by E. A. James
It had been three months since she left her position working for Joshua McGuire. At first, adjusting to life without him was harder than she thought it would be. From time to time she still found herself instinctively looking down at her watch when 11:00pm got close. And in the mornings, she still woke up at 6:45, even though her alarm wasn’t set to go off until 8:00.
The apartment he put her up in was nice. It wasn’t as extravagantly elegant as his penthouse, but it was still much more than she could have ever dreamed of getting for herself. It was in a great neighborhood, and right down the street from that acting agency that Joshua hired to represent her. She didn’t expect him to do that for her. He didn’t even tell her it was him who did it. When she got the call, she was completely in shock. She could never afford to hire an agent, especially one as top-of-the-line as the person she was speaking to! But when they told her they got her information from a reliable and notable source, who believed in her so much he was footing the bill for their services, she put the pieces together.
“Closing night is on Friday,” she continued speaking to her mother. With the help of the agent, she was finally able to land her first officially paid acting job. Rehearsals had been long and intense, but she loved every minute of it. She had even made a few friends who were also performing in the play.
“Great! I can’t wait to see you both!” she said as she dropped the last of her items into the cardboard box in the center of the now empty bedroom. The acting role she got had paid so well that she was able to get her own place. It was smaller than where she was currently living, but it was going to be hers.
“Love you, too. Bye.” When she hung up the phone she stepped back to take in the moment. She had a sense of accomplishment. Everything in her life was going perfectly. Still, one thing was missing—Joshua. He was constantly on her mind. She worried about him. She just wanted to know if he was okay. She had considered calling him a few times, but her better judgment prevented her from actually going through with it.
She pushed the thoughts of him from her mind and continued to move from room to room, making sure that all of her things were packed up. When she reached the kitchen, the chime of the doorbell stopped her. She wasn’t expecting anyone. Confused, she walked over to the door and pulled it open.
What she saw made her heart leap into her throat. “Joshua!” she exclaimed as she stepped back quickly, stunned.
“Margaret,” he said formally. “Can I come in?”
“Of course!” she said, stepping to the side and motioning for him to enter. “Is everything okay?” she asked. She didn’t expect to see him ever again. Maybe he was here because something was wrong?
“No,” he said when they reached the family room. He took her hands in his and pulled her down onto the couch next to him. “Nothing is okay.”
“What’s wrong?” she asked, scared and worried.
“I was wrong to send you away, Margaret. I need you.”
“What?” She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Her heart began to beat faster.
“I haven’t been able to get you out of my head since the day you left. I feel hopeless, almost lost without you! I tried to force myself back into my old routine, but it didn’t work. The house feels so empty without you. I feel empty without you.”
His words slowly consumed her, making her feel light-headed. She wasn’t sure if she was really hearing what she thought she was hearing. Could this be a dream? “What are you saying?” she asked, not wanting to let herself get too carried away without being sure she understood what he meant.
“I want you to come live with me, and not as my caretaker. I want to start a life with you. I want to spend every minute of every day with you.” He looked at her intensely. She could sense that he was speaking with sincerity. It was in his eyes—he felt what he was saying down deep. “I love you, Margaret.”
Her emotions overtook her, and she felt her eyes burning with tears. “I think you can call me Maggie now,” she smiled at him as she reached out to throw her arms around his neck and pull her to him.
He laughed, reaching up and placing his hand on her cheek. “I love you, Maggie,” he whispered.
“I love you too, Joshua,” she said as she leaned in to kiss him. In the instant their lips met, she knew she would never have to say goodbye to him ever again. She knew that there was nothing else she needed in the entire world. There, in his arms, she was safe; she was happy. And she would be for the rest of her life.
Stolen by the Alien Dragon
CHAPTER ONE
I was slowly dying inside. As a rule, I preferred my family in low doses but with a family gathering my tolerance was particularly low. It wasn't that I didn't like them. They were nice people all in all; I just had the persistent feeling that they didn't like me.
That was fine. I didn't fit into their world, anyway. I wasn't skinny and successful and efficient like my cousins. I wasn't well-established and confident like my aunts and uncles. I was just me, Angie, the runt of the Bates family.
I worked as a copy editor for a firm that promised raises and promotions that never happened. I told myself - and my family - that I would rather have a long term job on my resume than several times of jumping around to find a job that wouldn't take advantage me. I told myself that this was just a stepping stone before my life really started. It was just a matter of time before I had bragging rights with my family. I just needed to lose weight, earn more money, be better at my life. Until then I wasn't really counted as part of the family.
And that suited me, because when it happened that I needed to leave them for whatever reason - like say sneaking out to see a boyfriend they wouldn't approve of, for instance - it wasn't hard to get away from them with some excuse.
"Have you lost weight?" Aunt Carla asked me when I stood at the table where I'd stationed myself next to the bowl of chips. We both knew I hadn't. It wasn't like I was obese or anything. Size twelve is not fat.
"Thank you for asking," I said and smiled. I couldn't say I was trying, either. The chips were a shouting testimony that I really wasn't.
"How's work going?" she asked with a smile that looked plastered on and fake.
"It's going really well. My boss is organizing--"
My phone rang, cutting the conversation short. Thank God, because I'd been making it up as I went along and I'd just been running out of things to say.
"Speak of the devil," I said and smiled before I turned my back.
"You ready to escape?" Mick's gravelly voice was music to my ears.
"You're a saint." In a loud voice, I said - "Can't it wait until Monday?... Okay... I understand." I hung up and turned around. They were all looking at me. I shrugged.
"Emergency at the office."
"A copy editing emergency?" My dad sounded skeptical. I shrugged. "I'm not going to know what it is until I get there."
I smiled, picked up my bag and hurried away. The moment I stepped out into the sun I felt like I could breathe again. I got into my car and started the engine, weaving my way out of the residential area.
Redwall, Virginia, was a small town located just West of Fredericksburg along the Potomac River. I took the main road out of town and pulled into a picnic spot that looked out over the river a couple miles outside of town. Mick was already there.
He wore faded jeans, a sleeveless t-shirt, and boots that rounded off the whole bad-ass look I loved so much. His sandy hair was windblown and messy in the hottest way and his eyes were the color of slate when he turned them on me.
He hopped off the picnic table he'd been sitting on and put his arms around me.
"I missed you, gorgeous."
He kissed me and I smiled. Everything faded away when I was with him. When I was in his arms I felt like a diva. I felt like a ten. When I was with him my hair was auburn not burnt red. My eyes were hazel and gold, not an indecisive color, and I was more than good enough.
"I missed you, too. God, you have no idea."
He g
ot back onto the picnic table and put his feet up on the bench. I did the same. Mick - short for Michael, I was guessing - Gibson was my knight in shining armor. He made me feel like a celebrity, someone who was worth his time and attention, even when I didn't feel like it myself.
I ironed invisible creases out of my black pants with my palm. I was aware of how close he was sitting to me, even though the table was more than big enough for the both of us.
"What was your day like?" I asked. We looked over the river. It was filled to the brim with the rain. May had the most days of rain in the year and the fields were green and abundant.
Mick shrugged. "It was relaxed. I waited here until the time you said to call you, and then I waited for you to get here. Sometimes it's good just to clear your head and think about the things that are important."
"And what's that?"
He looked at me I felt like I could fall and fall and fall and never reach the bottom of those eyes.
"You."
A thrill ran through me. "Me?"
He nodded and flashed me a half-cocked smile that made me melt into a puddle.
"You can't tell me you don't know you're important to me."
I shrugged. "I know you're a charmer."
He smiled again and shrugged back at me. I'd met him a while ago at a book fair, of all places. He'd stuck out like a sore thumb wearing a leather jacket and shoes that sounded heavy when he walked. I asked him if he was lost.
"I was until I saw you." His answer had been so corny and I'd fallen for him immediately.
"I don't know how you can spend so much time doing nothing at all," I said. I was the kind of person that needed to be busy all the time. If it was work or housework or hobbies or people, I needed to be stimulated or I lost my mind. But that was typical of the difference between me and Mick. He was calm and collected, confident in who he was, and I was frantic, trying to find something good enough to present to the world.
He shrugged a second time, a testament to his laid back attitude.
"You worry too much, babe."
He took my hand and kissed the back of it before he cradled it again his chest. The wind turned and I could smell him, something I would have labeled 'Dark Temptations'.
"Don't you have a family you spend time with?" I said.
"You know they don't live around here."
I nodded. He'd told me, but he'd never even gone away to visit them. Not that we'd been together that long, maybe he'd gone just before we'd met or something. Still, I would have liked to be introduced to his family. It was the next step in a relationship in my opinion.
I didn't doubt, though, that our relationship was serious. And in a way I was relieved he didn't want to introduce me to his family yet. If I met his family I might have had to get him to meet mine, and that would be a disaster. By some miracle, he saw something else, something better when he looked at me, but an hour with my family would be enough for them to change his mind about me completely.
Maybe it was a blessing in disguise that it was just the two of us for now. I sighed and leaned against Mick with my head on his shoulder. It was perfect like it had been made especially for me. His skin was hot on my cheek and his smell lingered in my nostrils so that all I breathed was him.
Mick moved his hand under my chin and tipped my head up. He looked into my eyes and then he closed the distance between us. His lips came down on mine and I was lost to this world. He traced my lower lip with his tongue and when I opened my mouth he swirled his tongue around mine until I was a blubbery mess at the tips of his fingers.
When he broke the kiss he looked at me and his eyes had gone lighter, his pupils dilated.
"Do you want to get out of here, babe?"
I nodded. I really did. He got in my car and I drove us to his cottage just outside town. He rented it from old Mr. Simpkins and it was the kind of place that suited him perfectly.
The door was barely closed when we were on each other again. His hand fumbled with the buttons of the ugly blouse I'd chosen for my family. I pushed his shirt over his stomach and traced his abs while he worked my pants down my legs. When I was naked in front of Mick he looked at me like I was a porn star.
His body was taut, muscle and lust. He only paused for a moment to kiss me again before his hands started exploring my body. He tugged at my nipples, sucked on them, traced my outline with his fingers before he found the V where my legs came together. I shuddered when his fingers pushed into my sex and I backed up on wobbly legs until I felt the bed behind my legs.
I lay back and my thighs fell open for him. He crawled over me and his eyes stayed on mine when he positioned himself between my legs and pushed into me. No matter how many times we did this I would never get used to his size and his strength and the way he made me feel delicate. I closed my eyes and got lost in the sensation. He was on me and inside of me and his mouth was in my neck, sucking and nibbling the skin while his body worked its magic and I edged closer and closer to the precipice.
When my orgasm started he was right there with me. It started at my core and burst through me with an explosion of pleasure. I cried out, curled around him and dug my nails into his shoulder. He hissed and then released inside of me.
Magic was the only word for it. I tried other ways to describe it sometimes and I never could. I felt him pulsating inside me, drawing my orgasm out until I wasn't sure which of the tangle of limbs were mine and which were his.
When the orgasm faded and left just me and him together he slipped out of me and rolled off, lying next to me. He breathed just as hard as I did. I turned my head and looked at him. He smiled.
"I can't ever get enough of you, you know that?" He smiled.
Were there times where I wondered what someone like him was doing with someone like me? Yes. Were there times where I wondered if he was just using another line? Yes. But then something like this happened and he looked so damn genuine when he told me what he felt for me that I couldn't help but believe him.
"You're incredible," I said. He pulled me closer to him so that I lay on his chest. I heard the beating of his heart and liked to think that it beat only for me.
CHAPTER TWO
Copy Editing sounds more fun than it is. I had to go through articles that people wrote and make sure their grammar and syntax was correct. There were only so many serial commas I could face before I felt like maybe it was getting a little redundant.
I didn't want to be in the office. The place was drab and stifling, with white walls that had no character besides cat posters to motivate people working there - which it didn't - and gray industrial carpets that detracted even more from what little personality the place had.
I didn't have friends in the office. They were all writers or editors or publishers and they were serious about what they did. 'Deadlines' was the buzz word of life at the office.
"Do you want to come out to a late lunch with the publishing team on the second floor?" Samantha popped her head over the partition between our two cubicles. I was working on a piece about cholesterol that would go live online in less than a week. I shook my head without looking up.
"I don't really fit in with that crowd."
Samantha snorted. "You say that about everyone."
I shrugged and looked up. "Can you blame me? It's not like it's a lie."
Samantha rolled her eyes and shook her head. "If you don't do anything about it, you're going to be lonely for the rest of your life."
I nodded and carried on working until she left me alone. I wasn't lonely, I had Mick. I fit in with him. That was all I needed. My whole life I hadn't belonged anywhere. I hadn't fit in with the kids at school - I'd weighed too much to fit in with the cool kids, I hadn't read enough to hang out with the nerds, I'd ended up with a group of kids that had self-esteem issues and bad acne and it had been a nightmare. I didn't fit in with my family and I didn't fit in here even though my physical appearance didn't matter here. I just didn't fit in.
I'd just started getting int
o the article again when Derrick from accounting came up. He liked me. God knew why. Maybe he agreed that we were both at the bottom of the food chain and that meant that by some unspoken agreement we were meant to procreate. I disagreed. I was overweight but I had principles.
"Do you want to come out for a drink or two with me?"
I looked up at him. "I'm so sorry, Derrick. If you were here twenty minutes earlier I might have been free, but Samantha asked me to join the publishing team for lunch."
Derrick looked let down. I looked at him without breaking eye-contact until he shrugged and left looking disappointed. It was true that Samantha had asked me. I just hadn't said yes. Derrick didn't need to know that. I watched him walk away, saved my work and took my bag. I walked out of the office. I had an alibi - sort of - and I was going to get out of there.