Free Pulse: BBW Contemporary Rock Star Romance by Blair Aaron

longer she tried to ignore the house, the more it consumed her attention, lurking in the back of her mind at her job as a waitress in the local tavern, and directly overpowering her thoughts at night, as she sat in a rocking chair on her porch, watching the sun set. She waited and waited for signs that he would come out of his house and join the rest of the town. The idea enervated Elsa's imagination, to think of a magical man from the forest who decided to permanently reside with them in the town. She surmised all the glorious possibilities it would bring to their village. Perhaps, she thought, they might one day leave, with the man as a guide to how to pass into the wilderness. Elsa stopped that line of thinking, realizing how unholy it was. Father O'Grady would never forgive her. The cool air careened down from the cliff on the sea, through the town and onto her porch, bathing her naked neck in a sweet, cold draft, sending goosebumps through her skin's surface. She lay her head back, daydreaming about the man, wondering what to call him, and how he would respond to her once he laid conscious eyes on her.
    And one day, despite the nearly intolerable build-up to meeting him, she saw someone familiar in the garden near the cabin. Elsa was coming home from work, and for a moment, she forgot she was passing by his house. The grass on the pavement next to his home grew wild and unkempt, and she looked ahead at a man in a red shirt, plowing the field next to his house, his large and muscular back bent over, so she could not see his face. Elsa simply had not been paying attention, and she thought in an absent-minded way how kind it was that the man standing before her offered his services for that reclusive inhabitant she so longed to see. And like so many times before, her body and heart realized who the man bent over plowing the field was before her mind did. In an instant, she ducked behind the wall, just as the man stopped his work and looked up into the air. He felt her presence, or someone's presence, clearly. He took off his brown hat, revealing shiny, luscious hair. The wind tousled it, drying the sweat from the crown of his forehead. Elsa looked behind the wall, as the blond haired man looked around the area, wondering whose presence he sensed. Elsa looked him up and down, at his statue-like frame, his height, his form-fitting gray pants, and burning red shirt, which outlined massive muscles along his back and chest. Physically the man was imposing and dangerous, but his demeanor, his aura, never approached violent, as his soul radiated goodness and truthfulness. The same foreign, powerful feeling continued to blossom in Elsa's heart for the man, so electrified was she by the first sight of him since that night in the grass. But she dare not approach him now, because she was not ready. She waited behind the wall until he wiped his fit forearms with the towel and went back into his home.
     

CHAPTER 8
     
    The day's events spurred Elsa to take a walk around town, the energy of meeting the blond man once again, the leaps of joy bounding through her heart upon witnessing his vitality and health giving her a spurt of energy that refused sleep. On her walk, Elsa passed another familiar cottage, separated on the exact opposite side of town, the area some might describe as slovenly, perhaps even dangerous, though there was only one real place that posed real danger, the Forbidden Forest.
    Even though the community in which Elsa was raised taught her the importance of brotherly love and the dangers of being judgmental, most of Elsa's friends could never keep themselves from terrorizing the local elderly woman, named Freja Stein, on the other side of town during the autumn months. The children labeled her a witch, building up myths around her back story that involved the leaders of the community, its priests, parishioners, cooks, counselors, and teachers somehow overlooking the fact that Freja Stein had come from the forest. The