Sara's Unyielding Lover (The Lovers Series) Read online

  “Hello”

  “Hello Sara its Jo Ann”

  “Jo Ann hi how are you?”

  “Well actually I was calling to see how you were and if you needed any help unpacking or with anything else?”

  “Oh my yes, that would be great. I keep thinking of my old home and life and crying over it. I could really use someone right now; oh I guess that’s TMI I always say too much.”

  “I like your honesty Sara that’s why I hired you. There’s nothing wrong with admitting you need someone to talk to. I'm hoping that we not only be colleagues but friends too.”

  “I know, thank you Jo Ann, I hope that we can be friends too, because honestly I don’t know anyone else.” Sara said letting a small giggling laugh out as she spoke.

  “So how about I come over and help you unpack and you buy us some Chinese takeout.”

  “Ok you got a deal.”

  Twenty minutes later there was a knock at her apartment door. Thou she knew who it was she still peeked through the peek hole in the middle of the door. There stood Jo Ann with her chestnut brown hair pulled into a French braid. Wearing a purple T-shirt that said “life is good” across her chest with a pair of hipster dark blue jeans and matching her top purple flip flops. Sara unlocked and opened the door.

  “Hi”

  “Hi”

  “Come on in excuse the mess” Sara stated with a small chagrin look on her face.

  “No problem I remember moving into my new condo it took me two weeks to unpack and get everything put in the right place”

  “I hope it doesn’t take me that long, although a lot of stuff I can’t unpack until I get my furniture, which I hope to do tomorrow.”

  “You’re buying all new furniture?” Jo Ann had a slightly stunned look on her face as she looked to Sara for her answer.

  “Yeah too many memories with the old furniture, anniversary gifts and so on, I want none of it” As she said this her delicate eyebrows scrunched together making the skin between them ridge up and she had a glare of annoyance in her eyes.

  “I get that” Jo Ann easily nodded in agreement.

  “I guess I’ll call for the Chinese food now and then we can start unpacking in the kitchen.”

  “Sounds like a plan, just point me in the direction” Jo Ann replied while glancing around the apartment.

  Once shown the right direction Jo Ann moved into the kitchen to start unpacking while Sara walked back to her bedroom to fetch the yellow pages phone book which the phone company had given her when she had her land line put in. Walking back to the kitchen yellow pages in hand she went to the dark granite counter top to pick up her cordless house phone to order their food.

  Looking back to Jo Ann who was in the middle of setting up her Keurig and k-cup tree. Sara looked to her and said.

  “I didn’t know what you liked so I ordered a little of everything.”

  Jo Ann responded with a friendly smile and emphatically stated “I love Chinese food period doesn’t matter what it is.”

  “Good.” Sara promptly answered Jo Ann, returning her smile.

  Chapter 3

  “Where do you want these dishes to go?” Questioned Jo Ann holding up Sara’s new plates.

  Sara looked at the plates and smiled, when she was at the store buying the dish set she had immediately picked the cutest flowered dishes she could find. When picking her new dishes with Michael he had wanted something in a solid color that looked sophisticated and would suit for any occasion. They had ended up with Asian inspired black glazed dishes. Which she hated and thought looked a little depressing, but she went along with Michael’s choice trying to make him happy and to not rock the boat,

  “Over in that cupboard, to the right of the sink.” she pointed with a manicured finger.

  And so they worked unpacking the kitchen while chit chatting about the work week ahead of them and what Sara could expect from her first few days of orientation; to her annual evaluations, pay raises and commission. The two of them got along great as if they were old friends who had known each other for years instead of days and Sara could tell that not only would Jo Ann be a good boss but a close confidant too. When someone knocked at the apartment door Sara looked around and couldn’t believe how much they had unpacked and put away in such a short amount of time. Sara strolled back into her bedroom to retrieve her wallet then went to the front door; checked the peep hole, saw it was the delivery man and opened the door.

  “Hi I forgot to ask if you would have enough change to break a large bill. All I have are fifties.”

  “Yes no problem” The short man said with a heavily Asian accent.

  After paying for the food, tipping the man nicely, shutting and locking the door Sara bought the food to the kitchen counter.

  “Well we can stand and eat at the counter or we can sit on the floor Indian style.”

  “Floor is fine with me” Jo Ann returned coming around the counter to exit the kitchen and follow Sara to the living room.

  As they settled themselves onto the soft carpeted floor they started to divvy out the food on to Sara's flowery plates. They started to talk more and get to know each other even better asking more personal questions and interests. The two women noticed they had similar taste in music, movies and art. By the time they were done eating and talking they looked at the time, it was just past nine o’clock; they had talked the whole night away.

  “Well I better be going I didn’t realize it was so late” Jo Ann said while pulling out her cell phone from her back jeans pocket to double check the time.

  “Me neither, thanks for coming to help me and for the company.” Sara responded while standing up to give Jo Ann a polite hug and see her out.

  “No problem, got to make sure my employee gets off on the right foot” Jo Ann retorted with a little grin, while hugging Sara back.

  “Yeah thanks I appreciate it.” Sara replied with a small smile and light laugh.

  “Thanks for dinner; I’ll see you on Monday”

  “Ok”

  Sara walked Jo Ann out and shut and locked the door behind her. She turned leaned her head on the back of the door and gave herself a mini pep talk.

  “I can do this, it will be ok, and it will all work for the best.”

  With that last thought she made her way back to the living room and began to pick up the rest of the food and put it in the refrigerator, she turned out the lights in the empty rooms and headed to her bathroom. She went through her nightly routine, brushed her teeth, hair, removed her make and headed to her bedroom where her make shift bed waited for her. Crawling underneath her down feathered duvet she settled into a comfortable position and went to sleep.

  As the morning sunshine filtered into her bedroom through her roman shade covered window Sara awoke slowly stretching her arms and twisting her back. “Not to sore.” Sara thought to herself as she picked up her cell phone to check the time she contemplated on what to do after her shower. She had two choices, eat leftover Chinese food or go out to breakfast. Having a craving for something sweet she decided to go out, she wasn’t extremely hungry thou so she chose to go to Dunkin Donuts. She could get a good vanilla chi and one of their wonderfully sweet chocolate covered Boston crème donuts.

  Once out of her shower she did what she normally did; checked the weather to see how she should dress. In Pennsylvania no matter what season it was the temperature could always change depending on wind, cloud coverage and so on. Why, one winter in December the weather had gone from 49 degrees one day to 9 degrees the next. Going to her weather app Sara saw that it was going to be sunny all week. Moving to her pile of clothes she had neatly stacked against the wall, sifting through her tops she pick a cute soft yellow A-symmetrical tank top with a scoop neck. Picking up a pair of pastel colored plaid cotton shorts she thought the outfit paired nicely, “now shoes” she thought.

  Ambling over to her closet where she had lined up all her shoes on the floor, she looked at the few sandals she had “ I have to get more sa
ndals maybe lots of colored flip flops, San Diego always has sandal weather”

  When she finished her thought she reached down and picked a flesh toned strappy roman style sandal. Once dressed she gathered up her phone, purse, keys and headed out the door; double checking to make sure her front door was locked she turned and went to the apartment parking lot. As she got to her parking space she was happy to have a covered spot. No doubt the leather seats in her Maxima would be scorching hot after sitting in the sun. Her Maxima was stylish and cute in a pearl white color, leather seats, automatic, mp3 port, heated seats, though she doubted she would need that feature here it was perfect for her. Much better than the Mercedes she used to drive, yeah Mercedes are a higher end car but really you’re only paying for the name and status symbol that went with owning one, which see hated.

  Pressing her key fob she opened her door climbed in and started it up. Syncing up her iPhone, she scrolled through her playlist seeing the song she wanted she selected it and hit play. Her speakers buzzed to life and Miley Cyrus began to sing...

  “It's our party we can do what we want

  It's our party we can say what we want

  It's our party we can love who we want

  We can kiss who we want

  We can sing what we want”

  Yeah she was 28 almost 29 and divorced she didn’t care this was gonna be her new theme song. She was gonna start doing things for herself because she wanted. No more trying to live up to the image Michael wanted to portray. Smiling to herself she began to belt out loud along with Miley.

  “So la da di da di

  We like to party

  Dancing with Miley

  Doing whatever we want

  This is our house

  This is our rules

  And we can't stop

  And we won't stop

  Can't you see it's we who own the night?

  Can't you see it's we who 'bout that life?

  And we can't stop

  And we won't stop

  We run things, things don't run we

  Don't take nothing from nobody

  Yeah, yeah”

  Driving down the boulevard she saw a Starbucks and passed it by nothing pretentious for her, with people who nitpick at their coffee, “I’ll have a Venti caramel macchiato with soy an extra shot 5 pumps of vanilla upside down” and then the inevitable “excuse me but you didn’t use soy I can taste the difference” snobs all of them. All she wanted was a vanilla chi tea and she was happy. As she came to a stop light she saw a sign for Dunkin Donuts, she smiled and once the light turned green went forward and pulled into the parking lot.

  Pulling the door open immediately she was hit with the delectable sweet smell of fresh donuts and coffee. Waiting her turn in line she started wondering about what kind of furniture she wanted to buy. She always liked antiques and the weathered look, where would she find that around here. As she got to the counter to place her order she decided the best way to find a place would be to ask a local.

  “Excuse me?” she asked the young tanned dark haired girl behind the counter with the name Nicole printed on her name tag.

  “Yes? Is there something else you needed? Your chi tea will be ready in a moment.” she replied in a cheerful voice.

  “No actually I just moved to this area and I was wondering if you might know where I might be able to buy some antique furniture?” Sara waited as Nicole began to think tapping her acrylic nails on the Formica counter top as she did.

  “Well I know there are a lot of antique boutiques down town, but they can be pricey. There’s this auction place I know thou, my friends brother works there as a delivery driver. They have really good deals nice prices. Rick says a lot of boutiques come and buy stuff then jack up the prices at their shops.” Nicole answered with a shake of her head at the boutiques and their gouging prices.

  “Oh an auction I’ve never been to one I think that would be a fun approach to buying furniture. Can you write the info down for me?”

  “Yeah no problem.” As she was speaking Nicole began to look for a piece of paper to write down the auction house information. She ducked under the counter and came up with an old flyer flipping it over she began to scrawl the information down. When she was finished she handed the paper to Sara.

  “Thank you” Sara replied with a smile while depositing $3.00 into the tip jar.

  Seeing the tip being placed in the jar Nicole smiled back and said “Thank you, your tea is ready, here you go enjoy have a nice day.”

  Grabbing her order Sara went to the closest empty table and sat down to enjoy her tea and donut and then googled for more information and directions to the auction house. Surprisingly she found out that you can not only bid in person but you can also bid online.

  “Online would be easier, but you can’t see all the details through a photo. I think it’ll be better to go in person” she thought to herself as she took a bite of her Boston crème, tipping her head back as some of the crème tried to ooze down her chin. Using her finger she wiped the crème off then licked her finger clean.

  Chapter 4

  The bad thing about wanting to buy antique furniture at an auction was that she had to wait for the next auction date. Thankfully that had been the following Saturday, so she only had to spend a week sleeping on her make shift bed. After a very tiring first week she really wanted to spend all weekend in a soft cozy bed. Who knew there were so many trade shows in a weeks’ time, all that walking booth to booth, and watching models on catwalks. Sara’s job was easy thou compared to Jo Ann’s, Jo Ann had to use her knowledge of fashion and trends to predict what would be hot and sell in the store. Hundreds of thousands of dollars depended on the choices she makes.

  You’d never know Jo Ann was a fashion buyer outside of work. She was a strictly jeans and T-shirt girl and every T-shirt boosted a new slogan. This morning her T-shirt read “Like a Boss”. Jo Ann had offered to go with Sara to the auction; it was being held in down town San Diego on San Diego Ave. The place boasted of having 20 years of experience in conducting auctions.

  As she pulled into the parking lot she chose a spot near the building, she was tired of walking from the trade shows this week. The minute she shut her engine off she heard it; a loud throaty rumble of an engine coming from a huge sleek black four door pickup with a lift kit. She watched as the door opened and down hopped the most ruggedly handsome man she had ever seen. He was a tall man at least 6’2” maybe 6’4”. Black Ray-bans covered his eyes; his hair was cut short on the sides almost like the military men wear. Only his hair was a bit long on top, carefully gelled into what some would call a fohawk. His hair was dark with some lightened streaks that one can get from spending a lot of time in the sun; his golden honey skin attested that he did indeed spend a lot of time in the sun. He wore a plain black polo shirt that stretched tautly across his muscled chest and broad shoulders with a pair of faded Levis and what looked like black steel toed boats. He wasn’t muscled in the sense that he was bulky or stocky no this man was trim, lean and fit someone who took care of himself. Raising her eyes back up to the man’s face Sara saw that he wore a thin chin strap. Usually Sara was not one for facial hair on a man, she had always liked the look of a clean shaven face; but on this man it just accentuated his strong squared jaw.

  As she gawked at him Sara caught herself feeling something she hadn’t felt in a long time, lust. Pure unadulterated lust the kind that is nothing but physical and hits you low in your belly and makes you want to squeeze your thighs together.

  The man must have sensed he was being looked at because he turned in Sara’s direction and thou she couldn’t see his eyes behind those dark Ray-Bans she saw the corner of his mouth left up in a coy smirk that showed off one of his dimples. “Dimples, oh my.” She thought.

  “Hello? Earth to Sara, you ready to go in, the auction is gonna start soon.” Jo Ann began to wave her hand in front of Sara’s face. Finally she turned her head to see what had caught Sara’s attention.

/>   “Wow, oh my God he’s freaking hot!” Jo Ann exclaimed while licking her finger pressing it to the air and making a sizzling sound.

  “What? Oh”

  Jo Ann’s loud exclamation finally broke through into Sara’s lust filled brain. She broke eye contact with the stranger immediately feeling bereft at the loss of the connection and looked at Jo Ann.

  “Yeah he’s a piece of eye candy for sure, probably married, gay or has a girlfriend all the good ones are always taken in some way.” Sara retorted while turning her head back in the direction of the man’s truck, but he wasn’t there anymore.

  “He must have walked in.” Sara thought to herself, as she opened her door and spoke to Jo Ann “Yeah I’m ready let’s go in and scout out some of the lots before the actual auction begins.”

  As they were walking around the different lots they came up to a gorgeous antique four poster bed with canopy and matching dressing table with an eclipse mirror, five drawer chest and night table. Solid cherry polished to a beautiful shine, barely any scratches to be concerned about considering its age. It was absolutely everything she wanted and the starting bid was to be $2,500.

  “Oh Jo Ann this is perfect, I want this lot defiantly. This is the bedroom suite I want.” Sara said as her hand glided around the ornate carvings of the post spindles.