The love list, p.1
The Love List, page 1
Praise for for the novels of Naima Simone
“Simone masterfully balances heart and heat…building a convincing slow-burning romance.”
—Publishers Weekly on Christmas in Rose Bend
“Passion, heat and deep emotion—Naima Simone is a gem!”
—New York Times bestselling author Maisey Yates
“Naima Simone balances crackling, electric love scenes with exquisitely rendered characters.”
—Entertainment Weekly
“Simone is always a good bet.”
—All About Romance
“I am a huge Naima Simone fan. With her stories, she has the ability to transport you to places you can only dream of, with characters who have a realness to them.”
—Read Your Writes
“[Naima Simone] excels at creating drama and emotional scenes as well as strong heroines who are resilient survivors.”
—Harlequin Junkie
“Simone’s lively prose and believable characterization—plus some occasional snark—combine to form an irresistible story full of heat and heart.”
—Publishers Weekly on Secrets of a One Night Stand
The Love List
Naima Simone
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER ONE
KORRIE NOEL SHOVED down the handle on the French door of the restaurant’s back porch and hurried out into the cool April night air. She tore her earpiece free, gulping down the air as if it were made of appletinis instead of oxygen.
“God, we need to have a serious talk. I mean, really. You and my father are tight. Like, he’s Your guy.” She shook her head, grasping the iron railing. The cool of the metal seeped into her palms, but she barely paid it any attention. She held on. Otherwise, she might do something ridiculous. Like climb over it and go on a moonlit power hike into the woods. “So I’m just asking, God—don’t I get any kind of brownie points for Your relationship with him? Any kind of leeway? I’m a good person. I tithe. I teach children’s Sunday school. My job is helping to bring people together in holy matrimony. I don’t even curse unless the situation really merits it. So why, God? Why let this happen to me? I think I deserve some kind of answer. Give me a sign or something.”
“Sorry, sweetheart. This hideout is taken. Find your own.”
“Shit!”
Korrie wheeled around, hand pressed to her chest over her suddenly hammering heart. Fear raced through her veins, her pulse crashing in her head like violent waves. She glanced down, to the side, then to the other side for anything to snatch up as an impromptu weapon. But nothing except for chairs and tables littered the deserted porch. Well, not entirely as deserted as she’d believed. Her gaze lit on the squat candleholder in the middle of the nearest table. It would have to do...
“I guess this is one of those situations that really merited a curse.”
The drawled words sank in along with the humor just as she reached for the candleholder. She slowly dropped her arm and squinted at the dark corner where a wide grin flashed like an eerie Cheshire Cat. Except, as this figure gradually emerged from the shadows, its toothy smirk was attached to a face of strong, almost stern angles that was somehow starkly beautiful in its symmetry and boldness. Not a subtle or even a kind face, but stunning, nonetheless. Especially when paired with a sharp slant of a nose and a vivid pair of blue eyes that gleamed in the darkness like an inner torch shone behind them. Surely, they were contacts. That color—caught somewhere between indigo and denim—couldn’t be found outside of an accidental dye job.
Who was he? In a town the size of Rose Bend, Massachusetts—population 4,815—it was pretty difficult not to know everyone. And everyone’s business. Her stomach twisted at that reminder. Still, difficult but not impossible. And she would’ve remembered him. He was pretty unforgettable.
As if he’d plucked her thought out of her head, his smirk deepened through thick, silky-looking scruff, and a dimple dented a lean cheek, drawing her attention to his mouth. Full with a hard, almost cruel slant that should’ve been intimidating. Instead, she had the strangest urge to sink her teeth into that slightly thinner top lip and see it swell.
Holy...
She blinked. Leaned back.
Where had that thought come from? She glanced to the side, into the woods, as if they held the answer.
“Excuse me?” she finally stammered. Awesome. Brilliant. She slapped a mental palm to her forehead.
He arched a dark eyebrow, shifting farther toward the pool of light cast through the French doors. A solid jaw that spoke of epic stubbornness, a wide, clear brow. A dirty-blond mohawk arced over his head. All he needed were two braids on either side of his scalpel-sharp cheekbones to complete the image of a fierce Viking intent on a sacking.
Her belly quivered, an echo of it spasming lower, deeper. What would it feel like to have this man lay siege to her?
He would consume her, completely wreck her and leave nothing but burning rubble behind.
The knowledge whispered in her head with certainty.
“No excuse needed, sweetheart. I saw who was in there.” He jerked his chin in the direction of the doors and the restaurant she’d just escaped. “Go ahead and have your breakdown. Your secret’s safe with me.”
“I’m not having a breakdown.” Not a big one anyway. But it was rude of him to mention it, either way. “And please don’t call me ‘sweetheart.’ It’s inappropriate since we met five seconds ago.” Lord, when had she started sounding like Nana Rena?
“Okay, no breakdown. You were having intercessory prayer.” He snorted and tipped a bottle of beer she hadn’t noticed he held to his mouth for a long drink. Lowering it, he wiped the back of his hand across his lips. She should’ve found that disgusting. Any minute, she would. “And I apologize for being so forward...Barbie.”
“Barbie?” She tilted her head, narrowed her eyes on him. “That isn’t my name.”
“Oh, I know what your name is, Korrie Noel. Pastor Keith Noel’s daughter. Wedding planner. Town darling.” His cobalt gaze dipped, roaming down her wholly suitable pale green, inch-above-the-knee sheath and nude heels and back up again.
So why did she feel as if she stood there in a merry widow under his inspection?
“Barbie. Perfect.” As the insult wrapped in pretty compliments sank into her skin, he cocked his head, and a corner of his mouth quirked. She tensed, not trusting that hint of smile on that cruel mouth. “Although, maybe not so perfect. Because we both know why you’re out here hiding, invoking a God that’s too busy to care about your runaway groom showing up at the wedding you’re coordinating.”
Hot flames of humiliation licked her skin. Not only did he baldly voice what others in this town and her own family tiptoed around as if she were a land mine with a hair-trigger detonator, but he also stated what she feared. God could care less about her problems. Because if He did, wouldn’t she be happily married by now? Maybe even expecting her first child? Seriously. Whoever heard of a wedding planner who was abandoned by her own fiancé at the altar? It was a miracle she even had any clients left.
She suspected her business had barely dipped only because of pity. And that stung as much as if everyone had scattered.
The townspeople of Rose Bend were nothing if not loyal.
And it spoke volumes about the state of her heart that she resented them a little for it.
“You’re an asshole,” she whispered, anger, hurt and embarrassment churning inside her.
“Never claimed to be anything different, Barbie,” he whispered back. “And believe me, I merit that curse, too.”
“Did that make you feel good?” She drew her shoulders back, notching up her chin. “Anything else you’d like to throw my way before I go?”
Something glimmered in his eyes. With another person she might identify the emotion as compassion, but not on this stranger. Nothing about him was soft.
“Yes.” He leaned an incredibly wide shoulder against the iron beam, his beer bottle dangling from his long fingers. “Get your shit together, Korrie Noel. No one, especially not a son of a bitch who pulls a dick move like not showing up at his own wedding and not having the balls to tell his bride-to-be that he’s changed his mind, should have you running away. The fact that you’re still in this town when he disappeared for six months, leaving you to deal with the fallout, shows you’re much stronger than this.” He waved a hand, indicating the patio.
“Who are you to lecture me? I don’t even know you, and for all the gossip you have gathered, you don’t know me, either.” She nearly trembled with fury and shame...and pleasure. God, she hated that smoky tendrils of delight swirled low in her belly at his scorn of her ex-fiancé and his claim that she was indeed “stronger than this.” Not that she sought or needed his validation. Especially considering she’d met him five minutes ago. “And you’re being a bit of a hypocrite, aren’t you? I’m not out here in the dark talking to myself. You’re hiding, too. Why isn’t it good enough for me when it seems perfectly fine for you?”
That grin flashed in his scruff again. “Oh, that’s easy, Barbie. I freely admit that I’m avoiding that shit—” again he jerked his chin toward the doors “—like tea at the queen’s. I hate weddings.
“Then why are you here?”
“Because I hate people knowing even more.”
They stared at each other, his admission ringing between them, enigmatic and revealing. It struck a chord deep inside her. Wasn’t that why she insisted on still coordinating weddings? So no one would suspect her ex-fiancé’s defection had broken something elemental inside her?
She glanced away from him. From that too-perceptive stare. She didn’t want to have anything in common with him.
“I should get back in there,” she murmured. “It was nice to meet you...”
“Israel Ford.” He chuckled, and it carried an edge so dry, it crackled. “And no need to lie to me. Matter of fact, I’m the one person you don’t need to bother wearing that pretense of perfection with at all.” He leaned slightly forward, his voice lowering, deepening. The timbre caressed her bared skin, stoked a simmering fire in her belly. “Consider me your confessional. I won’t tell a soul.”
Israel Ford. Her breath turned to smoke in her lungs, set aflame by the unwanted lust flickering to life in her veins. The shock of it stole whatever air she had left. Since her ex, she’d had no interest in romance and definitely not in sex. Getting through each day and focusing on the tasks at hand had consumed her. Risking trusting another human outside of her father not to hurt, betray or fail her... That lay beyond her, and she didn’t know if or when she would be capable of taking that chance with her heart again.
It seemed her body—or more specifically, her vagina—had other ideas.
Spinning around, she strode toward the French doors, not bothering to reply to him. Get away. Her mind recognized the danger her rebellious and reawakened sex had not. She grabbed the handle, his gaze heavy on her back. She entered the hallway, grateful it remained empty and no one had witnessed her flight from the reception. Thank God for small favors at least—
“Korrie.”
Oh, wow, really, God. Really?
Drawing to a sudden halt, she went ice-cold as she stared at the man who appeared in front of her like a specter who haunted her dreams.
No, her nightmares.
The recurring nightmare where she waits in the daycare turned dressing room of First Providence Ministries, her father’s church, in her wedding gown and veil, smiling, barely able to sit still. That is, until her father enters with sorrow in his dark brown eyes and tells her that Derek Boyd, her husband-to-be, hasn’t arrived and isn’t coming. Then, sitting still isn’t an issue. Moving at all is.
Breathing is.
Then she’d wake up, heart pounding, humiliation a cold, wet slick over her skin, bitterness dirty in her throat, as she tried to convince herself it was a dream and not her real life.
But it was her real life, and her bogeyman—still handsome—stood not three feet in front of her.
“Derek.”
He stared at her, as if he expected her to say more. Anger flashed inside her, a struck match flickering to life. Well, he would have a long wait. He’d obviously followed her. He’d cornered her. She didn’t have a damn thing to say to him.
And yes, the situation so merited that curse.
“I noticed you in the reception earlier. And I... Well, I didn’t want to cause a scene or be the source of any more pain for you...” He paused, but she still didn’t say a word and a small frown creased his brow. He shifted forward, a hand outstretched. “But I wanted to speak to you. Needed to speak to you.”
“And it’s all about what you want, yeah?” A new but now familiar voice joined the conversation. “Forget that she’s working right now and they’re not paying her to have a reunion with you. She also doesn’t need your bullshit or drama.”
Both Korrie and Derek stiffened, but for different reasons.
Derek, probably because an unwanted interloper had intruded on his planned ambush. That had always been Derek. A planner. Which was why his abandoning her had been such a twisting knife in her heart. He’d have known for at least days in advance that he had no intentions of showing up to the church. And he hadn’t had the decency to give her a heads-up.
Her, because... Well, because Israel’s scent, like freshly washed sheets and sun-warmed skin, enveloped her in its own ephemeral embrace.
“Excuse me,” Derek said, glaring at Israel, who stood just behind Korrie. “But this is between Korrie and me. It has nothing to do with you.”
“Thank you for that update.” Israel snorted. “And yet, I think I’ll stay.”
“Derek,” Korrie gritted out, irritation toward both of them sticking to her chest wall like burrs. “Now is not the time. I’m on a job. If—and that’s a big if—I decide to talk to you, it will be on my timetable. Not yours. Now, you’re obviously a guest of either the bride or groom, and I can’t do anything about you being in attendance here. But I can do something about you being near me. Which I prefer you not be. Goodbye, Derek.”
“Keke—” he murmured, using his nickname for her. As if that would, what? Soften her? Tug on old memories? A cheap trick that wouldn’t work.
“Good. Bye. Derek.”
Frustration crossed his face, but he dipped his chin, pivoted and walked off down the hall, back toward the main room of the restaurant. As soon as he slipped back through the doors, she turned and faced Israel, the irritation brewing inside her flaming into anger.
Her first glimpse of him in the light tightened her belly like a screw. Pulling. Coiling. Aching. It echoed in her chest, constricting her airways so her breath squeaked past. It pulsed in her nipples, tautening the tips into beads. It spasmed in her sex, tugging hard, leaving her hot and so wet.
He was younger than she’d first assumed. Maybe five or seven years junior to her thirty-four. But...
Good God.
The man was beautiful.
Not in a traditional or conventional way, not like Derek. But with an almost brutal, raw magnetism that fairly emanated from him in waves. In the dark, she hadn’t fully appreciated the wide breadth of his powerful shoulders and chest that were barely constrained in a white dress shirt. The sleeves, rolled up to just below his elbows, exposed sinewy forearms covered in colorful tattoos that reached to his wrists. More ink peeked from the open collar of his shirt and crept up the side of his neck. How far did that gorgeous artwork extend? The question popped in her mind as she scanned a flat abdomen, lean waist and thick thighs encased in slim black pants. What did it say about her that even as she debated strangling him with the belt on her dress—her only option since she couldn’t possibly get her smaller hands around that strong neck—she wanted to seek out every tattoo on him with her fingers, mouth...tongue.
What. Was. Happening?
Not only was he tattooed, rude and much too wildly beautiful for her comfort, but he was too young. She already had “jilted bride” on her résumé, she didn’t need to add “cougar.”
Sucking in a much-needed breath, she stepped back. And to be on the safe side, took another step.
Yes, she was angry at his high-handedness. At assuming she was weak. Focus on that.
“In spite of what you think you saw out there—” she jabbed a finger toward the porch “—I’m no damsel in distress, and I don’t need a knight in shining armor riding to my rescue.”
His full lips tightened at the corners, and lightning flashed in his denim eyes.
“Good. Because I’m no knight to the rescue and have no desire to be one for anyone.”
“Then it seems we’re in full agreement on something for the first time.” Embarrassment fed her anger. Embarrassment over him witnessing her initially freezing at the sight of Derek. Embarrassment that for a brief moment, relief had trickled through her like cool water over hot skin, when Israel had appeared and spoken up for her. She didn’t need his pity. Hated it. “I can take care of and speak for myself. I don’t need saving.”
“Duly noted, Ms. Korrie Noel.” He saluted her, the gesture as mocking as the tilt of his mouth, then stalked away in the opposite direction Derek had disappeared.
Damn him for looking as good going as he did coming.
And yes. That curse was merited, too.
CHAPTER TWO
