Possessive Trucker - Flora Ferrari

Chapter One

Sophie

“But you said,” I stammer.

“Yeah, I did. I just didn’t think you’d actually be trying to take me up on it,” the hotel manager frowns at me over the steam of the coffee machine.

This morning, I’d joked with her before going to my new job in the suburbs about five miles away. She said if the new job I was positive I already had didn’t work out, I could come work for her at the hotel.

Guess I was wrong.

“Now if you don’t mind, your royal highness?” she adds, brushing past me with a handful of plates, brimming with hot food.

I’m so hungry.

I feel my mouth watering at the sight of the food, but my mind’s reeling and my heart feels like it’s been torn in two.

That’s twice today I’ve been lied to. Patronized. Treated like crap.

I study myself in the mirror behind the counter top. I look like crap.

My hair’s frizzed by the rain and my cheap makeup has run. I look like a panda and my lower lip starts to tremble.

What the fuck happened?

I saved up for weeks for this trip, was told I had the live-in housekeeper position with a wealthy family.

I spent the night in the hotel, making sure I was fresh from the long trip from the country, got up and at ‘em super early. Everything was looking perfect.

Until I actually met my new employer.

“Well… We never said you actually had the job… not a hundred percent. That would be stupid,” she’d said coldly, looking me up and down after one of her brat kids threw a tantrum at the sight of me.

“You’re a little… bigger than your profile picture too. I’m not sure the guest bed would even fit you in it,” she remarked as if I wasn’t even there. “Plus, If Coby doesn’t take to you… well…”

It was all over before it even started.

Shit, How could I have been so stupid, actually taking it at face value I had the job just from a few emails and a phone call.

I wouldn’t feel so stupid, if I hadn’t left my bag on the bus from the burbs that took me back to the hotel. The one with most of my money, my clothes, jacket and my ID in it.

I’m royally screwed.

The lights from a big rig across the street glow in the rain streaked view behind me as it pulls into the diner across the road.

I wonder if they have free Wi-Fi.

Topping off the perfect day, I have zero credit and no data on my phone.

My only hope is to email for help. Dad would’ve normally called, but for the huge fight we had when I left...

I made the genius remark I was never coming back.

Something puts a lid on my fears though. Something in that brightly lit truck carrying its forest of logs on a huge trailer makes me feel safe again.

Draws my eyes and my mind to it again.

“You still here?” the hotel manager says icily, putting her hands on her hips and narrowing her eyes.

But I’m already leaving. The blast of frigid air on my soaked white blouse doesn’t even bother me.

Those lights.

That truck.

Somehow I just know it’s the answer to all my problems.

The ‘free Wi-Fi’ and ‘first cup’s on us’ sign warms me a little once I cross the road, passing opposite the gleaming white and red rig but unable to see inside through the dark tinted windows.

The hand dryer in the ladies room warms me up even more, bringing the feeling back to my fingers and helping to make me feel half human after I clean my face up a little.

Something makes me think of that truck again. Wondering if maybe there’s one of those sturdy hero type men driving, like in those damned books I can’t stop reading.

Coming out of the ladies, I see him leaning against the counter.

My gasp of surprise makes me blink, looking around with shy embarrassment.

His firm rear end in faded denim flexes as one of his firm boots rests on the shining brass rail.

His equally faded checked shirt strains against his huge V-shaped torso, which even from the back tells me he does more than just keep in shape.

He is a shape. A permanent, pleasing shape.

Frozen to the spot, I feel my heart skip one of its racing beats as his eyes meet mine in the mirror behind the counter.

Dark, smoldering and intense eyes that soften when they rest on me. I see them move over me, his lip curling, but it’s not a