Matched for Me

by Knox, Abby

  I peek open one eye and look down. There’s blood spatter on me, but I don’t appear to be hurt. Chad is writhing on the floor. There are people in scary uniforms everywhere. Several officers are on top of Chad. People with vests labeled “Bomb Squad” are swarming the room.

  Two officers are dragging me out as I shout, “What’s happening?”

  But everything is happening so fast that I can’t see anything. I can only glance over my shoulder and look. And my eyes land on it. A bloody disembodied hand is on the floor and near it, an axe lodged into the carpeted floor.

  An axe that looks very familiar.

  22

  Fletcher

  Lars is pacing back and forth and growling about something when I find my LuLu. She’s sitting in back of an open ambulance with a blanket wrapped around her. Cops are everywhere. The captain in charge wants to talk to me, obviously.

  After all, I am the guy who sneaked into the kitchen, climbed up in the ceiling and took out the perpetrator with an axe. I have some explaining to do.

  But first I need to make sure LuLu is ok.

  “Babe,” I say, putting both arms around her and crushing her against me. “Are you hurt? Did he touch you? I’ll axe him again if he touched you.”

  She’s strangely calm and looks up at me. “I’m fine, Fletcher. You’ve got a little dirt on you.” She smiles and brushes some dust out of my hair.

  “Is he going to live?” she asks.

  I nod. “Not that he deserves to,” I spit out.

  “Yeah,” Lars mutters, still pacing outside the ambulance. “If you’d have let me bring my fire power like I was supposed to, Fletcher could have taken him out before he could even cause an emergency in the first place. But oh wait, that’s right. The two of you were off somewhere having a little fling, so it would have been all on me to take him out.”

  LuLu rolls her eyes at calls to her brother. “Doesn’t matter now! It’s all over! I’m fine! Everybody else is fine, Lars. Calm down.”

  I don’t know what comes over me all of a sudden, but something is bubbling up to the surface and it has to be addressed.

  I stand up, and my arms feel empty with LuLu isn’t in them, but I have to take care of business.

  “Listen, dumbass,” I say, hopping out of the ambulance and pointing a finger at Lars’s chest. This gets his attention and he stops pacing and steps to me. “Don’t you ever call this a fling. Ever. I love your sister. She’s mine, and I’m going to marry her. And if you ever disrespect her like that again, you and I are gonna have a problem.”

  Lars is chewing on the inside of his cheek, deciding what to say next. He grunts. “I give you a job, room and board and you thank me by taking my baby sister away from us?”

  “Fuck you. You and Wendy would be long gone or dead if it weren’t for me,” I say, hardly believing the words coming out of my mouth. “Also fuck you a second time, because LuLu’s not a baby. She’s a grown-ass woman with a successful business and a mind of her own, who hasn’t been living under the wings of the Anderson family for about three years now. So you can accept our decision to be together or not. Either way, it’s not up to you.”

  I turn away and slip myself next to my LuLu, who’s now sitting on the back bumper of the ambulance, watching us. She is as wide-eyed as she was on the morning I first snapped at Lars for making out in the kitchen. But there’s something else there. She’s also beaming at me.

  She’s as proud of me as I am of her.

  She loves me.

  Most importantly, she wants me.

  It doesn’t matter what anybody else thinks.

  I close my arms around her and kiss her so deeply, so earnestly that there can be no doubt I mean to shut out the rest of the world.

  It’s not about Lars anymore. I can still work for him if he wants me to. But my first priority has shifted.

  The incredible woman is kissing me back like she’s making up for lost time.

  “I love you, Fletcher,” she says.

  “You’d better, because I’m not letting you out of my sight again."

  Epilogue

  One year later, Valentine’s Day

  LuLu

  I’ve barely published my Tinder profile when I’ve already got one hit.

  And then I see a message from someone named, “Tad.”

  I sigh, smirk, roll my eyes. Surely he knows that name is totally unbelievable in this game, right?

  “Meet me at the pond.”

  I reply that I don’t meet strangers anywhere but in public.

  “But this is outside. It’s pretty public,” he replies.

  I smirk and type back. “My brother and his new bride are away for the weekend. The entire estate is empty except for me.”

  “Sounds dangerous. You really shouldn’t share information like this on a dating app.”

  “OK, Tad. I’ll meet you at the pond, but I’m bringing my axe,” I say.

  Moments later I’m there, wearing my cutest red dress with a hand-me-down fur jacket to protect against the cold.

  And there, waiting for me with a rowboat filled with teddy bears, pillows, boxes of chocolates, candies, and about a dozen wrapped red boxes, is the man in the ubiquitous black turtleneck, standing on the shore with the oars.

  I approach him. “Hi, you must be Tad. I’m Shirley.”

  Fletcher cocks his head at me. “Shirley? Really?”

  I shrug. “First name that popped into my head. My head is weird. And speaking of weird. It’s pretty strange to fill up a boat full of presents for someone on a first date.”

  “It’s pretty weird that we’re doing the dating profile just for the hell of it,” he says.

  “It is, but I like to see you get angry and bossy,” I say coyly.

  He asks, “What would I be angry about?”

  I pull up my Tinder profile message box and there are half a dozen messages. I read, “Hey, aren’t you that matchmaking author chick? You are super hot. Wanna hook up?”

  “The fuck!” Fletcher says, snatching my phone away and scrolling through the messages himself.

  He reads another one aloud. “‘You have beautiful lips. I’d like to watch them go down’… Oh that guy is gonna die today,” Fletcher growls. And then another, “‘You have nice eyes. I bet you have nice tits under that sweater.’ Fuck you, asshole.”

  Fletcher’s chest is rising and falling with building rage, and while I watch this play out, my pussy is delighted. This is getting me super hot. And super soaked.

  And then he reads, “‘Want a dick pick? I got a big one for ya,’”

  He roars and throws my phone out onto the lawn, grabs me over his shoulder, steps into the boat and pushes off.

  He is cussing all the way as he paddles over toward the tiny island where the old marble gazebo is. He scoops me up again over his shoulder and hops out of the boat without mooring it. I watch it float away.

  “Wait, I want chocolate…” I say weakly as I watch my boat full of Valentine candy float away.

  He roughly sets me down on something soft. I brush my hair out of my eyes and I see that he’s outfitted the shabby old ruin with a mattress, comforters, pillows, candles, the works.

  To the average girl, all of this preparation would be sullied by the sullen man in front of her.

  But not me.

  The angrier and stormier and jealous Fletcher gets, the more I draw him out, the more it turns me on.

  And he knows it.

  “Better not light the candles, you’re so mad you might start the place on fire,” I purr.

  “Light the fucking candles, LuLu,” he growls, handing me the lighter.

  So I stand up and do exactly as he asks me to.

  The candle sticks are all different heights. Some I have to reach up to light, others I have to bend over. When I bend down to light one, I look back at Fletcher, who’s already unzipped and pulling out his cock.

  “You still look so mad, baby. What’s wrong?”

  He steps forward a
nd shoves my dress up over my back and finds that I’m not wearing any panties. He grunts and pushes his hard cock right into my soft, wet opening.

  This first year of marriage since our whirlwind wedding (after helping Wendy and Lars with theirs) has been an exciting time of figuring this man out, playing along with his possessive fantasies, letting him take care of me.

  “Holy shit, you’re still so fucking tight,” he says.

  “All for you, my love.”

  “And wet. You like the attention of those other men, don’t you?” he says, angrily thrusting into me.

  “No, I just like the way it makes you want me more,” I say, clamping down hard on his shaft as he strokes out.

  He growls and pulls out briefly to spin me around so we’re now facing each other.

  “You have no idea what I’m capable of. I could fucking kill someone for even thinking of you in that way.” He thrusts hard enough we’re in danger of coming right off the mattress now.

  “They are nothing to me. It’s only always been you.” When I think of how serious he is about keeping me safe, I’ve never been so certain of anything.

  I grasp his shaft so tightly with my inner walls that he roars as he thrusts into me again. It’s so strong we knock over one of the candles. Instantly the draping fabrics catch fire and I scream.

  “Hang on, baby,” he mutters.

  While still inside me, he rips off my dress and my hand-me-down fur coat. He calmly sets the coat down and with one hand, rips down the fabrics and uses the dress to tamp out the flames.

  “What the fuck was that, Fletcher?” I shout, now totally naked and freezing.

  But the truth is, I’m not even mad. Anybody who can fuck me senseless and put out a fire at the same time doesn’t need to explain himself to me for anything.

  “You make me insane, LuLu,” he breathes. He warms one breast with his mouth and the other with his hand.

  His other hand is slowly swirling around my clit as his maniacal thrusts have calmed down a bit.

  “Anybody else thinking about you, looking at you, trying to touch you makes me ready to lose my shit. I won’t have it.”

  His cock inside me is starting to jet his sweet cum and it fills me with warmth.

  “Just don’t kill anybody. Take it out on me. Fuck me until I can’t walk, baby.”

  “Fuckin’ A,” he cries, and he’s fully coming in long, delicious pulses, combining his essence with my juices.

  His mouth on me, his hands, his beautiful, dark, capable soul has me so deeply ensnared I can’t help but join him with a whirlwind of orgasms. My screams echo across the pond.

  Moments later, Fletcher is spooning up behind me, his cock resting between my ass cheeks.

  I smile. “You know, lying this way is only going to give you another boner in a minute.”

  He laughs and nips at my bare shoulder under a pile of blankets.

  “You know, that’s fine with me if you think you can take another round.”

  “I can take all of you, all day long,” I say.

  “That’s good,” he growls, running his hand up my belly to grasp one breast. “Because the plan is to get you pregnant.”

  “That’s a relief, because I stopped taking the pill last week,” I say, cutting my eyes back at him.

  “You didn’t tell me,” he says.

  “Nope.”

  His hand slides down to the fuzz between my legs. “Naughty girl needs a consequence.”

  “Maybe, but I really want some chocolate. Too bad you let the boat get away.”

  Suddenly, he hops up. “No worries,’ he says.

  Bare-ass naked, my Fletcher dives into the freezing cold pond, swims to the boat that’s floated about 50 feet away, and pulls it back to the shore of the tiny island.

  Soaking wet, he grabs a box of artisan chocolate hazelnut truffles and gives it to me.

  I sit up, holding the blankets up over my shivering skin and take the box, my mouth slack in amazement.

  “You just jumped in the cold water for me, just for some chocolate?”

  He smiles and says nothing but helps me open the box. “Eat your chocolate, baby.”

  “Want some?” I say, holding out the box. “These are really, really good.”

  He lifts up the blankets and finds my bare legs. “Nah, I’m good. I’ve got a snack waiting for me down here.”

  I gasp, and then as I’ve learned to do with Fletcher, I go with it.

  The chocolate in my mouth, and a gorgeous, wet, powerful man between my legs, the icy cold water dripping from his hair onto my tummy and my thighs and my pussy, his warm tongue and lips on my folds. There really is nobody more perfectly matched for me.

  Best. Valentine’s. Ever.

  THE END

  Coming soon…

  An excerpt from Naughty Irish Heart

  (Part of a special four-author Saint Patrick’s Day bundle with Tessa Elaine, Dee Ellis and V Theia!)

  Emmett O’Leary was arguing with his friend and co-owner of the bar when she walked in.

  Suddenly, the disagreement over whether it was time to replace the pool tables with foosball became a lot less important.

  She was a young, innocent thing. Maybe 19 or 20. Some might argue, too young for me.

  An officer of the state alcohol license board would say, probably too young to even be in my bar.

  She’s got flame red hair and a winter beret that looks like she made it herself. She’s also wearing a hand knit poncho over a tight teal sweater, and none of it is doing a very good job of camoflauging a set of large breasts.

  Yeah, I glanced at ‘em. I’m a breast man, and those particular ones are calling to me.

  Her skinny jeans are even tighter than her sweater, and it’s giving her a cute little muffin top.

  I am full on staring now and I don’t care.

  Her pink rubber rain boots with dragons all over them, even though it’s not raining outside, make me want to laugh, but not in a mean way. A hippie-style patchwork backpack tell me she’s a student. And in the wrong neighborhood if she’s looking for a collegiate kind of bar.

  Foot traffic is light this afternoon, and the two female servers are wasting time at the bar, giggling and trying out some Instagram filters. Or Snapchat. With me at age 37 and working two jobs, who can keep up or possibly give a fuck about filters?

  I may have worked through a lot of my anger issues over the years, but I will never not hate filters. But then, who am I kidding? I detest social media in general.

  Yeah, I guess I’ll always be a curdmudgeon.

  One of the servers, Becky, glances up at the redhead in our midst and elbows the other server, Becca. Becca stifles a laugh and says, “Oh honey, no. Incorrect.”

  Becky mutters. “She looks like a fat Punky Brewster.”

  I clear my throat loudly behind them. They twirl around in sync and look at me with the sullen expression of the wicked stepsisters.

  “What have I told you two about your opinions of the customers?”

  They look at each other and back at me. Together, they shrug and say, “Nothing.”

  “And that’s exactly how much your opinion matters on anyone’s looks. Go find something useful to do or go home.”

  They roll their eyes and me and storm off in a huff. I know my partner hired them to attract a certain kind of clientele — what that is, I'll never know — but I have a good mind to fire them the next time I see them dicking around when they should be working.

  Not to mention, I find my blood pressure rising at the idea of anyone making fun of the red-haired angel who’s walking toward me right now.

  She might be the cutest thing in kooky rainboots I’ve ever seen. She’s not wearing much makeup, and she’s sporting some sweet, pouty pink lips and a cute button nose. She’s got nice, thick thighs that I can’t stop staring at. Honestly, I don’t know what part of her I want to stare at the most. I like it all.

  She approaches me like she’s on a mission, and not so much
in need of a drink.

  “Are you the owner of this bar? The famous O’Learys Lantern? My name is Iona Kelly and I’m a student in the graduate program just up the road from here…”

  She gives her spiel, but I hear very little of it because the only thing ringing in my ears right now is her name.

  Iona Kelly.

  What. The. Fuck.

  I haven’t heard that name in 15 years.

  Not since she and her god awful family moved away.

  Not since I took ownership of the house because some crackpot old lady died and decided to leave it to me because of some generations-old grudge that I can’t begin to understand.

  Studying her face, I can see she hasn’t placed me yet. Surely, she remembers. But would she remember a hermit like me from when she was just — what, five? Six?

  I know I would. But I’m different. My parents died when I was 17, and I’ve spent a lot of time committing everything about them to memory.

  I allow her to shake my hand and it’s small and soft inside of mine. For the first time ever since my parents died, I want to commit another human touch to my memory.

  “I am,” I say. “Direct descendent of the famous O’Learys of the Great Chicago Fire. Got the remnants of the lantern that caused it all, right here.”

  I gesture to a huge glass case behond the bar containing a hunk of rusted metal and singed glass.

  She beams and me. “I have some good news for you!”

  Now I’m confused. “What’s that?”

  She goes on to tell me what she may think is good news, but it’s actually the worst possible thing anyone could think to say in a place like this.

  In this bar, maybe the most famous neighborhood bar boasting one of the most important local historical artifacts, she is loudly and proudly dismantling the entire mystique.

  And I and my partner, Bud, are simply standing there with our mouths open, hoping to god none of the other bar patrons are hearing this.