Spontaneous - Brenda Jackson [66]
7 “DUAN, I’D LIKE YOU to meet my mother, Wynona Cannon-Longleaf-Higgins-Gunter. Mom, this is Duan Jeffries, my fiancé.” Duan kept his mouth from dropping completely open. Kim’s mother was a very attractive woman. Kim had said she was fifty-five, but to his way of thinking, she looked a lot younger. He offered the older woman his hand. “How do you do, Mrs….” Already he’d forgotten her names. She beamed happily. “Just call me Wynona. I don’t know why Kim insisted on saying all those names.” Kim smiled. “Because they’re yours. All four of them.” She glanced around. “And where is the man who might be number five?” Wynona gave her daughter a frown. “Edward will be here any minute. He’s probably stuck in traffic since he lives on the other side of town.” She returned her attention to Duan. “Your last name is Jeffries?” “Yes, ma’am.” “And before you ask, Mom, the answer is yes,” Kim said. “He’s Terrence’s older brother.” “Best friends marrying brothers. How nice.” She studied his features for
8 “OH, MY GOD.” Kim closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath. She felt her body trembling at the same time she felt Duan’s strong hands gently stroking her back. “It’s okay, Kim. Nothing is going to happen to your mother,” he whispered in a deep, husky voice close to her ear. “I give you my word on that.” She shook her head. She heard his words but didn’t fully understand how he could say them. In fact, a part of her brain refused to comprehend any of what he’d said. She was imagining things—yes, that had to be it. There was no way Duan had insinuated that the man her mother planned to marry could be responsible for the deaths of his previous two wives. She opened her eyes and stared up into Duan’s face, and knew from his expression that she hadn’t imagined anything. It was true. She wrenched away from him as anger consumed her. “And you’ve known this since that Sunday in Chicago when we shared a cab ride to the airport?” she asked in an accusing tone. “You knew what Edward Villarosas
9 KIM PUT DOWN the documents she’d been reading for the past hour and rubbed her eyes. As a nurse she was used to reports, some even thicker than the three-hundred-page document Duan had given her. However, most of them were medical in nature and reached a conclusion at the end, a diagnosis. Although a lot of information was documented from various sources in this investigative report, there was no definite finding. “Here, looks like you can use this.” She smiled when Duan placed a cup of coffee in front of her. “Thanks.” He eased into the chair beside her. After she’d started to read the report he had pulled out a laptop. For the past hour they had worked in amiable silence, the only sounds in the room those of her turning pages and him clicking on the keyboard. But the one thing she was constantly aware of was his presence. Just knowing he was there within arm’s reach was a comforting thought. All she had to do was sniff the air to breathe in the manly scent of his aftershave. Occasi
10 KIM TRIED TO FEIGN SLEEP at the feel of a hard erection poking her in the back, dead center where her butt cheeks came together, and a hot wet tongue gliding across the skin at her nape. She closed her eyes and decided she wasn’t ready to let Duan know she was awake yet. She curled her hands into fists when he shifted and his tongue began moving down her spine. “Since you’re awake, how about flipping on your back so we can play,” a deep husky voice said, his heated breath sending sensuous sensations uncoiling in her belly. She smiled and glanced over her shoulder before turning onto her back. “How did you know I was awake?” He looked up into her face. “By the way you were breathing. I didn’t touch you until I knew I had your attention. You didn’t fool me.” And before she could make a comment to that, he shifted his body and leaned down to kiss her. The first thing that came to her mind was that his tongue was full of energy this morning, and the second was that she didn