The Ultimate Erotic Short Story Collection 19: 11 Steamingly Hot Erotica Books For Women

by Bray, Kimberly

  ***

  How long was it since he and Wilhemina met? One year… Two? She was playing a game of sharpshooter when he heard her bubbly laugh. He came around to see who everybody was gamming and hawing about and shoved his way to find the most stunningly woman he’d ever seen. She was gorgeously tall and heavenly stacked. He kept thinking she could have been a goddess from another time…

  When the beauty asked for a challenger he leapt up to the mini-range before anyone else could step. He was Alpha-male and the lady he was about to take on knew it. He gave his best and so did she and they wound up hovering around the Boardwalk for hours. The lady seemed to find everything about him interesting. He wanted to know everything about her.

  “I’m better than you,” he said taking her hand in his.

  “You dream big,” his goddess said. “You know we tied,” she laughed.

  He laughed too and when he drew her in for a kiss, everything and everyone around them faded. There was just the two of them.

  “I don’t belong here,” the beauty told Nate.

  “Where do you belong?” Nate asked.

  “With you,” she said after a long pause.

  “You feel it? This pull between us?” Nate said. “It’s like an electric thrum I never knew was possible.”

  “I know. I feel it too,” the beauty said.

  They walked along the beach after Nate had dragged the lady to take photos. He pulled her onto his lap and the two of them made faces until they laughed with tears. Nate tore a section of the photo strip and gave the photos to his beauty. When he saw the mist tint her eyes, he did it. They kissed. He wanted her and he told her his intentions. She turned to stare at the ocean. “All right,” she finally said. “Out there,” she nodded to an outcrop of rocks several miles from the shore.

  Nate told her they couldn’t. They needed permission from the law.

  “You’re the law,” the lady said. She had smiled at Nate’s reaction. “No one makes every target at a game like sharpshooting unless it’s a hobby or they have trained with firearms,” she said.

  “What made you think I’m someone who holds firearms?” Nate prodded.

  That was when he saw the lady gaze down at his hip. He looked back up at her almost as fast. “Don’t say it,” he begged.

  “Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?” the beauty said, going for it.

  Nate was taken, hook, line and mystery woman. And he’d arranged for a hydrofoil to take them to the embankment off the coast, but they never made it…

  Nate rubbed a hand over his forehead. He looked up and nearly bumped over the bar chair. The rain had picked up. He was two for zero. No leads, only one suspect.

  And he’d left the convertible roof cover down.

  “Shit,” Nate grumbled.

  ***

  The paper reported the rock concert was the biggest attraction of the century. Wilhemina read it was nothing short of Heavy Metal reborn. She scoured the Personals: nothing. She skimmed the rest of the headlines and pages — and jostled the paper back to the second page.

  She read the headline below the concert column in cold, uncaring print: “Vocalist Oren Victor of the Band ‘Heavy Friction’ Dead at 32.” Wilhemina reread the story. Slowly she looked around and back while standing near the newsstand. The last time she had felt this lost was during another storm… with the love of her life. She folded the paper and headed to the park, hoping there were few people and a strong Wi-Fi signal.

  ***

  “And that is all that was upstairs?” Nate questioned.

  “Yeah. The maid had already cleaned up. Really nice, nothing to trace,” the policeman answered. “Kind of bad, huh?”

  “Pardon?” Nate said.

  “All that sex, money, and fame and you can’t take it with you,” the policeman said.

  “Right,” Nate answered.

  Nate checked Oren Victor’s laptop. “This been looked at?” he asked.

  “Nothing was tampered with. The place is spotless,” the policeman noted.

  Nate grabbed the laptop. “May I?” he said.

  “Not if nobody sees you,” the cop smiled.

  “Thanks Egan, I’ll owe you,” Nate smiled.

  “Nah. Get me that Patron I told you about and we’re good,” the cop said.

  Nate nodded.

  Hours later he had the ISP and protocols sourced. Nate called in the findings and turned them over to the field. He had a murder to place.

  ***

  Mina let her legs stay open. The man in front of her snarled. He was full-pissed and eager to shag. He had Mina pinned against the concrete wall.

  “I let you use my phone.” You used my phone to surf the Net,” he said, legs wobbly.

  “True,” Mina said.

  “You said you were calling a friend,” he burbled.

  “No, you opened the browser on your phone for me,” Mina said. “I asked if your phone made a Hot Spot connection… Remember?”

  The man wobbled side to side. He hiked his pants up, his breath foul. Then he frowned. “You— you didn’t even tell me your name,” he pouted.

  “Leigh ‘Mina’ Marley, but its ‘Wilhemina’ to you,” Mina said.

  The man thought about it best he could. “Aww, yeah… That’s right..,” he agreed. “Listen. Why don’t you give me a little something-something, and I’ll let you use all the phone you want. What do you say to that,” the inebriated yuppie warbled.

  “Or I could just kill you,” Mina said.

  The man laughed, then hit the ground.

  ***

  The rain sluiced from trickle to downpour. She had to sidestep more than a wake of puddles or two to find a place to lie. She finally found a coffee house a block away from the park. She ducked her head under the sign advertising Internet service and hurried inside. Cold and uncomfortably sticky, she pried off the overcoat she’d borrowed from somebody who would no longer need it. She hunched in a booth and tried to block the memory of the man’s pallid face, the life drained from him.

  She was grateful when the proprietor of the coffee house set a cup and saucer down and topped it with a delicious smelling ground roast. She lifted a hand to stop him but the man poured the rich Brazilian liquid to the brim.

  “Sir—, I don’t—“ she started.

  The man cut her off. “At this hour of night, we serve our guests free,” the coffee shop owner said. He pointed to a sign over a novelty jukebox stating the same. Wilhemina smiled, weary. The coffee shop owner leaned forward.

  “Anything you want, it’s on the house,” he said.

  Hair stringy, clothes too big a fit, Wilhemina knew she must look a fright. She ran a hand through her hair and it tangled when it struck her ring.

  “Thank you,” Wilhemina said to the man.

  “I’ve been there,” he said with a wink.

  Wilhemina let the sorrow flood in. It washed over her and sank into an ache in her heart. She had set out to find the woman who had started the morbid chain of death and circumstance. The only way she could do was to hide under the radar and live deep undercover.

  The coffee shop owner sat a plate of steaming bacon, scrambled eggs, and toast, topped off with another round of dark brew. Wilhemina looked up at him again, thankful. The man floored her with the sweetest smile.

  Like another man she’d met had…

  ***

  He was close. Damn close.

  Nate had trailed the data down to Chicago. There was no question the body that struck into the ravine was Leigh Marley. After Wilhemina had confided in him she had a past, he had understood the sadness that sometimes flickered behind her eyes. She always smiled — God, he loved her for that — but her eyes were more cornflower than just blue. A blue he wanted to fall into for the rest of his life.

  She had told him she worked as an assistant to an investigator in Philadelphia. Her prowess with paperwork and undeniable athleticism won her assignments no one else could close. Before the two of them
met she had helped a girl escape an abusive relationship. The girl matriculated at the prominent university and Wilhemina was sure she had secured the girl’s chance to live her life anew.

  Wilhemina didn’t establish a new identity for her. That much was clear. The records from three precincts and stations across three counties pulled up zip with any noticeable changes in Leigh Marley’s routine. His fed contact confirmed the same. Except when she dropped enrollment and about the same frame of time ‘Leigh’ had begun making purchases and renting a small motel room not far from Chicago. Nate realized Wilhemina was Leigh.

  Except Leigh Mina Marley was now six feet under, and Nate didn’t give a crap load what the theorists said about Quarks. In his world, no two objects could occupy the same space, and he didn’t give a screw about parallel dimensions. Someone had taken care of Leigh and anyone she was connected to after being helped by Wilhemina.

  Nate pulled around to a garage a block from the coffee house. He’d called in his badge at the precinct before leaving for Chicago. If he was right, Wilhemina wasn’t Mina, which meant she was in for the heroic fight of her life.

  There was so much he wanted to tell her, share with her. And they had a date to keep he wasn’t about to let her get out from under…

  ***

  “Take it, take it all,” the coffee house owner said.

  He stared down the barrel of a gun and glanced at Wilhemina.

  “I don’t need your frickin’ money. Don’t look this way. I told you!” the attacker whined.

  The man looked down at the gun.

  “Much better,” she said. “You,” she nodded to Wilhemina. “Get up.”

  Wilhemina looked at the coffee house owner. They would have made great old acquaintances any another time. They shared a glance.

  “I said, get up!” the woman screamed.

  Wilhemina tried to hit the send button at the PC at the Internet station. The woman spun her around. “Out,” she said.

  Wilhemina nodded at the shop owner and blinked two times. The man saw her point two fingers at the computer. The man looked back at Wilhemina and blinked twice. Good, Wilhemina thought. He got the message.

  The woman shoved her outside into the pelting rain. It was icy but Wilhemina saw it as a sign, a comfort of a kind that said everything would be all right. She hadn’t eaten for days except for the kindness of the coffee shop proprietor and everything she had done to protect Leigh Marley, Oren Victor and the people in Leigh’s trajectory looked like it had all been done for nothing. She scoffed. Fine P.I. Indeed. She’d never make in the field, she realized.

  “What are you snickering at?” the woman said. Her gun was trained on Wilhemina. Funny how everyone she seemed to come into contact with had a troubled past or knew how to wield a firearm, she thought.

  The woman pushed Wilhemina taking her to the park. She shoved Wilhemina under the bridge. The rain made seeing anything except what was right in front either of them hopeless. The angry woman aimed at Wilhemina’s throat.

  “So what..? No final request?” Wilhemina managed over the clacks of rain.

  “Greener pastures,” the female officer from the eatery in Philly sneered.

  ***

  The coffee house owner’s expression drummed fear in Nate’s heart. He tore into the shop asking for information and the man took him to the PC. He gave the description of two women to Nate and tapped the space bar on the computer keyboard. Nate read the sentence on a text file left on the desktop background…

  “I’m sorry. It wasn’t me. - W.P.”

  The coffee house wrung his hands. “What’s it mean?” he said.

  Nate backpedaled to the front door. “Call the police. Give them this,” Nate said tossing his license to him.

  The man looked at the swinging door. “But what does it mean?” he yelled out.

  Nate ran through the rain, searching. His training didn’t disappoint. He made out the park and tore toward it at breakneck speed. He saw the bridge and two figures beneath and leapt a Bogart. He had one chance, more than the suspect would have when he was through.

  ***

  “Don’t look at me like that… with your sanctimonious air, Cover Girl. You think you’re highfalutin and special, don’t you?” the female cop said.

  Wilhemina had her eyes on the gun.

  “Don’t you?” the cop repeated.

  Wilhemina was still.

  “Answer me!” the cop said.

  “She can’t—“ Nate yelled. “She is a bit distracted,” he said.

  Nate’s gun was poised straight at her. “It’s over Luz,” he said.

  Officer Luz Gerald turned the gun into a standoff.

  “No... I kill her and then, I kill you!” Luz said.

  “Nate?” Wilhemina said. She could barely see through the darkness under the bridge and the pounding rain made hearing that much more difficult.

  “Shut up,” Luz instructed Wilhemina.

  “Wilhemina, you okay?” Nate called out.

  “Shut your hole!” Luz yelled. “This is how it’s going to go. Her first,” Luz nodded to Wilhemina. “You last,” she finished.

  “No! It’s me you want,” Nate yelled.

  “I did,” Officer Luz said. She turned her gun off Wilhemina then she closed in on Nate, slowly.

  “We can talk about it,” Nate said.

  “You kidding me? Talk?” “I spent an eternity being everything for you. The conversations, the meetings in secret… I just knew what we had was Paradise. But then you got on the down low. Didn’t you?

  “No, Luz,” Nate said.

  “Didn’t you! I should have seen it coming. But I see you now..,” Luz snapped.

  “Why?” Wilhemina shouted.

  “What, you haven’t figured it out? Investigator ‘Prince’,” Luz mocked. “I knew about you the minute Nate left,” she said.

  “What, you don’t think all us cops have resources?” she said watching Nate’s aim waver. “Yeah, I knew. I knew all about the sharpshooting… and the ‘boardwalk,’” Luz added.

  “It wasn’t long before I had a line on Miss Pretty here— Don’t you move!” she told Wilhemina. “One more step and you’ll be who I put down first.”

  “And you—“ Luz told Nate. “Your pompous, righteous, bull-friggin’ indignation about how you could only give your heart to the right woman…”

  Nate tried to work himself in-between Luz and Wilhemina. “I didn’t mean any of this to happen. That’s the truth,” Nate said.

  Luz laughed. It was shrill and devoid of any heart. “I set you up. Both of you! I tracked your cell calls,” Luz told Nate.

  “I had your friggin’ location zapped… and that ring?” Luz said to Wilhemina.

  “The ring he gave you,” Luz began. “I chose that. We had been looking at rings and then I learned he’d found one for you,” Luz told Wilhemina.

  “You didn’t know I found about that, huh? Did you! Luz screamed at Nate.

  “Luz, I am so sorry—” Nate began.

  “Bullshit!” “I loved you,” she said. “And you stomped it. You stomped us and me right into the ground.”

  “But I had a plan,” Luz added. “And I knew just how to get rid, of you,” she told Wilhemina.

  “By pretending you were me,” Wilhemina said.

  “Like you didn’t already? You frickin’ detectives. Always thinking you got the upper hand,” Luz said. “Duh! Yeah, I set you up. I tracked down Leigh Marley and that was easy. Finding out who you were trying to protect and safeguard after learning Marley was a politician’s whore and a snuff addict, that took a little more planning,” she beamed.

  “I started with Leigh, then a few others, after I made you when you copped the switch with your identities. That’s right,” Luz said, finger over the trigger.

  “I hacked you, dressed like you, became you and voilá — the hits looked like they were made by you,” Luz smiled. She looked at Nate. “Payback truly is a bitch.”

  “Did you get all
that?” Nate shouted at the top of his lungs.