Alien Admirer (Alien Next Door) Read Free

But not at this place.
    Without a backward glance, he left the bar and headed home.
     
    ***
     
    Far too soon. Sera never should have started dating again. Her stomach had twisted and churned all day, but she shrugged it off as nerves. Until her date arrived, that is. He kissed her cheek in greeting, and a cold chill traveled down her spine. She wanted to hurl every time he touched her after that.
    A wave of relief swept over her when he dropped her off. Date over. Never to happen again. Or at least not anytime soon. With Melody and Zach still up when she arrived home, she’d paid Angela, then tucked them into bed. All alone once more, she sat on the porch, again wishing for company. The disastrous evening proved she wasn’t ready to date.
    What’s wrong with me?
    She gazed next door at the loft above the garage. Adam. Why did her pulse race whenever she thought of him?
    She didn’t feel uncomfortable around him, not until she decided to go to dinner with Peter, a man she’d met at the grocery store. Then guilt ate at her. She feared asking Adam to watch her kids while she went out on a date. But why would he want to? What young man wanted to be strapped down, babysitting on a Friday night, when most went out drinking and picking up girls? Their own age.
    Her chance to live that life had come and gone. She had little ones, and they always came first. Her libido had to wait until they’d grown up and left the house. By then she’d be an old maid—and long out of the dating world—too dried up and bitter to want to hunt for a boyfriend. She slumped deeper into the wicker chair. Life sucks.
    The deep , throaty rumble of a motorcycle caught her attention. Adam coming home. Probably with some young floozy on the back of his Harley. The back of her throat ached at the thought, and she stood. I don’t need to see that. Her fantasy, the one thing left that brought a smile to her face at the end of the day, would end if she watched him escort another woman into his home.
    She didn’t escape fast enough. Adam pulled into their shared driveway before she grabbed the door handle. At the sight of the empty spot behind him, she breathed a sigh of relief. In her dreams he wouldn’t leave her for another woman.
    He wa ved, and she waved back, filled with a sudden giddiness. Geez, what is it about him that makes me feel like a teen again?
    Without another glance, he disappeared into the garage. She remained on the porch, staring like a fool. These fantasies have to stop. He had no reason to give her a second thought, at least not in the way she hoped.
    Time to go inside and purge him from her mind. Plenty of celebrities her own age to take Adam’s place and ravage her in bed.
    She pulled open the screen door.
    “ Sera?”
    Every muscle tensed. She circled slowly, expecting him to disappear if she turned too fast.
    Standing at the bottom of her porch, he clutched the railing, one foot on the first step. “How was your date?” His eyes were hard, far different from the gaze he’d given her when holding her in his arms the day she’d gone skinny-dipping. But her love life wasn’t any of his business.
    She threw up her arms. Who am I kidding? “It was horrible.”
    He climbed the steps, his proximity sending a tingle through her. Would she ever get over the sensations she experienced around him?
    “Do you want to talk about it?”
    No! She flinched, crossing her arms. Not a topic she ever wanted to discuss with him. “I’d rather just forget about it. Why don’t you tell me about yours?”
    He chuckled, sliding past her to sit on her steel glider, his hands behind his head. A bold move for a stranger. Yet, he wasn’t. They lived next door to each other, and she trusted him with her family.
    “I wasn’t on a date.” He turned away from her. “I went to the bar to try and drink away the sight of you with another man.”
    She gripped the outside ledge of the window, trying to wrap her head around his mumbled words.