Hungry for Your Love: An Anthology of Zombie Romance by Lori Perkins Read Free Book Online Page B

be a good place to supplement my income. Just think about it. ‘I heart brains.’ You could have the plate”—she lifted her own off the table as a simulation—“with the brains and the zombie offering it for dinner.
    With the recent pandemic, it could make a million.”

    52
    “You are going to make a million, Mrs. Bradworth.” He quickly corrected himself, “Or what’s left of it after the company you consigned your husband’s body to gets its share. I’m sorry for your loss, by the way.”
    “Don’t be so quick,” Olivia snapped at the blatant insult. “Eric was an asshole who only cared about one person— himself . If it were me that kicked the bucket, he’d have signed my body over before the death certificate was certified official.”
    “If he was so terrible, why didn’t you divorce him?”
    “I was going to, you arrogant piece of shit.” The words came out before she could prevent them and she slapped her hands over her mouth, eyes wide at her variable temper.
    What she’d just confessed could end everything.
    “Well, well, well. It appears you have a few secrets of your own, Mrs.
    Bradworth.”
    “Don’t call me that.” The words were muffled against her hand.
    “Come again?”
    “I said don’t call me that!” she snapped, lowering her hands. “It’s Olivia DeMarkus, not Bradworth. I’ve reverted to my maiden name.”
    The waitress returned with the wine Derrick ordered and two glasses. She poured the dark red liquid carefully and left the bottle on the table before she vanished.
    “This is a very good year. You’ll enjoy the texture and flavor—”
    He caught her staring and she blushed cherry red. Her fingers wrapped around the stem of her glass clumsily and she rushed to bring it to her lips, hoping he didn’t ask her what in the hell she was gawking at.

    53
    “What were you looking at?”
    She didn’t close her eyes, but she did cringe and wilt a little on the inside.
    Damn.
    She placed the glass on the table and said, “I didn’t know you could drink anything.”
    Derrick seemed to think about that for a moment. Then he confessed, “I’ve been advised that consuming liquid or food after a forty-eight-hour period won’t do my body any favors, but I’m hoping that won’t be a problem after our dinner has concluded.”
    An exhaustion she wasn’t aware of overcame her. The poor bastard seated across from her didn’t deserve a lengthy schooling on how to treat a woman. Even if he took the damned body, he wouldn’t be Eric. Her former husband, God rest his useless ass, was long gone.
    “You know what? We don’t even have to take it that far, Mr. Quinn.”
    She reached into her purse, grasping the paper with her signature waiting just inside. When she extended it to him, he frowned and gazed at it.
    “Why did you want to meet with me if you’d already made the decision?”
    Olivia snorted. “Because I wanted to make sure you had half a brain. Eric certainly didn’t. A body like that shouldn’t go to waste. Not a second time. It’s not fair to the female populace. We have enough shit to deal with without being deluded by a pretty face concealing an empty locker.”
    He smiled and asked curiously, “An empty locker?”
    “Yeah, as in you hear the continuous echo of nothing inside the vacant space.”

    54
    The chair caught as she shoved away from the table and she cursed her inability to end the evening with a graceful exit.
    “Don’t go.”
    Derrick’s words caught her off guard, and when she peered up at him curiously, she froze. The sexual heat in his eyes had fuck all to do with getting into Eric’s body.

    “You’re a beautiful woman, Olivia. It’s a shame the man you married didn’t know how to appreciate it. If I hadn’t died this morning I’d take you home, drape you across my bed, and show you exactly how you deserve to be worshipped.”

    Wow.
    Her entire body swooned and her nipples went hard beneath the satin and lace she’d hidden them