The Man of Her Awakening

By Clee Riall

It’s not a dream for Maura, it’s all too real. She chances upon a strange little curio shop and gets far more than her imagination could have ever conjured in the form of a muscular, cocoa-colored man who wants her all to himself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Clee Riall
• Release date: Jan 20, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311300607

Clee Riall

I write sex. What do you think about that?

Book preview

Clee Riall

THE MAN

OF HER AWAKENING

© 2015

Maura Wester sat against a pile of pillows on her frilly, queen-size bed. It was Friday night and there she was, alone again. Terrence, the man she’d been seeing off and on the last year cancelled their plans at the last minute – again; the few friends she did have were scattered throughout the country, long having left their tiny hometown.

She sighed, adjusting her pink flannel pajamas. Picking up the remote, she absently flipped channels. Nothing caught her attention. Here she was, 34 years old, carrying an extra 20 pounds and still living in her childhood home. Her parents died within a few years of each other when she was still in her 20s so she didn’t even have them to lean on anymore.

It’s time for a change, she thought. She needed to get out more, stop being such a homebody. It wasn’t that she was so shy; she was just a little self-conscious.

Switching off the TV and turning to cut off her bedside lamp, she scrunched down in bed. The only light came in from the moon. She always thought it was brighter out there in the middle of nowhere. Maura wasn’t sure why she stayed. She liked to tell herself it was because the house was the last tie to her parents, but she felt like it was really because she was too afraid to leave the nest and branch out wholly on her own. The house was warm and safe. She never worried that any harm would befall her. When she’d graduated college years earlier and moved back in to help her ailing mom and dad, she’d told herself she wasn’t going to stay. A lot of her friends had taken big dollar jobs in far-flung parts of the country and she envisioned a similar life for herself. It turned out that it wasn’t to be as her parents’ health continued to fail. She and her mother ceased operation as a working farm when her father passed away. Before she died, her mother made Maura promise she’d sell the homestead and go live her life, but Maura could never bring herself to do so.

She put her hands over her face, willing herself to come out of the swinging pity party in her head. Once she was certain all the