Free Flash and Burn: Second Five (Flash and Burn #2) by E.J. Swenson

Flash and Burn: Second
Five

    by E.J. Swenson
    Copyright © 2014 by E.J. Swenson
    Smashwords Edition
    All rights reserved.
    No part of this book may be reproduced in any
form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information
storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from
the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote
short excerpts in a review.
    This book is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places, and incidents either are products of the
author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely
coincidental.
    1. First Date
    It’s been two years since
her husband died, but it feels like yesterday. The widow looks down
at her finger, pulls off her wedding ring, and sets it on her
nightstand alongside a stack of cash for odds and ends. The white
stripe around her ring finger looks soft and vulnerable. She sighs
and pats her frizzy hair. He’s waiting for her in the car, her
first date since she met her husband fifteen years ago.
    At the party, her friends
are alternately full of praise– it’s so nice
to see you moving on –and
envy– your date is so handsome. The envy makes her heart clench. Her friends’
husbands are paunchy and careworn from providing for and chasing
after children, something it’s looking less and less likely she
will ever have. She’s pouring herself an oversized glass of wine
when Ashley, a soft, pastel blonde with a hard, sour filament
running through her, grabs her arm.
    “OMG, your date is stunning.
He’s so different from your husband.” Her voice lowers from a sweet
soprano to an insinuating alto. “Where did you find
him?”
    The widow flushes and
stammers, groping for words. Her date is tall, dark, and
well-built, a classic romantic hero straight out of central
casting, while her husband was a short, blond sparkplug with an
antic sense of humor. She doesn’t like what Ashley’s implying
by different. Different is not
better, she thinks, when her date appears
as if conjured by dark magic.
    “I’m so sorry,” he says,
taking the widow firmly by the arm and locking his gaze onto
Ashley. “I have to steal her away. We’re late for a show, and we’ve
already stayed too long.”
    Arm-in-arm, they leave the
party. The widow relaxes into grateful relief. She even whispers
into the hero’s ear: “Good job, handsome.” The trip back to her
small, tidy house is filled with companionable silence. He parks
his car outside, and his dark eyes question her light ones. Do you need something more from me? She gives the barest of nods, and he’s on her, his
lips parting hers and his tongue exploring forcefully while she
clutches at his back.
    They make their way,
touching and tasting, out of the car and through the front door. As
they fumble down the hallway to her bedroom, she wonders about the
state of her body, so long untouched. Yes, she exercises every day,
but she wonders if her pale, muscular legs have been marked by blue
veins or cellulite. Then he unzips her dress. She feels his
erection pushing into her back, and all her doubts evaporate. She
turns and sinks to her knees– thank god I
chose the soft carpet –and takes his cock in
her mouth, her tongue teasing its tender, bulbous end.
    She can feel him swell and
pulse, when he pulls her hair gently and shakes his head. He pulls
her to her feet, and they sink onto the bed, a single organism of
desire. She’s wet and ready despite ghostly pangs of guilt–she
hasn’t been with a man since her husband–and guides him into her.
She comes with a grateful sigh and so does he. She finds herself
drifting off to sleep, her head resting on his hard, lightly furred
chest.
    When she awakens from a
deep, blank sleep, the cash is gone from the table and so is her
date. She slides her wedding ring back onto her finger and
smiles.
2. Every
Sunday
    She opens the spare room and gazes
at the chains built into the wall.