Not For Sharing (Romance with Sizzle) Read Free Page A

from those cherry-brandy
lips. Visions of her radiant skin and luscious pout swirled around his head
causing him to feel rather light-headed.
    When Ethan
re-joined his friends in the bar, Riley recognised his friend’s sheepish
demeanour instantly.
    “Where did you disappear to? Please
tell me you didn’t.”
    “What?” asked Ethan, feigning
innocence and failing miserably.
    “Don’t shit me Ethe,” replied
Riley. “You’ve been a dog for too long. You can’t do it to Ben? He’s infatuated
with the girl.”
    “Yeh, but I’m
in love with her,” blurted out Ethan, his face unflinching.
    A look of
incredulity flitted across Riley’s face, quickly followed by a snigger after
deciding his friend was being facetious. Ethan swiftly joined in the laughter,
too embarrassed, and spooked, to admit it was true.
    “No seriously
Ry, she is something else, she’s like an angel with heavenly tits,”
interjected Ethan hastily, as he crudely cupped an invisible pair of breasts
with his hands. “I would happily take my last breath smothered by those sugar-plums.”
     He felt a
certain obligation to uphold his laddish attitude, and although it sometimes
betrayed his fundamental beliefs, he was too fearful to act beyond his
stereotype, fearful of losing his peer’s respect.
    Riley
listened with a lewd eagerness but spotted a flaw in Ethan’s plan.
    “No chance
mate, I’ve heard she’s as wholesome as brown bread so your dick’s never gonna get
an invite to that party.”
    Ethan almost
spluttered on his drink.
    “Jeez Riley,
as if I’d back down from a challenge like that. Besides, I might have the mind
of a ho but I’ve got the patience of a saint,” replied Ethan nonchalantly,
hoping Riley wouldn’t detect the self-doubt in his voice.
    Ethan became
restless, imagining that he may never see her again, and his honour was at risk
for goodness sake. How would he explain to Riley, his wing-man, that Pru was
the one that got away? He was equipped to take an uppercut to the chin any day,
but a slap in the face like that? Never. He knew he had to get her attention somehow.
So in the end that was his plan: flatter, pursue, and exasperate. As long as he
got under her skin, whether she remembered him as pleasant or bothersome was of
no consequence.
    After recalling
Ben mentioning that she was employed at an interior design firm, he had five blue
roses delivered to her work-place every Monday. The very first note he
attached, read:
    Pru,
    Each rose
is a reminder of you, blue is for:
    1.       the
colour of the striking denim outfit that you wore so elegantly.
    2.       the
mood I feel each time you refuse me a date.
    3.       the
indecent thoughts I have when I picture you in my head.
    4.       how
you ‘blew’ me away when I first laid eyes on you, and then
    5.       how
you ‘blew’ me out so cruelly before giving me a chance.
    (Ok, so I cheated a little on the last two)
    Save me from myself,
    Ethan x
    The flowers
were faithfully delivered for several weeks, each one promptly banished into
the trash by Pru, seemingly immune to any frivolous emotions.
    His note
five weeks later read:
    Prudence,
    I suppose your stubbornness does
have it’s advantages – it means you will always know what you will be thinking
tomorrow.
    Therefore I submit to defeat.
I only hope that in a week, in a month or maybe even in ten years, that your
mind is not plagued by thoughts of,
    “What
if?......”
    Ethan x
    This note in
particular, infuriated Pru immensely.
    “How dare
he? I am not stubborn, I’m just strong-willed!” she exclaimed to Brooke,
her work confidante. Brooke gave her a cynical smile and continued to browse
through samples of curtain fabric.
    “Oh thanks
Brooke, I see you’re just going to leave that hanging in the air then,” said
Pru, secretly agreeing with the appraisal of herself and knowing that Brooke
did too.
    Brooke was
unwilling to support Pru in her annoyance. She had made it very clear