With the Colonel’s Help: A Pride and Prejudice Variation

“You about finished?” I stood just inside the main door of Moonflower, a sentry standing guard, watching Raven as she flitted around her shop, finishing her daily tasks. All her orders had been picked up or delivered, and she was tidying and wiping down her workstation.

Wearing another one of those dresses that drove me out of my damned mind, though this one was short as fuck, pure black and frilly, a pair of five-inch heels to match.

Of course, now that I knew the real reason she wore them, it only made it five-thousand-times worse. The greed that rolled in my stomach as I watched her move through her space.

Fluid and lush.

The girl in her element. So fucking free and beautiful as she managed this shop that I knew brought her a ton of pride and joy.

“Ten minutes max.” She peeked back at me, playing innocent, like maybe she was attempting to do what I’d asked of her earlier and forget every delicious thing that had gone down between us.

Acting typical.

The way we always interacted.

Would have bought it, too, if it weren’t for the way those inky eyes dragged over my body in a slow slide of appreciation, flaring as she succumbed to what clearly played out in her mind.

With that single look, I was hooked, my dick kicking in my jeans and the greed I’d barely kept tamped all day threatening to bust out of its confines.

Doing my best to ignore it, I busied myself by glancing at the giant farmhouse clock on the wall.

Five o’clock.

Thank fuck.

Closing time.

I reached over and flicked the lock on the door, then I turned back to her, rumbling, “What can I do to help?”

Needed a distraction. Something to get the temptation that was this woman out of my head. Quite the quandary considering it was my duty to keep her within fifty feet of me.

“Um…you could finish wiping down these counters while I close out the totals for the day?”

“Sure.” I pushed off the doorjamb and ambled through rows of flowers that took up the center of the store and around the long counter. Each step I took, it brought her closer to me. Her aura becoming more potent.

The sweet honeysuckle moonflower scent hitting me like a landslide.

Her kindness.

Her belief.

The vixen underneath.

Was never going to get over the way she’d shouted my name when she came. Would never get over the way she’d gazed up at me with those eyes as she had my cock shoved down her throat.

I scrubbed a palm over my face to try to break up the onslaught of visions, and I edged her aside and took the rag from her. I started wiping down the counters while she turned to the computer she had set up facing out toward the main part of the shop.

She started humming as she worked, her throaty voice floating through the air, winding around me and twisting me in greed.

“How’d it go today?” I asked, trying to divert the out-of-control train of my thoughts.

“It was good, busy until late this afternoon. Not that you couldn’t tell from across the street.” There was a bit of a taunt to it, a pressing that told me she’d known I was watching too close.

I grunted as I swept the little pieces of leaves and petals into my palm so I could toss them into the trash.

“Couldn’t hear what you were saying, though. Couldn’t tell how you were feelin’,” I admitted.

I felt her still a fraction, her movements slowing as she murmured, “I felt safe, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

But what about your heart?

What about your body?

Were those safe, too? Was she regretting everything that had happened between us? Would she take it back if she could?

I’d fretted like a fucking hen about it all day, barely able to keep still as I’d watched over her from across the street, lying through my damned teeth to her brother about how it was my privilege to take care of our baby sister.

So damned fucked up that I wasn’t even sure what the truth was anymore.

“Only thing I want is for you to feel safe. To be safe,” I murmured.

She slowed even more, though her voice twisted into this seductive, disorienting thing. “Is it, Otto? Is it the only thing you want?”

My guts tangled in possession.

I slowly turned around, compelled, the woman a magnet I’d seemed to have lost all power over.

She stood facing the computer screen, her stomach up against the counter.noveldrama

Her tempting, lush body vibrated beneath that dress, her legs so fuckin’ long in those heels.

The soft sway of her hips was mesmerizing.

The heavy thud of her pulse hypnotizing.

Could feel it, the erratic thuds that beat through the air.

My lungs squeezed as I slowly inched her way, coming up behind this woman who’d wrecked me so completely that I didn’t recognize myself any longer.

Couldn’t seem to stop myself from treading farther and farther into this depravity.

Her hair was piled on her head, twisted up in some kind of braid with a bunch of tiny white flowers poking out of it.

Her delicate neck exposed.

A magical sprite who’d taken possession of my mind.

I eased up until there was only an inch of space separating us, and I leaned in so my mouth was close to her ear.

“You wear this dress on purpose, Little Moonflower?”

She arched back. “Yes.”

“You like teasing me? Tempting me?”

She rocked back, her ass hitting my cock that was stone, and she barely peeked at me from over her shoulder. “Is it working?”

“Clearly.”

“That’s what I thought,” she murmured.

I buried my face at the back of her neck, then rumbled, “Fuck,” as she ground herself against me. My hand moved of its own accord, riding up below that dress where I splayed my hand over her bare bottom.

She whimpered, and I groaned, my mouth at her ear. “We need to get home, Raven.”

We needed to get out of here before I lost my mind.