Read Tell Me a Desire (The Story Series Book 2) for Free Online

these things? I was thirty-five. Why was I such a late bloomer? I shook my head, trying to rid myself of the confusion. Too many questions for one night.
    “Let’s rejoin everyone. But hey, don’t say anything to Laura, okay?” I turned to open the door.
    “Fine. But I’m sure she can already guess. And, anyway, she’s feeling the same way.”
    I shut the door again and spun to face Sarah. “What? Laura wants a baby?”
    “Well, sort of, yeah. I’d carry the baby because of her panic disorder. But she wants a family. I do, too. And now that same-sex marriage is legal in Florida, we’ve been thinking about the future.”
    “Maybe you and I will have babies at the same time.” I did a little dance, shaking my hips.
    Sarah tilted her head and exploded in laughter. “You’re a goof.”
    “I know. But did you ever think you’d see me so happy?”
    “No. I never thought you’d open up to any man the way you have Caleb. You need to take the next emotional steps, though.”
    “I love him so much,” I whispered and slumped against the door, ready to cry. It was as if my hormones had been upended in one twenty-four-hour stretch, and being half-drunk wasn’t helping my already wobbly emotional state. I needed to get a grip and fast, so I took a huge breath. “Okay. Let’s return to the party.”
    Sarah and I lurched out of the pantry, and I barreled into the broad chest of Caleb’s brother, Colin.
    “Jesus,” I responded semi-crossly. He laughed.
    “Watch out, Emma. You’re small but sturdy. You could’ve taken me out.”
    I made a mock-hissing noise, then smiled as I slipped past, his cologne lingering on my hair. Normally I didn’t keep tabs on what kind of eau de toilette a man wore, but I’d bought Armani Mania for Colin at Christmas, and from the smell of things, he’d dipped himself in the Mandarin-cedar scent.
    His cologne almost overpowered the extravagant gardenia and white lily bouquets around the condo. Caleb had made sure to have several arrangements delivered for the party, and the normally sterile penthouse was now a riot of big, white flowers and waxy green leaves in crystal vases.
    “What’s in your hand?” I pointed, pretending to be annoyed. Colin and I joked often. Not in a flirtatious way, but in an almost sibling-like way. It mirrored the relationship he had with Caleb, I thought.
    He held up Sizzling Florida Heat , an anthology of erotica that contained one of my stories. “It’s your absurd book.”
    I rolled my eyes and ran my fingers over the spiky tip of an orange bird of paradise flower in a tall glass container. I didn’t like talking about my sexy stories with men, not since I’d met Caleb. And I was sensitive about writing romance and not lit fic, like I’d studied in school.
    “You find my writing absurd. Thanks a lot.”
    Colin’s mouth quirked up. “I find it pleasingly ridiculous.”
    That’s the way Colin talked—in a slightly formal and circuitous way. On the polite side of pretentious.
    Caleb sometimes talked like that, too, but for some reason, he didn’t have the edge his brother did. Although Caleb was the head of the family’s development company, he had the heart and soul of a poet. Colin was a pure, cold businessman—he’d gotten his MBA at Wharton, studied in Switzerland—and was ever-so-slightly predatory in both appearance and attitude.
    There were times when he was annoying as hell. This was one of those times.
    I snorted and looked for my wine glass, which I thought I’d left on the counter.
    Colin stared at me, bored, as he usually did. “Hey, Caleb was searching for you. He wants you out on the terrace.”
    “Thanks.” My heart thumped, thinking about how Caleb might soon propose. I could already feel tears prick at my eyelids.
    “He was wondering where you were. He likes to keep his little woman on a short leash.” Colin loved teasing me about being a feminist, and whenever he got the chance, he needled me, saying I was now