Restless Spirit by Sommer Marsden Read Free Book Online Page B

actually. Hard to believe that I spent all night working around food and didn’t eat a single thing.’
    On the eating side of the wide kitchen-dining room combo, warm sconce lights shone. The table was set with mismatched china and placemats. Wild flowers graced the centre of the table, rising up out of an antique milk glass pitcher. I smiled – my kind of décor. Laid back, easy and comfortable.
    ‘You sit, I’ll serve.’
    I obeyed, touching the pale yellow plate that rested on a blue and white checked placemat. His was a red plate on a pale green and white striped mat. The napkins were white, the salt and pepper shakers shaped like a chicken and an egg. I ran my fingers over the rough wide plank wood table. I loved his house.
    ‘You don’t mind that they’re mismatched, do you?’
    I shook my head. ‘No, I like it. It’s how Nan was. If it was pretty and still serviceable, you used it. She called it shabby chic or sometimes country charm.’
    He nodded decisively bringing in a platter bearing two beautiful T-bones and baked potatoes.
    ‘Can I help?’ I shifted in my seat wanting to please him – an odd and somewhat unwelcome urge in my current state of life.
    ‘Nope. You sit. Let me grab the salad and the water pitcher.’
    I studied the sconces to realise they were cut wine bottles set into bases over light bulbs. Shepherd put the water pitcher down – speckleware which again made me insanely happy for some reason – and then snapped his fingers.
    ‘You can pour our water; I’ll go get the wine.’
    Then he was kissing me. A sweet and somehow familiar kiss that I imagined husbands and wives shared often. But we weren’t married and we’d just met and that fact stole my breath because when he pulled back and left I realised … it had felt right. That kiss had felt perfect and wonderful.
    And it scared the shit out of me.
    I poured our water, determined not to think about it.

Chapter Seven
    Somehow I made it through dinner, though sitting across from him had me on edge. Not uncomfortable on edge, lust-laden on edge.
    ‘Are you OK?’
    I was eating my apple pie, fresh bought I was told, from Caitlin’s bakery which kicked the formal bakery’s ass all over town. Apparently if you lived here, you ate Caitlin’s pies. And when he’d said that, I fucking blushed like a virgin.
    ‘I’m fine.’
    ‘You seem uneasy.’
    ‘I’m not uneasy.’
    ‘O-K.’ he dragged the word out. His eyes never stopped though. It was as if he were analysing every breath I took, every move, every nuance. ‘Good.’
    Shepherd started to trace his fingers in and out of the dips between my fingers. Slowly. Every inch his fingertip travelled was another spike of heat in my pelvis. I swallowed hard and smiled.
    ‘Meet anyone interesting tonight?’ he asked. He gave me a small half smile and I realised he was teasing me. He knew I was on edge and he was playing with me. He knew how badly I wanted him and he was fucking with me.
    ‘I … um …’ Each sweeping touch wiped my brain so I could barely focus or form a thought. I forced myself to see faces and blurted. ‘I met the Andrews. You know they have twins and–’
    ‘And triplets.’ He nodded. ‘Good, and?’
    ‘And I met Mrs Gabriel. She has the worst–’
    ‘Wig,’ he said and lifted my hand to kiss my fingers. I opened my mouth only to snap it shut. A thrumming pulse had started between my legs and everything else in me was just background noise. I was nothing more than my lust for Shepherd Moore at that moment in time. I embodied it.
    Think, Tuesday. Think!
    ‘I met the reverend and he did not like my h–’
    ‘Hair at all,’ Shepherd finished. He sucked my finger into his mouth and the pull of his tongue on me sounded in my cunt. I shifted in my seat and it only made the wet need worse.
    ‘It’s whore hair,’ I whispered
    He straightened up a bit. ‘He said that to you?’
    ‘No,’ I laughed, able to take a deep breath since he was