A Date With Fate (4 page)

I tried to move my feet on the slippery comforter under me. I wanted off this bed. It was an irrational goal. Even if I could get past him, the floor offered no better refuge. I was way past making sensible choices and reacting on instinct. My wildly bicycling feet kept sliding out in front of me.

I screamed in frustration when I saw him watching my sorry performance to get away with an unholy leer. I was a nude woman going nowhere fast and bouncing all over the place. I swung to slap the look off his face, but he caught my arm. Then he pounced. I was completely enveloped from head to toe with his much larger body.

The heat, the weight, the scent, the feel of him—everything was overwhelming. I was surrounded by the man and felt like I couldn’t breathe.

He buried his face in my neck and nipped me. I shouted breathlessly in surprise at the bite. He breathed a harsh, satisfied growl in my ear. I knew then this predator was seriously enjoying the fight of catching me.

He reached down between us and probed between my thighs. Using his hand first to get an opening, and then using his forearm, he forcibly wedged my resisting legs apart. I tried to keep my thighs clamped and legs crossed at the ankles, but he was too strong.

The next was a blur it happened so fast. With his upper body weight pinning me down, he hooked his elbows under both my knees, and then raised both my legs up and out.

My legs were spread and I was open to him. My attacker was lying between my thighs with his whole body aligned tightly against mine, pressing me to the bed. He was breathing quickly and smiling. He flexed his hips in a deliberate, age-old motion.

Feeling him heavy and hard between my legs shot a final spike of adrenaline through me. I was bucking, heaving, and pushing trying to propel him off me. Muscle Man pinned my hands to the bed on either side of my face and rode me until I tired, never once losing that superior grin.

Nothing I did fazed him and it made me insane.

I felt a fiery blush of heat wash over my cheeks. I closed my eyes. Not in fear or defeat, but because I was so goddamn mad I was no real match for his physical strength. I had really tried to beat him and get away tonight, any way I could. I wanted to burst with the roiling emotions churning up my insides. I hated losing. I couldn’t remember the last time I had lost at anything important.

He rose up on both elbows. I slowly opened my eyes to see him looking down impassively at my scowling face. The impassive expression couldn’t disguise that his green eyes were glittering with triumph. If my eyes could kill, he’d be dead meat.

My assaulter suddenly smiled. The arrogant ass had straight teeth that were startling white against his tanned skin. And he had one dimple.

He reached back with a hand and pulled open my nightstand drawer. He came back with a condom. He leaned to his side. Never taking his intense gaze from mine, he tore it open and smoothed it down over his erection with no wasted motions.

He came back over me. He ordered softly, “Enough play. Put your arms around my neck and hold me tight.”

I was pinned flat on my back and in no position to negotiate. I didn’t let that minor fact stop me from taking my time thinking over his words. Our faces were only inches apart. He watched me with wary, lowered eyes as I slowly ran my hands up his thickly muscled arms. I trailed my fingers along the top of his smooth-skinned shoulders. Still inherently unable to completely give in, I held him loosely about his neck with my arms crossed at the wrists.

I waited.

He gave me a sardonic look and lifted one black eyebrow.

I moaned softly at that single, arched brow and finally obeyed to the letter of his demands. I wrapped my arms tighter around his neck. With both hands, I ran my long fingernails through the back of his hair against his scalp. I pulled his face down to mine.

I whispered an inch from his lips, “You win. Tonight.”

Then we were kissing—wild, endless, drugging kisses. I soon lost myself in abandon. I was in the place where conscious thought has no meaning and nothing existed beyond the touching of our entwined bodies on the bed.

Poised above me, he murmured against my mouth, “Christ, I’ve missed you.” He kissed me deeper and continued proving it.

Much later, he gave me a little squeeze within his arms. “Seriously, a baseball bat, Anabel?”

I lay across his chest, my face nuzzled against his warm neck. I was too exquisitely exhausted to move, but I couldn’t help my tiny grin at his aggrieved tone.

I murmured drowsily, “Luke, Luke. No harm, no foul balls, right?”

Hands around my waist slid lower. He positioned me on top of him while responding dryly, “Yeah, it was a real no-hitter.”

I guess I wasn’t so exhausted after all.

Chapter II

“Fever” by Peggy Lee

Saturday, 11/17/12

6:30 AM

My name is Anabel Katrina Axelrod. I also answer to Bel or Junior. I’m the namesake of my maternal grandmother, Anabel Katrina MacKenzie. Hence the Junior. Hopefully, Bel is self-explanatory.

I’d woken up groggily a few minutes ago and glanced over at my bedside clock. I suspected it would only be around 6:30 AM, and groaning softly, saw it sucked to be correct. My internal clock woke me around the same time every day. It didn’t seem to care I’d only slept two hours.

I lay on my side drowsily in the dark, pleased to remember it was Saturday. My shop was covered by my staff on weekends. Stella, one of my two store managers and also my niece, would be at the helm today.

NanaBel, as our grandmother is affectionately called, was the original proprietress of Bel’s Books and the former owner of this building. That includes this second floor apartment where I grew up and still live, but now own.

Some of my earliest childhood memories are running tame in the store below. I was happy to play rambunctious games of Tag, Hide n Seek, and Red Light-Green Light in the aisles with my siblings, but it’s always been about the books for me. More often than not, you could find me curled up in a wing chair with my nose buried deep in a book. I don’t recall a time when I didn’t read predominantly adult literature, except for the occasional R. L. Stine thrown in.

I loved helping with the customers. To hear it from NanaBel, you’d think I was the most precocious kid to ever walk the earth. My grandmother claims I was a cross somewhere between the top sales person she’d ever seen and a little con artist. If you believe NanaBel’s version of my childhood, after hanging with me the adult customers often left the store in a daze with a bag of books they didn’t remember choosing, much less buying. You’ll never convince me those people did not enjoy reading Robert Heinlein, Robert McCammon, and Georgette Heyer as much as I did.

I had an epiphany in middle school. I decided my main goal in life was to own Bel’s Books. I’ve never looked back. I have worked in the book store officially (meaning actually paid a real wage and not child slave labor) since I was fifteen. I became Store Manager at eighteen. Now pushing twenty nine, I have been sole owner of Bel’s Books for the last three years while a gleefully retired NanaBel travels the globe. She’s kicking up her heels and making up for lost time.

My thoughts drifted from the store to the pressing issue of the man currently spooning me. His name is Luke Drake. He is my lover, not an unknown assaulter I was freaky enough to make out with because he could pin me.

If anyone knew what I was up to last night, some may judge me a sick puppy. I think they’d be wrong. Not necessarily the sick puppy part, the jury is still out on that decision, but wrong to judge. I firmly believe what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own sex life is their own business.

Last night’s shenanigans were a first for me. I’m sure people must play sex games all the time, although nobody I know has ever told me about them if they do.

That’s not as strange as it sounds. My friends, family, casual acquaintances, and even complete strangers off the street have confided in me all my life. It used to stump me as to why people voluntarily tell me their personal business and deep, dark secrets. They get no prompting or encouragement from my end. I have determined it’s because humans are typically contrary creatures by nature. Plus, I can keep a secret; a trait I sometimes bitterly regret. As to why complete strangers confide in me, your guess is as good as mine. I chock that one up to another mystery of the universe like black holes and dark energy.

Personally, I try very hard to keep my private life private and rarely share specifics with anyone about my love life. Still, it doesn’t stop my friends and neighbors from laying on me every agonizing detail of their own sexcapades.

I’m here to tell you it’s also a myth that chicks talk about their adventures in lovemaking more than guys. When a man talks about not liking to discuss ‘feelings’ he sure doesn’t mean in regards to how his wanger felt last Saturday night when out with so-and-so. My male friends are most gruesomely detailed oriented. Like it or not, I’d definitely have heard if any friends of mine were up to anything remotely interesting and kinky.

This morning, He-Who-Dominates has me in a similar hold he used last night to restrain me. His one arm is draped over my hips on top of the blankets with his hand resting against my stomach. His other arm is under my pillow and across my chest. Even asleep, Luke’s large hand is greedily trying to cup both my breasts at once. I wasn’t teasing when I said earlier this man is seriously infatuated with my bosom. I know, I know--it’s difficult, but I try to tolerate his fascination. However, I’m not sure if I like waking up this way. Not that Luke’s embrace is too tight, but rather I’m not used to sleeping with any man and then waking up in his arms.

Luke is still sleeping deeply. I experimentally wriggle my butt and push a little back against him. He murmured something unintelligible and kissed my neck, his hand caressing up the curving indentation from my hip to my waist before he relaxed back into sleep.

‘Huh, that was kind of interesting.’

I feel languorous and feminine, cozily surrounded by warm, hard muscles and soft, tickling hairiness. His knee is inserted between my thighs and my derrière is nestled tightly against him. How do people get out of bed and accomplish anything if this is how they wake up every morning? It makes me want to lazily stay in bed and do dirty, fun things--not get up and get busy doing my boring chores.

Even his steady breathing near my ear is not too irritating. Instead, the rhythmic sound lulls me. My mind wanders to contemplating how I came to have Luke still in my bed after playing “Who’s on Top?” last night.

Along with it being the first time I’ve acted out one of my sexual fantasies, allowing a man to stay overnight was also new territory for me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not being ingenuous here. I have gone out with quite a few men over the course of my twenties, but I don’t do sleepovers. I kid you not; there have been no pajama parties with the men I’ve dated since I was nineteen.

I have an ironclad rule about sending a man on his way, or skipping out myself, when the date is over. Does anybody really like the inconvenient awkwardness of waking up together the next day with morning breath and bed hair? I sure don’t. I schedule a date for an evening, not my whole, cotton pickin’ weekend.

As I lay in bed with morning breath and bed hair, being a woman of sound mind who can rationalize her behavior with the best of them, I logically justified my unique transgression of allowing Luke to stay the night. It was a true statement our night practically began this morning. Then there was the tiny detail of my utter exhaustion. I guess experiencing the second best sex I’ve ever had in my life caused me to pass out in satiated bliss. I forgot my sleepover rule and I forgot to boot Luke out.

My all encompassing rule number one where men are concerned is quite simple and easy to remember; never forget my rules.

Even thinking of Luke brings on a sleepy smile. I admit I’m in lustful la-la land over this dude. After last night, there wasn’t an iota of doubt in my mind Luke really sends me.

This doesn’t change the fact my rules have evolved over time and are now cast in stone. They are based on first-hand knowledge from my experiences with the most dangerous predator known to prowl the planet; men. I live by these rules for good reasons. I like to be free to pursue the goals I’ve laid out for my life and not get bogged down with relationship issues. Following the rules help me avoid a lot of problematic situations where men were concerned. Not following my own rules allow males to have the opening into my life they are genetically predisposed to pursue, and it creates big, fat messes.

Let’s face it, stereotypically men are hunters and women their prey. I have no desire to be bagged this week’s trophy kill by confusing the excitement of this elemental chase with the female equivalent of romanticized “in love”. I don’t need to pretty it up with a pink bow.

I thrill at the chase, and for a select few hunters, throw myself in for the kill. By faithfully following my simple rule number one, I have lived to walk away, unscathed and intact, from the exhilaration of the hunt for the last decade.

Since I always manage somehow to be honest with myself, in spite of myself, my quiet introspection quickly brought me to a couple of conclusions. The first; I could try and justify it all I wanted, but I have been breaking my rules for Luke since the day I met him. The second; I was going to stop breaking my rules for Luke right this minute. I liked wanting all sorts of different men in my life for all sorts of different reasons, but actually needing one, main man in my life? Not so cool.

I officially was introduced to Luke two months ago at my younger brother’s place. My brother, Reggie, gives new meaning to the word friendly and his house is like Grand Central Station at quitting time. It’s a joke in our family that if you want to run into anyone from Northfield stop over at Reg’s house, located twenty minutes outside of town, and you will.