by Alison Kent
Raleigh Slater choked back the crazed laughter eating at his throat. She wasn’t the first. There had been others. Women who’d driven to the brink of his twilight, headlights cutting through the fog that concealed his dead end. He wasn’t giving this one time to shift into reverse. Not until he’d fed her a taste of what she’d driven this far to find.
She’d never even know. She’d swear she’d been dreaming. That what she’d felt moving over her body while she slept had been nothing but the workings of her mind. Only Raleigh would know the reality of his possession. That what she’d thought she’d imagined, in truth, she had lived.
Sebastian Gallo saved the document and shut down his notebook computer. He’d had enough. Deadline or no deadline, he’d had enough. He needed a beer. He needed several. But he’d waited too long to go out.
The bars were closed for the night and now he’d have to put off until tomorrow what he needed to do today—to find a dark corner at Paddington’s On Main and watch Erin Thatcher pretend he didn’t make her sweat.
He needed to feel that edge, that cutting, biting awareness that he’d learned back when he was living on the streets and honed during his years in lockup. It was what kept him alive and kept him going. Fueled his high-performance artistry. Jump-started the creative bitch of a muse currently giving him hell.
A hell separate from her usual attempts at rewriting every word he wrote. No, this hell was harsh and demanding, a foot-stomping insistence that he set aside what she considered an unhealthy concentration on the macabre to write the book aching to break free from his heart. That’s when he had to remind her that he didn’t have a heart—the very reason he and Raleigh Slater got along so well.
Yep, he and Raleigh had more than a thing or two in common, but it was this latest obsession with a mysterious woman that was going to cause the both of them more than a man’s fair share of trouble. Raleigh’s problem was easily taken care of. Backspace. Delete. And his fictional world was set dead to rights.
The disruption to Sebastian’s well-ordered life required more than fancy finger work. He needed sleep but was afraid his mental gears were wound too tightly to shut down. The cigar hadn’t helped.
And the music, the blues, usually soothing in a twisted sort of way, had done nothing but speed up the beat of his heart, pumping blood into parts of his body that remained on edge no matter the intensity of his physical workouts. Or the long hot showers that followed.
He swore he’d heard her voice. After the music had stopped and before he’d put out the cigar and moved away from the window to reread the pages he’d written. The sound had crashed around him like lightning. White-hot electric jolts had nearly taken him out of his skin.
Now, minutes later, he wasn’t sure if what he’d heard had been all in his head, a sound from the city street below, or the cry of a woman in the throes of pure bliss.
Sebastian laughed under his breath, muttering a curse that had nothing to do with the woman living below him and everything to do with his obsession instead. He shucked off his sweater, scratched the ball of black wool over his chest before tossing it to the floor at the foot of his bed where it skidded up against the clothes he’d worn yesterday and the day before. One of these days he’d have to find time for laundry. And, he cringed, for the dishes in the kitchen sink.
His boots came next, the metal buckles hitting the hardwood floor with a sharp clatter. He released the button fly of his jeans and headed for the shower, stopping only to scratch Redrum behind the ears. The black cat lay curled in a ball of sleep and fur on top of the room’s highboy dresser.
At Sebastian’s touch, she stretched, yawned and returned to ignoring him which she did so well. He chuckled before leaning down and, in a voice husky and rough from rarely speaking to anyone other than his agent or the cat, purred into her ear.
“Yes, cat. You do your job well.” A job that entailed nothing more than reminding him of his invisibility, the condition once a hardship but now a valued commodity.
Redrum’s cold shoulder was easy to laugh off without causing Sebastian any grief. Or distracting his creative muse as Erin Thatcher had managed to do. It was all Sebastian’s fault that she affected him any way at all. His obsession had actually taken him to the mailroom where he’d discovered her name. She had no idea she’d picked up a stalker, though he, at least, did his stalking in his mind.
Raleigh Slater stalked women between the pages of the New York Times bestselling horror novels Sebastian wrote under the Ryder Falco pseudonym. But in Sebastian’s world, a solitary existence of his own making, an isolation nothing like the years he’d spent forcibly confined by the courts in juvenile hall, the only real stalking was done by Redrum.
The black cat did her damndest to sneak up on the pigeons that fluttered on and off the loft’s windowsill. Rats with wings, to Redrum’s way of seeing things. To Sebastian’s, too.
Reaching the bathroom enclosure—the dressing area and separate customdesigned shower space nearly half the size of his bedroom—he shucked off his jeans and boxer briefs, scratching all the body parts needing scratching before stepping beneath the blistering spray that rained down from three separate shower heads on three separate walls.
For the past sixteen years, since his release at age eighteen from the lockup where he’d spent his formative years, Sebastian had considered his showers as much about relaxation and clearing his mind as about cleaning his body. When he’d finally convinced himself he could deal with permanence, he’d made sure to allow the money and the room for the bathroom he needed to accomplish those goals.
For too many years he’d been allowed but a fifteen-minute shower four times a week, a shower shared with other boys considered a threat to society or to self. At least one out of each week’s four soap-and-self-defense sessions resulted in a fight, a near riot…or worse. Sebastian had managed to escape unscathed and undetected.
Because the day he’d been taken from the street where he’d lived alone since the scrappy age of eleven, he’d made a promise to himself, a promise that he would never look to another human being for security or sustenance or support.
He chuckled to himself, wondering if he’d really been eleven at the time he’d been picked up by social services. Or if he’d been closer to twelve. He’d changed his age with the changes to his body, finally deciding on sixteen when his voice dropped and his balls dropped and the hair on his face began to grow as thick as that in his crotch.
He hadn’t given a damn what age the courts declared him. He’d made up his own mind—relying on remembered images of candles and crushed cupcakes and little toy trucks—and counted forward.
Even now he had no idea how old he really was. All those ages and dates were as much a part of his imagination as Raleigh Slater.
Or as much as the fictional fantasies he wove of Erin Thatcher.
Sebastian reached for the bar of soap and ran it over his chest and armpits, working up a lather before stepping back beneath the spray to rinse. He kept his eyes closed, the hazy fog so thick he couldn’t see much of anything. He could barely even breathe. His skin burned from the stinging heat of the water. And from the mental picture of Erin. A picture of her sharing the heat and the steam. A steam that intensified as blood pulsed through his veins.
He stepped out from under the shower, moved to the back of the spacious enclosure and reached again for the soap. Suds slid down his slick skin, through the hair growing low on his abdomen into the thatch cushioning his sex. His hand was warm and soapy when he took his dick in his hand. He leaned his forehead on the forearm he’d braced on the wall and spread his legs.
Water pummeled his back and his buttocks as he began to stroke away the tension he’d had building for days. Eyes screwed up tight, he imagined Erin on her knees, her short sleek auburn hair slicked back, her big silver-bright eyes looking up into his, her mouth forming the perfect O, her lips plump and pink and wrapped around him.
He wanted to get her on her knees. He wanted to
see the cherry ripe tips of her breasts pucker and pout. He wanted to know how much of her body she shaved and how her baby bare skin would taste when he sucked her into his mouth.
Sebastian threw back his head and silently roared, straining beneath the release that grabbed hard between his legs and jerked his lower body forward. He thrust hard, thrust repeatedly, spilling himself into the soap-scented steam when he wanted more than anything to spill himself into the welcome warmth of Erin Thatcher’s body.
2
“I’M GOING TO HAVE TO clone myself or forget ever getting the rest of this party planned.”
Erin shoved empty mugs and pitchers into a tub beneath Paddington’s bar, a full circle in the center of the high-ceilinged room with interior walls of exposed red brick. Booths ran along both the left and the right, and clusters of tables sat scattered across a high-gloss concrete floor that reflected track lighting from overhead beams.
Frustrated, she shoved the heavy glassware a little too hard and ended up splashing beer the length of one pant leg. “Great. Just great.” Count to ten, Erin. Count to ten. “And, of course, I didn’t get to pick up my dry cleaning and don’t have a change of clothes in the office.”
Cali Tippen, the wine and tobacco bar’s number one waitress and Erin’s number one friend, dumped her empties into the trash and spun her serving tray onto the bar before offering Erin a commiserating pat on the back along with a clean rag. “Eau de Budweiser, huh? I doubt anyone will notice it over the Parfum Merlot or the smoky essence of Le Cigare Cubain. ”
“Tell me about it. The smoke in this place? Even with the phenomenal exhaust system I installed during the remodeling, I go home reeking.” Erin grimaced. “And I’m still looking for a daily shampoo I can use daily.”
She sighed. She pouted. Neither did her any more good than did the shampoos. She was never going to get over missing Rory. His matter-of-factness. His ribald humor. His huge meaty hands that crushed despair and meted out comfort with the same soothing touch.
A touch Erin longed to feel again. Especially on eat-a-worm days like today when every time she turned around she expected to see him looking over her shoulder, reassuring her that he was happy with the way she was running his place.
His place. Not hers.
She shook off a rush of melancholy. Chin-length strands of hair brushed the skin beneath her ear, a scratchy irritating tickle that renewed her aggravation. “All those specialty hair products and I have nothing to show for the expense but burnt straw.”
Cali reached out and tugged on one of Erin’s auburn locks. “Your hair is as soft and gorgeous as always. And if you need a change of clothes, I have an extra pair of work pants hanging in the car.”
Erin took the rag Cali still held and did what she could to mop up the mess that had soaked into her pant leg from ankle to knee. “I’d take you up on the offer, except for one obvious problem.”
Cali paused, frowned, glanced from her ankles to Erin’s, from Erin’s waist back to her own. “Hmm. Why do I always forget about your long legs?”
“Yes. Erin Thatcher. Redheaded stick figure. I know. I know,” Erin groused, tossing the useless rag in the bin when what she really wanted to do was pull out her dry hair by the roots.
Except then she’d be forced to buy a wig and she couldn’t afford to buy herself a beer. Not with this party looming and getting more complicated and expensive every time she turned around.
Enough already!
Her bitchy mood was getting on her own nerves; she couldn’t imagine why on earth Cali was still hanging around. Except that best friends did that sort of thing for one another. And right now Erin couldn’t have imagined having a better best friend. Or needing one more.
Looking Erin up and down, Cali grinned. “The red hair and the legs, I’ll give you. But stick figure? Not a chance. You’ve got two serious bumps going on upstairs.”
Erin smiled and returned the wave of a regular customer, an upscale professional type who’d settled onto one of the bar’s swivel-back stools. She moved to draw a draft beer. “I look like one of those long green bugs with bulging headlight eyeballs. At least you have proportions.”
“Right? Take two parts short legs, one part J-Lo butt, throw in a couple of perky Britney Spears knockers and there ya have it.” Cali handed Erin another frosted mug for one of the Rat Pack wanna-bes needing a refill. “Oh, did I forget to mention the extra fifteen pounds that this recipe so does not call for?”
“Puh-lease. You are a walking, talking recipe for s-s-s-sex,” Erin teasingly whispered into Cali’s ear before delivering the mug to the customer who’d joined his buddies for their daily, post-workday bull session and even now sat cutting the head of a cigar.
Impatiently twirling her tray around on the bar, Cali waited for Erin to get back before growling out a frustrated response. “Being a sex recipe isn’t doing me a bit of good seeing as I don’t have anyone to cook with.”
Her back to the far side of the bar, Erin turned her attention to the girlfriend who’d been her number one rock the past three years and now appeared to need a bit of shoring up herself.
With a surreptitious tilt of her head, she drew Cali’s attention to the man behind her sitting alone at the bar. “I’m not sure that sexy blond number back there wouldn’t jump at the chance to stir you up.”
Blue eyes as bright as the frustrated heart she wore on her sleeve, Cali peered furtively, hopefully beyond Erin’s shoulder and sighed. “He is dishy, isn’t he?”
And he was.
But Will Cooper was also the study partner Cali had been assigned at the beginning of the fall semester’s screenwriting class. That meant an automatic conflict of scholastics and pleasure. As obvious as was Cali’s interest in Will, she clearly had reservations about pursuing him outside the boundaries of brainstorming and critique.
Erin looked back at Will—who sat poring over a sheaf of handwritten notes, his head bent, gold oval-framed glasses perched on the end of his nose, the hand holding his yellow number two pencil rubbing back and forth over his spiky, sun-bleached hair—
then she turned her consideration to Cali.
“What
exactly
is going on between you and Will? Tell me again why you can’t have your yummy man cake and eat him, too?”
Cali rolled her eyes, then gave a little shrug, a little sigh, a little bit of a pout. “Oh, Erin. I like him so much. We have a total blast working together in class. And playing together after class. I don’t want to mess that up. Will is a really good friend and good friends don’t grow on trees.”
“Good friends can make for good lovers, you know.” Erin grimaced at the hollow-sounding words. Rather than offering the empathy intended, the sentiment came across as a weak effort at placating her friend’s misgivings.
Thank goodness Cali was sharp enough, not to mention knew Erin well enough, to get it anyway. “Well, duh. I wouldn’t want a lover that wasn’t a friend. But I wouldn’t want to lose Will as a friend because we didn’t work out together in bed.”
Friends
and
lovers.
Funny, but Erin hadn’t even thought about sharing anything but the joy of sex with her Man To Do. She hadn’t thought about introductions and small talk and changing her sheets. She definitely hadn’t thought about mornings-after, or face-to-face encounters with the man she wanted only for his body and what he made her body feel.
And that was fine. Absolutely fine. Nothing wrong with a completely physical, emotionally-free affair. She sure didn’t have the time or the energy for anything more.
Nose scrunched in thought, she shook her head. “I don’t know, Cali. I can’t see you and Will having a bit of trouble working things out in bed.”
Cali glanced toward the front door as one of the couples who regularly frequented Paddington’s walked through and slipped into their usual booth in the room’s darkest corner. She pulled two wineglasses from the rack overhead and picked out a perfect Pinot
Noir before sending Erin a pointed glance. “If you’re seeing me and Will in bed working at anything then you’re nothing but a voyeuristic pervert.”
Erin chuckled. “The very least of the kinky urges I’m fighting today.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Cali asked, focused on arranging the objects on her serving tray.
Lips pressed together, Erin frowned. It was best friend confession time. As much as she relied on Tess and Samantha for cyber support, a real life girlfriend had the advantage of being able to reach out and smack Erin back to straight thinking.
She took a deep breath and blurted out, “I’m planning to seduce a man.”
Unfazed, Cali patted her apron pocket and came up with the corkscrew she needed. “Well, all I have to say is that it’s about damn time.”
Leave it to Cali not to mince words, especially when it came to Erin’s dating drought of late. Of late? Who was she kidding? More like her dating drought of the last three years. One relationship disaster after another. Men resenting the time she put into Paddington’s. Or finding her unapologetically outspoken nature a turnoff.
