***
Annie
I watched Mig talk to Griffin as surreptitiously as I could.
“What are you looking at?” My sister, Tasha, asked me.
I tilted my head in the direction of Mig and Griffin.
“The one on the left. With the tight black jeans and black t-shirt that says DEA on the breast pocket,” I whispered.
My sister’s eyes went to Mig, and she smiled.
“That’s your neighbor, isn’t it?” She confirmed.
I nodded. “Yeah, that’s him.”
“Who’s the other guy?” Tasha asked.
I glanced quickly in their direction, then turned back to my cold burger and limp French fries.
“The other one is Griffin Storm. He’s married to Lenore, you remember her, right?” I asked.
“She’s the one that owns Uncertain Pleasures, correct?” She said, popping a cherry tomato in her mouth and looking at me with a raised brow.
I nodded in confirmation. “Yeah.”
I’d met Lenore when she was dating Griffin and then became friends when I’d bought my shop that was directly next to her sex toy shop, Uncertain Pleasures.
We’d hit it off, and now we swapped services.
I cut Lenore’s hair, or gave her a massage, in exchange for her giving me free sex toys.
Or condoms.
Or anything I wanted, really.
I’d not moved beyond the former two, though.
I was too chicken to try any of the more adventurous stuff without having that little push in the right direction. And without the right man, that would never happen.
“I thought you said Mig was married,” my sister asked.
I looked up at her. “He is.”
She gave me a questioning look.
“Then why is he looking at you like he wants to eat you alive, one slow, luxurious lick at a time?” She questioned.
You know those times that you know you shouldn’t look?
Like, with everything in your being you want to look, but you know if you do, you’ll be caught looking?
Well, I was caught looking.
And I liked it.
The way his eyes met mine made me feel like we were the only ones in the entire diner instead of it being filled with nearly fifty people.
He held my eyes for a long time.
So long that I knew it would be considered more than just a glance.
The only thing a married man should be doing, anyway.
“Maybe he’s not happily married,” Tasha offered when Mig finally looked away from me.
I shrugged.
“She yells at him a lot, and he just takes it. I don’t know if they’re happy or not, but I know from what I can see, it isn’t all sunshine and roses,” I answered, trying in vain not to look back at Mig.
Except when I did, he was leaving, and I was left feeling bereft.
I watched the muscles in his back play with the movement of his arms.
Watched the muscles bunch as he reached his arm forward and pushed open the diner’s door.
Then I licked my lips as I watched him walk to the SUV that I hadn’t seen until now and drop in it.
I’d have had to climb into it.
But Mig was tall.
Really tall.
At least six foot three or more.
He rolled his window down and looked in the direction of the diner once more, and my breath caught when his eyes met mine.
He smiled.
A quick, almost imperceptible flash, but I saw it.
And I blushed.
His grin got wider.
How he could even see that from where he was, I didn’t know. But I knew he knew what he did to me.
With one last look, he slipped a pair of shades over his eyes that reminded me of the ones baseball players wore, the sporty type where the lens came to a point at their cheekbones.
They covered up his beautiful gray eyes that always reminded me of storm clouds. Then he placed his heavily tattooed arm on the door, and started to back out of the parking spot.
I watched until I couldn’t see him any longer.
“Oh, you’ve got it bad,” Tasha teased.
I returned my gaze to her.
“He’s married,” I answered with a sigh.
She nodded. “Well, from what I could tell, y’all definitely have some chemistry going on. But you need to be careful, because that’s exactly what your new business does not need: you being known as a home wrecker.”
I snorted.
“The man’s a biker…isn’t it expected that he’d cheat?” I asked, pushing away the basket containing my lunch.
My stomach was in knots as I thought about him being married.
Tasha was right though; I totally had the hots for him.
And I’d had them for a long time.
I’d been in Uncertain, Texas for going on six years now.
My parents had moved here at the end of my senior year.
My father had just gotten out of the military, and he’d decided to open a fishing and bait shop off the side of Caddo Lake.
So I’d been here the day Mig had arrived in town.
He’d ridden in on his Harley, dressed in a black leather jacket, tight faded blue jeans, and his signature wraparound sunglasses.
And here I was, years later, still just as hot for him as the day I’d seen him for the first time.
I’d never told anyone about my avid crush on Mig, though.
I was too scared of all that was him.
Secretly, I was worried that if I admitted my crush, he’d somehow find out.
He was good like that.
Then I’d moved into the house next to him, completely by accident, and about died.
But he’d been exceptionally cool about everything.
And he’d become a friend, even if from a distance.
A friend that I had the hots for…who was married…with a kid on the way.
Yeah, fuck my life.