Change Of Heart

Change of Heart

by

Nikki Winter

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are no to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright
© 2012 Nikki Winter

Editor: Stephanie Parent

Cover Art: Shara Azod

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews. This is a work of fiction. All references to real places, people, or events are coincidental, and if not coincidental, are used fictitiously. All trademarks, service marks, registered trademarks, and registered service marks are the property of their respective owners and are used herein for identification purposes only. eBooks are NOT transferable. Re-selling, sharing or giving eBooks is a copyright infringement.

Chapter One

“C’mon, c’mon...where the hell is it?” Ryssa had been searching
everywhere
for that one damn file
all
day. It was hard enough to run a small law firm without losing important paperwork in the process. “So why haven’t I found it yet?” she growled to herself.

Frustrated beyond anything, she kept tossing papers and folders aside until the sight of something unexpected made her pause. It was heart shaped, pink and sparkly. All of which made her lip curl as she picked it up.

“What the...” Ryssa opened it just for glitter to go spraying everywhere and barely suppressed a growl.

Roses are red.

Violets are blue.

I know you hate Valentine’s Day

and I do too.

Okay enough with the poetry

Have dinner with me tonight?

                                                --Kyran

Despite the fact that her thighs clenched and her stomach did some freakish little fluttery thing, Ryssa was
not
amused, and she damn sure wasn’t about to accept
this.
What the hell was Kyran’s problem, and why was he sending
her
of all people a...a... Ryssa cringed as she looked down at the Valentine’s card. She gagged.

Fully disgusted, Ryssa grabbed the card and headed out of her office and down the hall to her best friend and business partner’s. She didn’t bother with knocking, just swung the door open.

“What,” Ryssa slowly started as she balled up the card. “The hell is this?” Then she threw at him.

His brown eyes went wide right before it tapped him in the center of his forehead. Frowning, he rubbed the spot, then picked it up. “Well, I thought it was a way to ask you to dinner.” He un-balled it before muttering, “Note to self: even cards are considered extended measures of romantic evil.”

Ryssa took a deep breath. “Can I just say how incredibly stupid it is that you’d ask someone who
hates
this day to have dinner with you by way of extended measures of romantic evil?”

Kyran rolled his eyes as he stood to his full six feet four inches. “Rys, it’s a
card.
I thought you’d get a kick out of it, and the poem too.”

Her hands balled into fists at her sides. She refused to acknowledge the fact that he had his sleeves rolled up, or that his shirt was untucked and unbuttoned, or that she could see every brick contour of his abdomen. And she’d damn well keep her eyes off his no matter how hard the chocolate-brown orbs hunted hers. Nope. Nope. Nope. She’d keep her gaze on the floor and hold on to the rage slowly boiling over inside her.

“Oh I got a kick all right...for you...in the balls. I don’t acknowledge the fact that this day even exists, Kyran. You know it and you know my reasons, so why would you...”

Suddenly she was looking down at his shiny black wing-tipped shoes. “Are you gonna look at me?” he murmured.

Ryssa shook her head. “No.” She was way too scared of what she might see in that moment. She and Kyran had been dancing around this issue for years, had been friends way longer than that. The underlying tension had been there forever, just under the surface, but he’d picked the way wrong day to make a move.

One strong hand came up to cup her jaw and tilt her head up. Still, Ryssa stubbornly focused her eyes on his chest.

“Rys...” The back of that hand skimmed along her cheek, the thumb brushing right below her bottom lip.

God, her heart was hammering a mile a minute. She wondered if he could hear it, hear the shift in her breathing when he stepped closer and the scent of his cologne took her nose for a pleasurable ride.

How many t-shirts and jackets had she “accidentally” not given back because she wanted to hold on to his smell as long as possible?

“Maryssa, look at me.” Kyran’s voice was soft, but there was steel beneath the deep tone that bottomed out in the pit of her stomach and sent a mild shudder up her spine.

Against her will, her gaze found his again, and what she saw there made her want to run like hell. It was the look Kyran had been giving her since the day they’d met freshmen year of college. The same look he’d given her the night she’d told him that she was engaged. The same look he’d given her the day he’d had to be the one to stand by her side as her best man. The same look he’d given her the night she’d found herself sobbing on his doorstep in the middle of the pouring rain because her husband had finally told her that he wouldn’t leave his mistress alone on Valentine’s Day for another year.

It was simple, undiluted, unconditional love, and damned if she didn’t want to bolt from the room right then. Run from him the same way she’d done four years ago today, when that look had made her stupid; had made her forget how much love could hurt, how much damage it could do to a heart, to a soul.

“When are you gonna stop making me chase you?” Kyran asked softly.

Her eyes watched the movement of his lips closely, stared at the strong line of his jaw, his beard, his nose, his sharp cheekbones, and finally his thickly lashed brown eyes. God, those brown eyes had been making her melt from the first moment they looked at her. Kyran didn’t just see her. He saw
through
her, and that scared the shit out her. Her best friend wasn’t supposed to make her feel this way. It wasn’t right. He was the one man besides her daddy that she trusted, and she couldn’t ruin that with...with...with whatever it was that he wanted from her.

“As long as I can run, you’re gonna be chasing me,” Ryssa finally answered.

One side of his mouth kicked up in a sad smile. “I’m not Malcolm, Rys. I was here long before he ever came into the picture, and I was there when he stepped out of it. You can’t keep waiting for the other shoe to drop with me.”

Ryssa jerked away from him; his words as well as his touch caused things to roil in her that she didn’t want to explore any more than necessary. “I know who you are.”

One blond brow rose. “Do you?”

Her chin chucked up a little higher. “Yes, I do. Fifteen years and counting, I’ve known you. I know the way you think, the way you operate.”

This time his eyes sparkled, his smile mischievous. “Do you now? Tell me.” Kyran stepped closer, backed her into the door. She was guessing that was exactly what he wanted, because he chuckled a bit and locked it. “What am I thinking right now, Maryssa?” His tone was low, mocking.

From the way he pressed his much larger frame into hers and she could feel something the length and width of a cucumber pressing between the apex of her thighs, she could take a good guess. The problem was she couldn’t take her mind there. She
wouldn’t
take her mind there. So she lied.

“I have not the slightest clue.”

          When his mouth curved into a grin that made her feel like one of the three pigs facing the big bad wolf, she
knew
that was the wrong answer.

***

Kyran’s dick jumped against his leg at her answer. It wasn’t what she said but the
way
she said it. Her normally husky voice had dropped even lower, caressing his balls like she’d cupped them herself. He was so hard it hurt to breathe, but that was nothing new when it came to being around Maryssa. Fifteen years of friendship. Fifteen
long
years of imagining what her skin tasted like; of watching the gentle sway of her hips underneath those short tight skirts she wore; of smelling the sweet, subtle scent of Japanese cherry blossoms; of going to bed at night wondering what she was wearing beneath her own sheets.

See, Kyran knew
everything
there was to know about Ryssa. He knew her likes, her dislikes, what her favorite things were, what made her laugh and even what made her cry, but there were things he didn’t know too. Like, was she a screamer or did she moan? Would her nails rake any place they could reach or did she fist the sheets? Did she have one long orgasm or come in jags? Did she like a little pain with her pleasure, or was she more interested in the gentle?

His cock jumped again, and he watched her gray eyes widen in her pretty peanut-butter face. Suppressing his grin, he pressed closer, let her feel what she did to him, had been doing to him for years. He loved Ryssa so fucking much that it hurt sometimes, but she didn’t see it, and that irritated him beyond anything.

Was he more than interested in getting her to a bed so he could watch her writhe and scream in pure ecstasy? Hell yeah! But that wasn’t all this was about for him. He needed to replace the pain of this day with a memory that would last into eternity, but first she had to let him. Kyran was tired of her running. It was now or never. He’d watched her exchange vows with an asshole who’d never deserved her eight years ago, and four years after that he’d been the one to try and pick up the pieces of what was shattered.

Now here he was four more years later, still trying to convince her that she was more than his world. She was his
universe
. Stars and galaxies be damned. If he could orbit around Maryssa twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, then he would without even the slightest hesitation.

Today was the day. Today he was going to show his woman that she was indeed, without a doubt,
his
woman. He’d been waiting for this day long enough. Ever since he saw her hauling ass across campus because she was late for biology. Her long legs carrying her at a pace that he’d never seen a woman move, curly ringlets of hair flying behind her in a messy ponytail with her glasses halfway off her face.