Page 18 of The Disputed Legacy

That was all it was.

Grabbing dinner on my way home.

And taking another opportunity to see that delicate beauty who wanted nothing to do with me.

I left before my family could pester me about what I was up to. On the way there, I mused again about why I was going through this new routine.

I’d stumbled upon that diner by chance, and now that I knew it was where I could count on seeing Red again, I couldn’t stay away.

As I drove the now-familiar way there, I wondered if it was nothing more than a matter of wanting what I couldn’t have. Red didn’t encourage me. Not once did she fawn over me or blush. Since the first time that I walked into the diner last week, she refused to flirt any further than our initial conversation.

Or maybe she hadn’t been flirting with me, after all.

I still couldn’t tell, and that mystery only added to the fire of intrigue that claimed me where she was concerned.

She had yet to act like the other waitresses who worked there. She had yet to give me clear signals that she was interested in me. And that simply wasn’t the norm. I was used to women falling over their feet to be close. When I hit on them and looked at them in such a way that they’d feel the lust radiating off me, they wouldn’t stand a chance.

Not her.

Whoever this woman was, she was an enigma to resist my charm.

She was untouchable with how she wouldn’t cave and flirt back with me.

And she was a damning temptation I couldn’t talk myself out of.

After I parked and walked the short distance to the diner’s door, I tried to pinpointwhy.

Women had made me work for it before. Not every nameless pussy I fucked was that easy. The challenge was half the fun, but Red wasn’t even hinting at a mutual willingness to get down and get dirty.

Is she a prude?

The thought of that gorgeous redhead being a virgin threatened to make my dick hard.

Is she taken?

I didn’t see a wedding ring on her finger and she never met a boyfriend at the end of her shifts. Yes, I’d checked. Last week, after the third time I’d come to get dinner under her service, I’d stood around and spied on her as the diner closed. I didn’t see her walk home with a man that night. Nor had I witnessed her on her phone during her shifts, implying she wasn’t texting someone special in her downtime.

Is she a lesbian?

I doubted that too, seeing no sign that she was checking out her pretty coworkers.

Red was my mystery woman, and I didn’t really care why I was so stuck on seeing her. It felt too good to follow the challenge and get a glimpse of her, anyway.

Or is it because she’s playing hard to get?

I entered, seeking her out immediately, like I had done almost every day for a week now. And just like every day I’d come here after the dinner rush, when the diner seemed to go stagnant with customers, she refused to look up and make eye contact.

Like she knew it was me.

Like she could feel the charge in the air that changed when we were in each other’s presence.

She might not address it, but I damn well knew she felt it too. If I wasn’t stalking her, watching her, I would’ve missed it. But each time I set foot in here, she stiffened slightly, as if catching her breath that I was back.

I see you…

And if I wasn’t careful, I’d get addicted to the fantasies I’d been harboring of having her, too.

On the counter. The floor. Against the wall. This morning, I woke up to an erotic dream of her in my bed.