Jennifer Greene - Pink Satin

Dear Reader,

I loved creating Greer. Unlike me, she was busty and voluptuous, what some used to call a bombshell. Her appearance gave me the opportunity to work with the unique vulnerabilities and needs of a sensitive woman. Greer developed early, and to protect herself from predator-guys who were only interested in her sexy appearance, she developed a maternal persona. She IS maternal. A soup and cookie maker. A consoler, a source of warm hugs, rather than hot kisses.

She works in the field of sexy lingerie, but her coworkers have stopped thinking of her as particularly female-she’s become that good at hiding her vulnerable, feminine side. Her behavior has encouraged men to treat her as a motherly type, and that’s worked really well for her-until McCullough moves next door.

Carina offered me the chance to bring this story back to readers. I’m so glad to share it with you. It was one of my first books…yet I hope you find the story reflects a core theme in romances. Isn’t it one of our eternal fantasies-for a woman to throw off her inhibitions and fears, and to reach for the woman she really wants to be?

Hope you enjoy the story!

Feel free to contact me at www.jennifergreene.com or through my Jennifer Greene author page on Facebook.

Jennifer Greene

With a lazy yawn, Greer leaned over and peered through the window of the oven. Filet mignon would have been nice, but in a pinch she’d settle for Lean Cuisine.

Straightening, she unbuttoned her salmon crepe blouse and slipped it off, draping it over the nearest kitchen chair. She was broiling. Either her apartment’s new temperature-control system was playing games again, or North Carolina’s April heat had managed to seep inside, even this late in the afternoon.

Twisting the oven dial to Warm, she wandered back to her bedroom with one hand on the side zipper of her cream-colored A-line skirt. In a moment, the linen garment was gracing the bright tulip pattern of her comforter. Pick it up, Greer.

She not only picked up the skirt but hung it up as well, feeling abnormally virtuous. The feeling was rare and didn’t last long. Once she’d peeled off her stockings, she let them lie exactly where they fell on the poppy-red carpet. One could be good for only so long. Her workday had been both long and unusually tedious.

Halfway to the closet for her white cotton robe, Greer caught a glimpse of her reflection in the dresser mirror. There was nothing strictly wrong with the chartreuse slip she was wearing…except that one required sunglasses to appreciate its fluorescent brilliance. Her dresser drawers were full of expensive lingerie with equally minor flaws-sort of a fringe benefit of working for Love Lace.

The flamboyant satin slip cupped a well-developed pair of breasts, pinched in for a minuscule waist, and then swayed alluringly over rounded hips and long, slim legs. There was no excess fat, just luxuriant curves that would have made a calendar photographer deliriously happy. Greer, as usual, scrunched up her nose at the reflection in passing.

If she’d had her choice, she would have been flat-chested and tiny. If Greer’s mother had had the choice, her daughter would have had the poise and presence of a svelte Greer Garson. Neither had had her choice.

Nature had endowed her with a voluptuous body and a certain shyness-an unfortunate combination, in Greer’s view. As a teenager, she’d been avidly pursued by more than her share of hormone-happy boys. Other girls had envied her; Greer had suffered a lot from mortification. If the boys had just looked above her neck, they might have noticed she was simply an average nice-looking girl, with myopic but sensitive big brown eyes and a mop of untamably curly hair. But boys that age weren’t too interested in anything above a girl’s neck.

She’d discovered since that middle-aged “boys” still looked below the neck first. Living out her days as a sex symbol didn’t hold much appeal for Greer. Actually, it held none. So by the age of twenty-seven she had a degree in psychology behind her and had perfected the fine art of survival. Men and Greer coexisted just fine these days.

Slipping into an ancient cotton robe, she padded barefoot back through the living room. “Down,” she called automatically as she picked up a magazine.

Truce was perched on a curtain rod. The tiger-striped feline peered down at Greer with limpid yellow eyes.

“Down, and this time I mean it,” Greer warned. “You know what you did to the curtains last time.”

The cat ignored her. Greer sighed. Way back, when she had first adopted Truce, he had mounted an assault on all climbable things. Then Greer had had high hopes that they could reach an amicable agreement-hence the name Truce. Now, Greer understood that cats loved outright war because they always won.

Experienced in the fine art of guerrilla warfare, Greer wandered past the blue-and-white flowered couch and the mountainous pile of mail on the desk to the window, where she leafed absently through the pages of Psychology Today. Presently, the cat leaped down onto Greer’s shoulders and curled himself around her neck with a thunderous purr.

Reading as she walked, Greer aimed for the kitchen, automatically groping for a knife and fork in the silverware drawer, then pouring herself a glass of milk. Bending down, she filled Truce’s bowl with cat food. The cat continued to wave his long tiger tail in Greer’s face, unmoved by the sight of his dinner. “I’m out of gourmet brand and I’m not going to the store until tomorrow,” Greer said firmly. “You haven’t even tried this. It’s tuna fish.”

Truce licked her ear.

“Mmm,” Greer coaxed, mimicking a sound of ravenous hunger.

Truce waved his tail.

“All normal cats like seafood,” Greer informed him. Truce popped down to the floor and sauntered over to the counter by her purse, clearly expecting his mistress to race to the store immediately for his favorite brand of cat food.

“Whatever happened to gratitude? Can’t you even try to remember that you were a mangy, starving orphan a few months ago?” Pulling open the oven door, she reached in with pot holders for her dinner. Lasagna.

The phone rang in the living room. A shock wave shivered down Greer’s spine; she dropped a pot holder, burned her finger and turned pale, all in the space of a second. The phone rang again. Nursing her burned finger in her mouth, Greer closed the oven door with a snap and felt her heart suddenly ticking like a time bomb.

On the third ring, she took her finger out of her mouth and starting shaking it, her steps joltingly stiff as she walked to the telephone. Inches away from the receiver, her hand suddenly turned independent, refusing to pick it up. Insistently, the telephone rang again.

Taking in a huge lungful of air, Greer grabbed it. “Hello,” she rasped.

On the other end there was nothing. Just…breathing.

Greer’s fingers tightened around the receiver. “Hello?” she repeated, louder this time.

More breathing. Basically normal breathing. Two weeks ago, her caller had had a cold, and his breathing had carried a wheeze. Greer had suggested he take a cold capsule, because back then she’d still been trying to deal with her crank caller with humor and patience. Sometime in the interim, all of Greer’s normally irrepressible humor had deserted ship.

Well aware her fingers were trembling, she dropped the receiver back into its cradle. Her small apartment, so chock-full of cheery colors and familiar things, suddenly seemed to close in on her. The walls echoed silence and a forbidding emptiness. Fear licked along her bloodstream.