Sneak Peek at ROCKET MAN

This is one of the first scenes I wrote from Dillon's point of view, back when ROCKET MAN was named ... well, it went through a few titles, I'll be honest. Whatever it was called, I've always loved this scene. It's a little too far in the book for the retailer previews, so I thought I'd share it with you here. Enjoy! 

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Aggrieved, Dillon kicked his townhouse’s front door closed and scooped up the calico kitten making a beeline for the exit. “No, you don’t,” he warned it, before slinging it over his shoulder and heading into the kitchen for a cold beer. “I’m having more than enough trouble with females today; I don’t need you adding to the mix.” Setting Maisy down on the sofa and taking a long pull, he finally sighed. “Okay, okay, so it’s not your fault. And I can hardly blame Anica, she’s right about the tear sheets.” Maisy reached a paw up to bat at his fingers, unfazed by his suddenly morose tone. “But what the hell is going on with Serena?”

It just didn’t make sense. Serena was one of the most straightforward people he knew. Even before he’d started at Lanigan, she’d shown herself to be honest about everything — from work issues to the interpersonal. But lately he couldn’t get a read on her at all. She was her usual vibrant self half the time, backing away from him the other half. It just didn’t add up.

“Is it me?” he asked the kitten, who blinked and looked away. “I just … I kinda thought things were ….” He took another pull on the beer, then had to laugh. He couldn’t even articulate his feelings to his sister’s cat. No wonder Serena was acting strangely. He was probably feeding her all kinds of assbackwards signals himself, and she didn’t know how to react.

How did he feel, though? He shed his jacket, which Maisy promptly started kneading and purring upon, and headed back to the kitchen to throw together some sort of dinner. “Pasta night,” he called to the kitten, which ignored him. “Did I talk to myself before you showed up?” he asked it. “I can’t seem to keep my mouth shut at home anymore. But as long as you’re listening, check it out, ‘kay? Here I’ve known Serena for weeks. And don’t get me wrong, I noticed her right off, you know? Second I walked into the interview, as a matter of fact. But I always thought you’ve got to keep that stuff out of the office.” He bit into a carrot and glanced back at Maisy, who was now asleep. “Fine. Ignore me.”

He had kept it out of the office, and over time had stopped — okay, practically stopped — looking for Serena as soon as he got to work. Stopped cataloguing the many enticing ways she wore her hair, stopped half-memorizing her schedule, stopped asking her out. Almost stopped, anyway. And they worked closely together; he couldn’t go more than a few hours without having to at least shoot an email to Serena, if not engage in some more substantial contact.

Substantial contact. Face it, that was what he wanted.

He liked working with Serena, and valued their friendship, but he just wasn’t satisfied with it. He wanted to be able to touch her. He needed to be able to touch her. To draw his fingers through the length of her hair then trail them down the slope of her breasts. To smooth his palm down her spine then spread it over her ass. To draw her body close to his as he tasted the creamy skin of her throat. To press his thigh between her yielding legs. His cock. To have her touch his throbbing cock. To have her grasp the base of his cock while his mouth closed over the tight peak of her nipple. To ….

“Ow, fuck!” he cried as the fucking pasta boiled over. Maisy jumped up onto the table and mewled at him. “Not funny, cat. Just. Not. Funny.” Trying to adjust himself back into some sort of composure, he drained the penne, stirred in a Bolognese he’d nuked, and scooped some into Maisy’s bowl before throwing himself against the back of the sofa. Cuing up an old-school Star Trek episode off his DVR, he deliberately banished every thought of Serena, and her breasts, from his mind.