Clifford Arbor: The Seduction of Raven Peters Read Online Free PDF Page B

Friday she would be all theirs.
    "Now there goes a man who knows how to please a woman and I’m not just talking about in the bedroom, dearie. Just looking at him gives me joy." Beatrice shook her head humming in appreciation.
    Raven couldn’t believe it. She laughed out loud. It was the first time she’d heard Beatrice speak about a man.
    "He’s one of my neighbors." A note of pride entered Raven’s tone.
    "You could do far worse."
    "How do you know him?" Raven asked, looking at the cash register trying to pretend she wasn’t at all interested.
    "I’ve lived here my whole life and so has Jackson. Not always been a nice boy I admit, but life has straightened him out like it always does."
    Raven wanted to know more.
    "What straightened him out?"
    "Nothing that I’d like to talk about. I’m not a gossip. I just know he’s dealt with some serious issues and it’s nice to see him happy with Harley."
    Raven thought she saw Beatrice eyeing his ass. It really was a nice ass but to see this woman eyeing it made Raven want to cover the other woman’s eyes. That ass was hers.
    Not yet but it would be hers. Whoa, where the hell did her thoughts come from today?
    "I tell you, dearie, if I was thirty, no make it twenty years younger, I’d have that boy for breakfast, lunch and dinner and still have time for dessert and snacks in between."
    Raven laughed at her, struggling to see this little woman eating such a large man.
    "No laughing, Raven. In my day I was a right tart. I loved men and they loved me. It’s just a shame. My honey bee came to me so early in life."
    Beatrice referred to her much loved husband. They’d been husband and wife for forever and in love even longer. Raven had seen them from time to time and even now they looked at each other as if the rest of the world ceased to exist. Love shone out of the couple and it was spellbinding to see. Raven hoped one day she’d have a man like that and still feel the same after forty years of marriage.
    "What else do you know about Jackson?" Raven found herself asking, cringing at the enthusiasm she displayed.
    "Interested are we?"
    "He’s my neighbor and you just got me all interested by talking about him." Raven pointed out, poking a finger at Beatrice and the door which the man in question had just vacated.
    "How gorgeous he is?"
    "Come on, Beatrice I’m being serious."
    "Alright, alright. Give an old woman a break."
    "Beatrice, you’re not an old woman. You know that. I know that so don’t try to bamboozle me. I know you," Raven told her.
    Beatrice stuck out her tongue making Raven laugh.
    "Jackson is just a hard man through and through. He’s always been with his friend Harley and always will. I don’t know if they’re a couple, dearie, so don’t ask. I just know they’re the best of friends and like some friends, they do a little sharing along the way," Beatrice replied.
    "Sharing?"
    "I’m not blind or stupid or a prude. I thought you knew me better," Beatrice chided. "Sharing a woman. You know, two men, one woman. Blah, blah, blah."
    "I know what you mean, Beatrice."
    "They’re good men. Any woman would be blessed to have them. They deserve it, too. Hard working. You have to get use to stuff round Clifford. We protect our own and we don’t gossip."
    Raven was under no illusion about Clifford Arbor. People here were a nice and friendly bunch but they gossiped with each other, about each other and it seemed to be the given thing for a small sea side town.
    Beatrice went out the back leaving Raven to think about her two neighbors and what hadn’t been said about Jackson. Sharing? Did the men of Clifford Arbor share their women?
    Raven began to think of all the couples she’d seen but she couldn’t put any sharing couples together. Maybe that was the point. Clifford Arbor appreciated its privacy and accepted the way people lived no matter what they did in their private lives. Harley and Jackson, to be sandwiched between such masculinity was appealing.