Free Enslaved by the Incubus (The Incubus Chronicles) by Fiona Thornton

 
    Inside the store Amy
walked up and down the aisles like a zombie, bored, completely without emotion.
She was buying the same things to cook the same dinners to live the same week.
Again.
    At last she encountered
some variety: they were out of her shampoo. Well, not quite. It seemed there
was only one bottle left, hidden away toward the back of the top shelf. If she
stood far enough back she could see it, but she wasn’t going to be able to
reach it. Amy wasn’t short, but she wasn’t tall, either. So she looked for
someone to help, only to see that there was no one around. Anywhere.
    “Really?” she
asked, aloud.
    There was nothing
to do but climb for it. Amy tested the lowest shelf and when it held her, she
started climbing. She reached the top with relative ease and seized the bottle.
Then she immediately fell backwards.
    Please just be embarrassing and not painful…
    But she didn’t
crash. A pair of firm, strong hands like she’d never felt caught her by the
waist. She landed safely with her back against a solid male chest that felt
like it was made of steel. Warm steel. And his scent …it was heavenly.
A moment later and Amy’s unseen hero had lowered her gently to the ground. She
turned to see a tall, dark-haired, dark-eyed, Mediterranean male smiling at
her. Was he Spanish? Italian? Whatever he was, he was perfect.…
      “Thanks,” Amy said quickly, trying to
hide her disappointment at being released.
    “Anytime.”
    His eyes looked
into her. His smile was warm, sexy and captivating. It was as if he knew what
he was doing to her and he was quite experienced at it.
    Then he was gone.
    As quickly as he
had appeared, he was on his way, gone from the aisle. Amy was left with her
head spinning, wondering whether her precious encounter had even happened.
Somehow she had to finish shopping. Oh, well – that one little incident
would leave her high for the remainder of the day, or maybe the rest of the
week. She could always go into cougar mode, get one the college boys here over
the weekend and take every ounce of this morning’s desire out on him. Barring
that it would be some toys or her fingers, and those were never bad options since
they came without the maintenance men required.

 
    Twenty minutes
later Amy had made it back to the parking lot. She was placing a bag inside the
hatch of her crossover when the bottom ripped out, sending groceries under the
car and across the parking lot.
    “Shit!”
    “Let me help,”
said a voice nearby. She wasn’t sure where it had come from.
    It was him .
    Now he was
crouching down beside her, handing her the same bottle of shampoo she had gone
climbing for when she fell.
    “Uh…”
    “Hello again,” he
said, ignoring her nerves and in complete control of the situation. He helped
her up and began placing things back in her car.
    “Hi,” Amy managed.
“Thank you. You must think I’m a mess.”
    “Not at all.
Selfishly, I’m enjoying it. Any excuse to help out a beautiful woman is good
thing.”
    She blushed and
dropped her gaze, but only for a moment. She was enthralled and couldn’t
pretend otherwise.
    “Are you always
this straight forward?”
    “Yes,” was all he said.
    That’s when it
happened. He leaned forward and kissed her, deeply, longingly, in the middle of
the parking lot. He made it seem completely normal, as if to say, what else would we be doing in a grocery
store parking lot at 10 A.M. on a Thursday morning ?
    ‘Thank you,” he
said when it ended all too soon. He was leaving again.
    “Wait!” Amy
half-commanded, half-pleaded. Her desperation was showing. He stopped and
looked, indulging her as she tried to find words.
    “It’s just…things
like this don’t happen to me. You leaving feels wrong.”
    She knew she was
ruining it, the spontaneity of it all, the beauty of the no strings attached
encounter. But that didn’t bother him in the least.
    “I’ll be around.
Come find me.” He smiled devilishly then walked off.
    Amy