by Dani Wyatt
“Shut up.” Ninety percent of the time when responding to anything Norman says those are my two go-to words.
I’m fluent in the English language, but my need for it is minimal. The few people that attempt to converse with me usually take me for stupid or possibly lacking a tongue. I don’t care much what they think.
“You got the whole lumberjack-no-one-understands-me thing going boss, but I know better. You’re up there chopping wood for that furnace and doting on those roses like each one sprang directly from your own loins. You’re not so tough. Maybe, you know...if you soften up a little, maybe she’ll toss a few words your way in return. Stop being so scary with your Grizzly Adams beard and fuck-y’all attitude. If I was that sweet gal I’d—“
“Shut the fuck up.” My heart's already pounding. Just knowing I am heading to her shop today had me in knots all night.
He’s right though. On the outside I’m all crunch. On the inside, at least when it comes to Rose, I’m the creamy center.
“Fine. I’ll shut up.” He eyes me with playful disdain tapping his fingers on his knees. “But you’ll miss me when I’m gone. Who else gonna put up with your grunts and finger pointing? I need a raise.” He cracks himself up and looks out the window. The thick pine trees that line the narrow road are fading as the sun gives up the last rays for this evening.
He doesn’t shut up though. He never does.
But I have the ability to tune him out. Tune anyone out really. Except for her. The few words she’s graced my ears with play over and over in my head day and night. You’d have thought she offered to drop to her knees and suck my damn cock the way they make me hard in an instant.
No, her words were simple, but they meant more to me than she could know.
“Hi. I’m Rose.” That was the first thing she ever said to me and behind those three simple words I’ve lived an entire lifetime with her.
“Bye. Thanks for the lift. I’ll get myself back to the greenhouse in a few hours. Good luck, lumber-grouch. I still think you’ve lost your damn mind with this crazy plan.” Norman shuts the door on the truck.
I grunt in reply, watching as he walks up the steps to his mom’s place before I pull down away heading down Cypress Street to where Rose’s shop sits on the corner of Cypress and Main.
Duncansville, Washington, population 4390. Not exactly the Mecca of anything much, but it’s home to the girl that I’m in love with, and it’s home to where my rare roses grow a few miles up into the mountains.
I called yesterday to let her know I’m coming. Had to leave a message because I know her caller ID shows my number and she never answers. Her assistant will answer, of course, which chaps my ass as much as Rose not answering. But oh well. She can toss her silicone in my face all she wants, nothing will sway me from my single-minded focus. Which is Rose. She’ll be working today though, she always is. She lives and breathes that shop.
And, it’s Valentine’s Day. Every florist in the world is working today.
I know what’s going to happen. I walk in the shop. She’ll take one look at me, turn and swish that sweet ass into the back room.
Thirty seconds later her employee, Kandi, will come flouncing out, twirling her hair, wearing a smile that sets my teeth on edge.
But I live in the vain hope that maybe, just maybe, today will be different. That maybe today is the day I’ll finally get Rose to see me.
Really see me, the same way I see her.
Because I have plans for her.
I park and hop out the driver’s door. My worn black boots splash a little slush around in a spatter. My gray and black checked flannel matches the darkened sky. It’s February, and even during the day that means the sun has forsaken us. Now, as evening drops a desaturated landscape of Duncansville’s short Main Street sprawls in front of me.
I squeeze a hand down the course hair that covers my face as I work my way to the back of the truck. Inside the back storage area there are six roses in a crystal vase. Not just the cheap glass ones 1-800-FLOWERS throws out there with every delivery. Nope. My roses deserve the finest Baccarat crystal and so does Rose.
This is my gig with Rose and her shop. I drop off samples of my roses to her every thirteen days. Exactly thirteen. Don’t ask me why, except in my crazy head fourteen days was too long and anything less felt like I was stalking her. Which I am, she just doesn’t know it.
Except there’s one thing that gives me fucking nightmares. That damn ring on her finger.
Not just any finger. The finger. Ring finger.
Left hand.
Yeah I know what you’re thinking. Let this one go. She’s taken.
Fuck.
It’s been haunting me since the moment I laid eyes on her. I’m not proud, but I’m not ashamed either. I followed her home that first night after I walked into her shop with a few sample blooms. I watched her go inside her little bungalow on Market Street. I sat there all fucking night, watching for signs of a husband.
I had to know.
That was the first night. I did that for the next four fucking nights. Nothing. No sign of anyone else coming or going. It’s been a struggle but I only allow myself two nights a week to follow her home now. Again, two nights a week seemed okay. Any more was excessive.
And, okay, I get the creepy factor here is high but I don’t give a shit, I went through her damn mail too. More than once.
Less than twenty times.
Again, I counted. I stopped at nineteen times because, well, just because.
Nothing addressed to anyone else besides Rose Everhart. So since I’m no tech wiz, I enlisted Norman. Fucking hell he gave me grief, but he also did a full public records search on my girl. No record of a marriage license anywhere.
So I’m thinking she’s not married, right? But then, why the damn ring? It bothers the fuck out of me.
Oh well, I’ll find out what’s up with that at a later date, but today something’s going to change. It has to. I can’t live like this.
I stomp over the wet sidewalk as I make my way to the door of Ever In Bloom, her flower shop.
Her shop lights cast white light out onto the street. The weather is strange around here. I mean, it’s February. Gloomy is part of living in this part of the country, but the temps are nearly always mild. It’s perfect for my plants to thrive. See, my roses take five times as long to grow and mature as the standard commercial Franken-GMO roses you find at every corner gas station and grocery store.
Mine are heirloom hybrids. Originated from antique seeds. Unique. Then, over the years, I’ve spliced varieties together to create what are the best, longest lasting, largest, most colorful and fragrant roses in the world. And that’s not pride speaking. I’m not lying on any of that, no bravado, just facts.
Roses are my life.
Until Rose.
The irony is annoying.
It started as a hobby. My mom was a rose gardener and my dad was a botanist. He showed me how to create hybrids when I was maybe six or seven years old. It took root and I’ve been obsessed with growing roses ever since.
My free hand grips the aluminum door handle to Ever In Bloom and I say a little prayer because it can’t hurt my chances, right?
My heart is racing like I’m running for my life, and in a way I guess I am. How can an ugly fuck like me think he’s got any chance with a beauty like her?
Okay, maybe I’m not ugly, but I also realize I’m a little scary. I don’t walk, I stomp. I don’t talk, I grunt.
I’m bearded.
Grouchy as hell.
Never been a player.
I wouldn’t know slick if it slept next to me.
I’m all flannel and muddy boots. But I know what I want and I suppose I’m just too dumb to know any better because here I am once again, throwing myself on the altar of humiliation just for a glance at my girl.
Yep. My girl.
I’m so fucked.
Deep breath, I tell myself, but my cock is already soaking my thick-duck-cloth k
haki work pants. I’m commando just cuz that’s just my way, but when I get around Rose I should be wearing a few extra layers to help hide my size XXXL hard on.
I always feel like a bull in a china shop when I stop here. My hand grips the bottom of the crystal vase holding the six Ever After roses and the muscles in my shoulders twitch.
Rose is so soft, so delicate, and I’m so not. Every part of me is oversized and I know it makes me even less approachable than my general bear-like demeanor.
The cluster of little door bells make this sort of fairy-dust tinkling sound when I walk inside. My eyes are already locked on her and everything else in the world fades away. She’s fresh faced as usual and more stunning make up free than any cover model.
She’s sporting her lime green apron with an ivory sweater and skirt under. That little dot of a mole above her lip calls to me. I wonder what it tastes like. I wonder what all of her tastes like.
Bombs could be lighting up the street outside and I wouldn’t know because she’s here, and I don’t just see her, I catch her scent.
In amongst all the thousands of flowers that fill the air that compete for my olfactory attention, it’s only her I can process.
She’s like winter and honey. That clean smell when it gets cold in the mountains and you know the first snow of the year is imminent. But it’s tipped with this thick sweetness. Something that took time to develop. Not like processed sugar or cotton candy. No, it’s like raw honey. Natural and purposeful.
I live in this second because I know it’s going to end. She’s fussing with an arrangement of common red long stems and in a way I hate that she has to touch such regular flowers. She’s rarer than the roses I grow, and in my mind they are the only flowers her delicate fingers should touch.
She huffs at the arrangement and turns to see me approaching.
It’s her eyes that turn my heart beat to a hummingbird pace. They are deep set and mysterious, a rich, heavy blue like the indigo on my mother’s blue willow china, and cracked with black speckles like opals dusting her irises.
I’ve memorized every stunning detail of her face in the two or three times she’s allowed me to be close enough, taken hours by myself, eyes closed as I committed every freckle and texture to memory.
In my head I’m telling her all the things I wish I could say. But I have to hold steady as I approach the little counter, my heart breaking as I see her hands freeze and begin to tremble.
Please, don’t walk away this time.
“Rose.” I love just saying her name. It feels so right on my lips. I nod and do my best to soften myself but around her my entire body hardens.
Her soft, pink lips tighten and her teeth set into her lower lip. I know she won’t reply, but just having her eyes on me is enough to ignite a lust that streams through me like molten lava.
“I brought you these. They’re my latest. I call them ‘Ever Afters’. No one has them yet. I have a waiting list of buyers at three hundred bucks retail a bud, but as always there’s no charge for you. Just samples. You can charge what you want, but I wanted you to have them here first.”
Her cheeks brighten as I set the vase on the counter. The six roses have buds the size of my fist. The petals are a shade of lavender that doesn’t even look real, with swirls of white through them like marble. They will bloom and last for three weeks or more.
She’s told me in the past that she can’t afford to carry my flowers. And she’s probably right. Her little place is artistic and well run, but the market in our little town isn’t ripe for selling a three hundred dollar single rose. So I keep dropping off the samples to her for free and she can charge what she likes.
She tips her head to the side. A stream of cream colored waves nearly cover her face and I see she’s preparing to turn and head into the back room like she always does.
I have to stop her. I have to change this. I have to have her.
Just as my next words are forming on my lips, Kandi, her part-time help, bounces out of the back room with that tooth-rotting smile and tugs her T-shirt down to expose more of her cleavage. With an eye roll toward Rose, she gets to the counter in three steps and her fingers reach to touch the Ever Afters.
“Wow! These are beautiful! You name them after me this time?” Kandi chomps on a piece of gum and my brow tightens into a knot.
I grab the vase and lift it from the counter before she can touch it. No fucking way are her fingers touching these roses before Rose’s. She’ll tarnish them and I can’t have that.
“Rose.” My balls are heavy and my cock stretches my skin tight as it thickens.
I’m not waiting. No more opportunities will pass. I have to do something and do it now. My fingertips tingle and heat covers me from head to toe.
Before I think it through, I’m speaking again. “I have some paperwork I need to go over with you if you have a second. I have exclusive sellers now and you are one of them, but my fucking...” Fuck, did I just swear? Shit. I squint one eye as Rose tosses a questioning look my way. I’ve never cursed in front of her before, but my blood is boiling and things have to change. Too late to go back, the only way is straight through. “...my fucking lawyers say I need to have exclusivity agreements with all my sellers.”
I shrug. Not my fault. Lawyers, huh? What are you going to do?
Kandi chomps her gum, looking from me to Rose. I’m a desperate man. I just made that shit up on the fly about the damn paperwork. Part of it is true, my lawyers did say I need exclusivity agreements. But still, I don’t give a shit about that right now and that will never apply to her. I’m going to get her alone and get some answers. And hopefully get my lips on hers.
AVAILABLE NOW ON AMAZON
Other Titles by Dani Wyatt
Standalones
Wrangler
Perfect
Sweet Ride
Reining Her In
Valentine’s Rose
Love, Daddy Series
Angel
The Forever Collection
Where She Belongs
When She’s Mine
Promise Duet
Promise
Cherish
Southside MMA Series
Force
Push
FOLLOW ME
I love a dirty-talking, head over heels
possessive alpha who will
stop at nothing for a happily ever after.
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Thank You.
I have met so many amazing people since I started putting my
naughty thoughts on the page. To some of the first fans who supported me, the bloggers,
fellow authors who have been more than generous with their
time and opinions as well as the other professionals that
put up with my particular kind of crazy, thank you.
Sybil, another book and you still put up with me. Not sure your motivation but
I’m eternally grateful. Nicola, for our special kind of crazy
that somehow makes more sense with you. Celia for your tits and always
Putting a smile on my face. Neda for listening and being the
Mama bear. Nicci for your work and effort. Richard for your talent
And straight talk. Gi for being a lovely human being and the eagle
Eyes I count on. There are more, so many, thank you all.
Every day that when we support each other
everyone wins.
xoxoxo
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dani Wyatt used to feel bad about having such dirty thoughts. Luckily, one day she decided to starting
writing them down. Her uber alpha heros have a wicked possessive streak and an insatiable libido. Her heroines are intelligent, quirky and worry about having too much muffin top. With her books, you can count on a heaping helping of HOT, a dash of rough and always a happily ever after.
When she's not writing (which is not often) she is probably laughing about some irony (like A-1 Steak Sauce is vegan), riding her horse, wondering why The Walking Dead can't have a new episode every night, or looking cross-eyed at some piece of technology sent to ruin her day.