9781618850676UnchainedMelodyHunter (2 page)

She
didn’t really avoid men, she just didn’t encourage them. After a few moments in
her company, most men picked up on her obvious disinterest in them as members
of the opposite sex. She was never rude, she just treated men and women exactly
the same. She had trained herself, in public, to emit an asexual persona. Those
familiar with her work, the erotic tone of her stories, were shocked when they
met her and discovered none of that sensuality seemed to ever surface in her
actions or conversation.

What
they did not realize was she had learned a very hard, yet very valuable lesson.

To
sum the lesson up succinctly—Annalise Ramsey had been taught there are much
worse things than being alone.

* * * *

After
completing the last steamy love scene, Annalise was surprised to find that
suddenly all of her creative juices just, literally, dried up. She was facing a
case of writer’s block unlike anything she had ever known before. For days, she
had sat at her computer and fingered the keys. The cowboy proved to be the strong,
silent type and Jenna, the heroine, did not have anything to say either. Annalise
tried every trick she could think of, she created a romantic atmosphere to
write in—lighting candles and putting out fresh flowers. She watched old
tear-jerker films and listened to love songs on the radio, she even watched
some late-night Cinemax soft porn—but nothing seemed to help. As a last resort,
with great love and reverence, she took out
his
picture. She held it in her hands and studied it, the one
she had taken of him that last night at Pace Bend on Lake Travis. She ran a
finger over his sweet face, remembering a smile that rivaled the morning sun
and a kiss that could bring her to her knees. Tenderness welled up in her as
she remembered the way his hands had felt on her body and the way he had made
her tremble with desire. She held the picture to her heart as tears rolled down
her cheeks, but still the words just wouldn’t come.

In
desperation, she finally decided to take her editor, Cecile’s, advice. A change
of scenery was what her friend recommended and the location that had been at
the top of Cecile’s list was a Bed and Breakfast in the Hill Country of Texas
by the name of
The Lost Maples
.
The location intrigued her, mainly because it wasn’t too far from both The
University of Texas where both she and Ethan had gone to school or Pace Bend
where she had fallen in love.

Cecile
had gone on and on about the area and the inn. She had explained an unusual
stand of Bigtooth Maples that shouldn’t even exist in Texas flourished there; a
relic from the last ice age according to the Park System. Cecile said the Bed
and Breakfast complex was unique and had all the right ingredients to surely
loosen up the blocked flow of creativity that presently plagued Annalise. So
she took her friend at her word and called, made reservations, packed her bags,
loaded the dog and now she was on her way.

* * * *

Ethan
Stewart was lonely, even in a crowd. His sole salvation was the exhaustion that
came from relentless hard work. Only when he was too tired to think, could he
achieve any level of peace at all. He was twenty-eight years old, in good
health and reasonably well off.
The Lost Maples
belonged to him and his
brothers and they did not owe a dime on it. The cabins were fully booked for
months in advance and everything seemed to be going their way. Women found him
extremely attractive, but since his divorce Ethan had not let any woman get
close to him. He had not made love to a woman in over eighteen months and the
desire that raged within him ran thick, hot and almost uncontrollable.

He
lay in his bed at night and literally ached with longing. He had been raised to
believe a real man did not resort to masturbation—only men who couldn’t get a
woman resorted to that temptation. For eighteen months, he had refused to
succumb to the temptation to find release by his own hand, but today his
self-control was wearing thin. He had dreamed about her. Again. But this time
the dream had been so real he had awakened in a cold sweat. Lise. His Lise.

Lately,
he’d been reliving sweeter days. He thought of Lise and how she’d reveled in
his lovemaking. He remembered her soft touch and how eager she had been to
receive him into her body. But Lise had walked out of his life and he never
knew what happened to her. He’d done everything he could think of to find her,
but the phone number she had given him was no good and the one on file with the
university had been disconnected. She didn’t come back to the university the
next semester and after that, he’d graduated and moved to the East Coast to
pursue a career in investment banking. It was as if she’d dropped off the face
of the earth. The only thing he had been able to surmise was that she had not
wanted him to find her. Still, he had never forgotten her.

On
a trip home from New York, he had reconnected with Francine Shepherd, a girl
who pursued him relentlessly before and after his interlude with Lise. Somehow,
before he knew it, he had married her—truly the greatest mistake of his life. She
had been entranced by life in the city and her size DD breasts had entranced
him—even those had proved to be a disappointment. He soon realized that there
was no substitute for real, soft, pliable, excitable, natural female flesh. The
first six months hadn’t been so bad, but after that it had all went downhill. She
had tired of his long hours then she had tired of him. He hadn’t really fought
it; the sex just hadn’t been that good. He knew this sounded sappy, but there had
been no tenderness or passion between them. She treated him like an escort or a
business associate, only interested in where he could take her or what he could
buy her.

He
had tried to make her happy and, although sorely tempted, he had never been
unfaithful to Francine. His career on Wall Street had taken off and it seemed that
out of spite, as soon as he started to really succeed, she had started to whine
to move back to Texas. Ethan had put her off for a while; at least until he
could save enough money to buy what she had sworn that she could not live without—a
Bed and Breakfast in the Texas Hill Country. So here he was, back where he had
grown up and went to college—back where he had met and loved Lise Evans.

After
their return, Francine had gotten caught up in the excitement of buying and
renovating the old Victorian Farmhouse that was now
The Lost Maples
, but something strange had happened about the
same time. Francine had gone from being merely selfish and cold in bed to being
just downright cruel to him. He was a healthy male and he loved sex, but Francine
began to criticize and denigrate his lovemaking. At first, he had been able to
ignore it and blamed it on typical female monthly imbalances, but it soon
became obvious it was much more than that.

Francine
had begun reading romance novels, not just every now and then, but all the
time. And it seemed the more she read, the meaner she became to him. By the
time they were ready to open the Bed and Breakfast for business, Francine had
become a shrew and super critical of everything he had tried to do for her—both
in the bedroom and out of it. At times Ethan had blamed Francine and at other
times he truly doubted his prowess as a lover. That was why he struggled
between the cold, harsh reality that had been his wife and the hot, sensuous
memories of his time with Lise.

The
words Francine had thrown at him still ate at his very soul. She had hit him
with words no man wanted to hear from a woman he has made love to. He could
still hear her, “You are a disappointing lover, Ethan. I have never been able
to come with you inside me; I can do a better job with a vibrator and a romance
novel.”

Over
and over again, she compared him to heroes in those silly books she read. He
could do nothing right, he was never able to please her. If he ever had the
opportunity to meet that damned romance novelist face to face, he would
cheerfully wring her neck. Francine had a favorite author, she bought every
book the woman had published and she had tortured him with the ways he fell
short of the heroes that came from the poison pen of Ann Pace.

Ethan
laid alone in his king size bed and dreamed of rolling over and finding a warm,
willing body he could cuddle up against. He would throw his long,
hair-roughened leg over her smooth ones and then nuzzle her neck from behind,
while cupping her beautiful, soft breasts with his hungry hands. He knew his cock
would rise to the occasion and begin to lift and nudge the back of her luscious
buttocks. “Oh Lise, I want you so badly,” he groaned.

Deep
in the throes of the dangerous mind play, he realized his engorged member had
created its own big top under the sheets. With a snarl of frustration, he
finally gave into the temptation, desperate to assuage his out-of-hand ardor. Throwing
off the sheet, he took matters into his own hands. Literally. Grasping his
turgid penis, he immersed himself into one of the many hot memories he had of
Lise. She had been soft and sweet and everything he had ever dreamed a woman
should be, even now. Her body had been made for sex and she had learned quickly
how to please him. And she had enjoyed it. He had to believe that she enjoyed
it. As he stroked his cock, moving the skin up and down his shaft, he recalled
the weight and shape of her breasts and the color of her nipples. Round, firm,
soft, pliable—breasts that brought him to his knees more than once. Rosy, pink
nipples that begged to be kissed, begged to be sucked. After he had spent
countless minutes sucking and licking, they would be rosy red instead of pink. And
how she had loved that! Ethan still remembered how she would cup her breasts
and lift them up, offering them to him, begging him to suckle and tongue them
both into a frenzy.

His
Annalise had been so responsive, so giving and so positively uninhibited with
her praise and delight at his touch. Her little cries of ecstasy still echoed
through his heart. Ethan’s hips dug into the mattress, his pelvis lifting
alternately, blindly searching for the warmth and wetness that he was starved
for. “
Lise!”
He
bellowed his release, sprays of his cum jetting into the air and all over his
flat, corrugated stomach. The jerking of his hips and the plumes of his essence
kept coming, two years worth. He couldn’t believe it had been two years since
he had ejaculated. Well, not exactly. A few times, he had woken up as he had
climaxed, feverishly making love to Annalise in his wet dreams.

Shit!
Checking out the sheet for stains, he climbed from his bed. He still slept
naked, even though he slept alone—so there was no need to slow down before
diving under a painful, cold spray. The harsh temperature wasn’t meant to cool
his ardor, it was meant to awaken his spirit. Ethan watched as his once turgid
penis relaxed and looked satisfied. So often he had used this same shower to
calm his nerves and ratchet down his libido as he watched his cock fighting the
inevitable and slowly conceding defeat. He leaned forward and rested his warm
forehead on the cool ceramic tile. This was no way to live. What in the hell
was he going to do?

His
brother, Alex, kept pushing him to throw off Francine’s toxic influence and
figuratively and literally climb back in the saddle. Maybe he would someday,
but it wouldn’t be today.

Gradually,
his blood pressure receded and as the water warmed, he was able to have a
normal shower. The day ahead was already set to be hectic, so dawdling and
feeling sorry for himself wasn’t going to do him any good.
The Lost Maples
offered a hot breakfast every morning and after Rachel, their
cook, packed the baskets and trays—he, as the owner—carried each offering to
the cabins himself. That way, he could make sure no one was in need of anything
or had any complaints about their accommodations. The guests seemed to
appreciate the personal touch.

Ethan
Stewart dried himself with one of the B&B’s extra thick and fluffy, cream
colored towels. He knew his body was in good shape and he had inherited above
average good looks from his handsome parents. But if Ethan Stewart could have
read the minds of the female guests populating the B&B, he would have had
no doubts about the strength of his sex appeal or the extent of his masculine
charms. In the minds and hearts of any woman who got the chance to feast their
eyes on Ethan Stewart, he was a walking dream.

Ethan
dressed in his ever present blue jeans and a crisp, button down, chambray shirt.
His hair was thick and wavy and he wore it long over his collar. After brushing
his teeth, he headed downstairs to carry twelve hungry women their breakfast. Just
as soon as he got those trays delivered he had a date with an herb garden.

Running
a Bed and Breakfast was not the fantasy life some people might think it was;
Ethan had discovered it was a lot of work. Hot work at that. Soon the chambray
shirt found its way over the handles of the wheelbarrow. The sun glinted off
the sculpted muscles of his broad, tanned back and he could feel the heat as it
warmed his body. There had been a time when he could not have imagined himself
pulling weeds in a garden, but now he enjoyed working with his hands. He found
there was a certain satisfaction to be found in keeping up the grounds of The
Lost Maples
,
maybe because he had been so unsuccessful in maintaining his private life.