’re getting married in April.”

  I didn’t know this Moira or her daughter, but I took one look at the book cover with its curvaceous outline of a female figure who was half female warrior, half Georgia O’Keefe vagina painting and knew it would end up buried under a stack of mail in my home office.

  Not Michelle. She read cover to cover by New Year’s Day and declared this year: the year of her wedding.

  And she’d done it. She and Steve married two days ago, the Friday after Thanksgiving, in a voluminous mansion owned by Steve’s cousin in Montana.

  “Montana. In November?” I’d shivered when Michelle told me of their plans. We were sitting on my couch watching our favorite ‘80s rom-com, When Harry Met Sally, and eating popcorn drenched in melted butter.

  Michelle grabbed the remote and paused the movie. “You’ll love it. It’s beautiful. Right near Glacial National Park. Steve’s cousin is letting us use the place. We went up over July Fourth. It’s amazing. His cousin is a big-time tech guy. Like billionaire big time. We’ll all be able to stay there. It has seventeen bedrooms. Seventeen!”

  “You’re kidding, me? Is he single?”

  “He has a fiancée. I think. I’m not sure. There’s always some drama. His girlfriend is a Russian model and, to hear Steve talk, a little nuts.”

  Of course, a man who ran a company like that probably dated crazy models and had to keep working just to pay for all the tires they had slashed on his Italian sports cars.

  “Too bad,” I said.

  “Enough about Ian. He just told Steve that he’s not even coming to the wedding.” Michelle rolled her eyes and then flashed her hands in front her. “Just think: mountains and snow and evergreens.”

  My nose twitched skyward. “And bears and blizzards.”

  “Don’t pooh pooh my wedding, Savannah!” A barrage of buttered kernels pelted me in the forehead.

  “Okay. You want me in northwest Montana in the dead of winter under a snowdrift.” I stopped to salute her. “Aye, aye, bridezilla.”

  “Screw you.”

  More popcorn in the face.

  “Why isn’t the host coming to the wedding?”

  Michelle shrugged. “Steve said Ian is really private and not that big a fan of weddings, which is funny because all his money comes from founding SoulM8. That dating app.”

  “Oh, wait, Ian, what’s his name? I’ve heard of him.”

  “Ian Hart.”

  “Yeah. I just read something about him.” He’d been named one of America’s top five most wanted bachelors by Gloss Magazine, complete with a mouth-watering photo spread shot at his slick, downtown San Francisco offices. “You’d think he could make an exception—especially since the wedding is at his house.”

  “Whatever.” Michelle shrugged. “He’s giving us the place and offering up his private jet and chartering another one for guests. I’m not complaining.”

  She pulled out her phone and pulled up pictures of the house.

  I whistled. “Damn. Seventeen bedrooms?”

  “It’s spectacular. The great room is this big round space surrounded by glass with the trees and the mountains in the background. There are two giant fireplaces and a massive kitchen. And the floors are heated, so you won’t freeze to death.”

  “I better not. I don’t do well when the temperature drops below fifty. You know that.”

  “It’s my wedding. You’re my sister, and my maid of honor. Suck it up,” Mich
elle griped.

  I had returned some wayward popcorn in her direction but sworn I’d manage.

  Even now, as fat tufts of snow hit my windshield with increasing volume, it had been worth it to see Michelle walk down the aisle in her dream wedding dress. I remember when she cut a picture of that exact dress out of bride’s magazine almost ten years ago and added it to one of her vision boards. Michelle was always setting goals and making them happen.

  Her gleaming smile and the loving sparkle in Steve’s eyes had me sniffling the entire ceremony. I swear I could hear my dad talking to me from the great beyond, “Waterworks, Savvy? Rosettis don’t do waterworks.” Rosetti or no, the vaulted, cross-beamed ceilings and rustic decor of the house’s garden room turned wedding venue had become a tearful blur.

  Totally worth it.

  However, I wasn’t sure I could say the same thing about staying two more days to take advantage of the peace and scenery. Everyone else had flown chartered jets back to Dallas and beyond from Kalispell—courtesy of Ian—on Saturday.

  No longer at the house in an official capacity, I’d moved from the mountain mansion to a condo up the mountain at the resort in Whitefish.

  The plan had been to decompress from my horrifying job situation, enjoy some spa services, and think about my next move. Part of me wanted to storm into the office next week and tell my boss to kiss my ass before he had a chance to start another staff meeting shouting and calling us all morons. Literally, I had dreams about it.

  Unfortunately, I had to put up with the unprofessional screaming until the end of March to get a sweet $10,000 bonus for my year of hell. Then, I could tell them to fuck off—in my head, at least. In reality, I’d smile and talk about needing more challenges or to expand my horizons or some other BS I’d make up the night before. And I really needed to start looking for a new job.