“Achoo, achoo, achoo.” The sneezes erupted in loud succession, a blaring announcement to anyone in proximity that she was here in the shadowy dark of the stacks.
Her nose dripped. With her hands caught firmly behind her back, she couldn’t wipe away the snot. She tried to sniff it back but only sneezed again. Her eyes watered—from the dust she would say if Simon asked.
He didn’t ask. Aside from a brusque, “bless you,” he seemed oblivious to her drippy distress. He twisted and undulated inside her. Undoubtedly, such moves had turned plenty of women before her into begging pleasure-seekers. Maybe none of them had cared if his thoughts focused on someone else, so long as he tended to them.
Melanie cared. She sniffled some more and fought to hold back the rising tide of tears. “Simon, I need…”
“Yes, that’s right,” he said gruffly. “Tell me what you need.” His fingers pinched her through her blouse, and she involuntary gasped again, inhaling another dose of dust.
“I need…”
“Beg me for it,” he said as she sneezed again. “Tell me how much you want me to give it to you.”
Their game had lost its delight. She only wanted to wipe her nose, reclaim her dignity, and pretend none of this had ever happened.
“I need a tissue!”
“What?” He pulled away from her.
“A tissue. I need a tissue,” she said.
He spun her around. She sneezed again and spewed droplets in his direction.
“Oh.” He rubbed his hand over his face and shook the lingering wetness from his fingers. Obviously, this wasn’t the kind of request he had anticipated.
“I’m allergic to dust,” she said. And you called me Josie. Tears leaked down her cheeks. “You need to untie me.”
He frowned as if debating how to handle this unexpected mess.
At that moment, she heard the faint wheeze of the elevator doors opening. “You really think we’ll find them down here together?” a woman said. Melanie couldn’t place the woman’s voice, but it sounded familiar.
“Please, Simon. Someone’s coming,” she begged.
Instead of untying her hands, he yanked up his boxers and pants. “Stay calm. It’ll be okay.”
“I have it on good authority. There are certain places he likes for his liaisons. And certain things he likes to do,” a familiar male voice answered. Her colleague, Kevin.
“Like what?” the woman asked. When Kevin didn’t answer, she said, “Should I get my camera ready?”
The footsteps advanced quickly in their direction. Her heart started to pound. She pressed her legs together to keep her panties from sliding below the hem of her skirt.
“Shh,” Simon urged. His teeth flashed again in the dark, another smile. The devil was actually enjoying this, the risk of being caught. Maybe he even hoped he would be. After all, he was now fully clothed, while she was the one undone and bound, face wet and sticky. Quite a picture that would make.
“Please,” she begged, turning her hands to him. There was no thrill in this adventure for her, not anymore.
“Don’t let them catch you. Run!” Violet’s voice urged from the shadows.
Melanie didn’t know whether Simon would have untied her if she’d given him another second. She was no longer willing to trust him and take the risk.
“Run,” Violet warned again.
Hands still tied behind her, she dashed awkwardly down the row as her panties slipped and tangled at her knees. She ran away from the voices, away from Simon. She didn’t spare a glance back over her shoulder for him.
Her tears flowed fast and free. Running along the opposite wall of the basement from where she’d heard the voices, she doubled back to the elevator. She jabbed the button with her elbow.
As the doors opened, Violet pushed her inside. She took a shuddering breath, not quite of relief, as the doors slid closed. The elevator began to rise, and Violet hit the stop button.
“I should let you get to the main floor like this,” her twin said. “What do you think people will say when you stumble out of the elevator looking like a sex club escapee? How will you talk yourself out of this scrape, Miss Goodie-Two-Shoes?”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“Me? Why would I want that? I tried to warn you.” Violet threw her hands in the air in an exaggerated gesture of exasperation.
Melanie started to cry in earnest. She had made a mess of everything, and now her years of hard work were going to be nothing, to mean nothing.
“Stop it,” Violet ordered. “Don’t be such a victim.” Violet tugged on the belt and untied here. “Here.” Violet pressed the belt into her hands. “Pull yourself together. You weren’t caught and you’re going to walk out of here, head held high, as if nothing happened.”
She nodded mutely. With trembling fingers, she pulled up her panties, reclasped her bra, and buttoned her blouse. She smoothed her hair but her ponytail was gone, and so was her sweater. She looked more like her twin than she cared to admit, the difference between them less prominent, and also less favorable than it had been only a few hours ago, when she’d been the one with a real career and a clear direction, when she’d been the sensible one and not the slutty one.
“He called me Josie,” she said.
Violet snorted. “What did you expect? Hearts and flowers? Don’t tell me you were pretending he loved you while you played your little bondage game.” Violet sighed heavily. “You did, didn’t you? I can see it in your face. Make sure you learn this lesson, and learn it well. This wasn’t about you or even Josie. It was all about him. About him thumbing his nose at the rules and conventions with a hot, young thing. He was probably hoping to get caught, just to test his own invincibility.”
The words rang true, and she admitted to herself that Violet had recently come through with more than one accurate and keen insight into her life, no matter how unwelcome. Her face heated with shame. The sympathy in Violet’s eyes only deepened the painful sensation.
She had been wrong about Fillmore. Wrong about Simon. Wrong about herself. Was she wrong about Violet, too? Was Violet the better twin?
She fought the temptation to give in to tears, not for Simon, but for her pitiful self.
“Stop,” Violet urged, as if reading her thoughts.
Melanie bit her lip and nodded. She swiped away her tears one last time and then hit the button to start the elevator again. She was going to take Violet’s advice and walk through the library lobby as if nothing untoward had happened; business as usual.
For a few minutes, she had been undone and broken. She didn’t have to stay that way. No one had to know.
When the elevator doors slid open, she marched, spine straight, toward the exit, where the guards checked bags for stolen books. She glanced behind her back, but Violet, as usual, had disappeared.
Kevin burst from the stairwell and barreled into her. “Aha!” he cried.
She shrugged off his touch. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Where’s Simon?” he demanded.
“How would I know?” she snapped.
Kevin scanned her as if searching with a magnifying glass for clues about her activities. She resisted the temptation to check her wrists for marks or to tug on her sleeves to cover them. No way would she reveal to Kevin that she and Simon had gotten kinky in the stacks or that he had almost caught them.
It never happened.
“You’ve seen him. Haven’t you?” An accusation, not a question.
“Actually, Kevin, I haven’t,” she lied.
“Then what are you doing here?”
“What do you think?” The snap in her voice surprised her. She never snapped at anyone. She prided herself on being pleasant.
“You look like you’ve been crying,” he observed.
“Because I was. Happy?” No use denying it. She expected her eyes were red and puffy. What she didn’t expect was how much she sounded like her combative twin.
She softened her tone. “I d
on’t want you to tell anyone,” she confided, “but I went into the stacks to be alone. Fillmore and I just broke up, and it’s been really hard on me.”
Maybe leaving Fillmore had been a huge mistake. For all his faults—and she could now see that there were many, not least of all his childish, vindictive streak that had made him try to shame her in front of her colleagues after she’d moved out—at least he had grounded her. She hadn’t strayed into wildness, not once the whole year they were together. With him, she had settled comfortably into an appealing persona—the sweet, pleasingly dull and dorkily eccentric college professor.
That woman wasn’t plagued by forbidden fantasies about her student or her boss, and she certainly would never lower herself to act on them.
But you weren’t completely happy.
She wasn’t happy now either. She didn’t have to fake the tears, fresh and eager to breach the dam of self-possession.
Kevin shifted uncomfortably and then opened his skinny arms to her. She caught the remorseful furrow of his brow just before he embraced her.
“I’m sorry.” He patted her awkwardly on the shoulder.
She wasn’t sure whether he was apologizing for suspecting her of being Simon’s flavor of the month or for her breakup.
She pulled away and wiped her face yet again. “Sorry,” she said. “I don’t want to be like this. Especially not here.” She glanced around, hoping no one else saw her little scene. “I think I might head home early.”
“That might be a good idea,” Kevin said.
She brushed past him, barely daring to take a breath. She was going to make a clean escape. She was going to get a free pass on her indiscretions, and then she was going to take great care not to repeat them. She almost felt giddy at this unexpected reprieve. She wanted to run out the door and then skip across the quad, but she kept her steps measured and dignified.
“Um, Melanie,” Kevin called from behind her. His voice was dangerously cold as he said, “You might want to fix your skirt.”
She felt behind her. Her skirt was tucked into her panties. How mortifying!
She couldn’t bear to turn around and face him. He’d just found the proof he’d expected. She tugged her skirt free and scurried toward the exit, but she couldn’t outrun this latest disaster.
Kevin easily caught up with her. He grabbed her wrist and stared at the belt in her hand. “This is Simon’s. Isn’t it?”
She’d been caught. She wasn’t clever enough, despite all of the letters after her name, to talk herself out of this predicament. She clamped her lips shut.
She’d ruined everything for a few sexy moments with Simon, who wanted Josie instead.
“Jesus,” Kevin swore. She couldn’t imagine what he saw in her face, but he draped his arm protectively over her shoulders and led her toward the exit. He waited until they were past security to speak again. “What did he do to you? Did he force you?”
“Please, don’t ask me any questions,” she said. “I can’t talk about this. I won’t.”
“It’s harassment,” Kevin said. “He’s the Chair.”
She remained silent.
“You’re not the first,” he said. “He’s predictable. He plays these games everywhere he goes, and sometimes it doesn’t end well for his…” Kevin paused as he searched for the word. His choice was telling. “For his victims.”
Bad enough she had abandoned her own senses, but to do it and be a walking cliché? Her tightly coiled shame was like a rock in her stomach. She felt sick.
“I don’t blame you,” Kevin said quickly, as if to reassure her. “I know you’re not like this.”
He was wrong, of course. She was exactly like this. Simon hadn’t threatened or coerced her. She’d been on board with every naughty, kinky thing he’d wanted to do…until he’d accidentally called her “Josie”. If not for that misstep, she might have enjoyed the whole thing, might even have trusted him enough to stay by his side and share the risk of discovery.
“He’s chased a lot of his younger, female associates,” Kevin said.
“How do you know?” she couldn’t help asking. She’d heard the rumors, of course. They all had. But people, especially the old brass in her department, were jealous of Simon, who had been recruited specifically to rebuild a floundering department. Such malicious gossip couldn’t exactly be trusted.
“His wife told me,” Kevin said. “She would know. That’s how they fell in love. Their affair broke up his previous marriage. And she’s worried it’s happening again.”
So maybe Simon had told her the truth about his marriage after all. Maybe he was getting a divorce now, too, spurring his wife to try to find out who was getting between them and perhaps put an end to the affair.
The knowledge would have cheered her earlier, would have made her even more secure in her decision to trust him. She might even have talked herself into a grand romance, convinced herself that his games were acts of love.
Now, it made no difference. He might be free, but he didn’t want Melanie.
“I need to be alone right now,” she said, the first true thing she’d told Kevin.
“I understand.” There was real compassion in his eyes. “But I’m worried about you.”
That made two of them.
THANK YOU
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SNEAK PEEK OF NEUROTICA #8 WOMAN ON TOP
Professor Melanie Stevenson’s “evil” twin decides the Department Chair needs to be punished for his… misdeeds in the library. While her kinky tease is designed to render poetic payback, another university woman takes Simon…in hand with a far more sinister and sophisticated version of “woman on top.”
EXCERPT
SHE COULD SEE the calculation in his gaze. He wanted to turn the tables, to have her under him and at his mercy. He was undoubtedly wondering what he had to do—how much he had to humor her, exactly how much compliance might be necessary—before he got what he wanted the way he wanted it.
He didn’t realize that today there’d be no reward, no matter how good his behavior. Only punishment.
She slid off the desk. He reached for her, but she slapped his hand away.
“It’s my turn,” she said. “Put your hands behind your back.”
He hesitated.
She decided he needed a little extra incentive to get with her program. Remembering how much he’d enjoyed being spanked, she stepped around him, smacked his naked butt with the belt, and then pushed up close behind him.
“It was dark in the library,” she said. “I’d like the chance to…inspect your equipment.” She dropped her voice to a low, husky whisper. “Very closely.”
She leaned in, bit the top of his ear, whispered, “I’m going to drive you wild, and you’ll be helpless—totally in my control.”
He moaned and closed his eyes.
She slid along his body as she lower herself to her knees beside him. She yanked down his pants and drawers. His prized tool popped out, ready and eager to be put to use.
He cooperated—surprise!—as she nudged his feet out of the pile of clothes on the floor and stuffed his rumpled pants into a corner under his desk, the harder for him to reach. He would be the one on hands and knees searching for them later, when it was time to dress.
Then she leaned toward him and eyed his increasingly erect package. Upon direct, up-close observation, she concluded
he was…distinctly average.
KINGS OF BRIGHTON BEACH SERIES
In Brighton Beach, New York, the largest Russian immigrant community in America, criminals and spies live among hardworking immigrants. The mafia rules with an invisible hand that reaches from beyond the former Iron Curtain. Ruthless men vie to reign as kings over their profitable corners of Little Odessa, and no one can be trusted. Not even family.
PART 1: GANGSTERS WITH GUNS
At fourteen Vlad escaped his violent father, a notorious Thief in Law, and the criminal soup of Brighton Beach. Now, twenty years later, he will reclaim his father’s place in the Russian mafia if he can survive.
EPISODE #1
Vlad plans to ingratiate himself with his father’s former partner, Artur, learn the “business,” and commit a hostile takeover. But Vlad isn’t the only one interested in claiming Artur’s slice of Little Odessa. Vlad’s rivals have no code of honor, and Artur’s daughter, Inna, is discovered in her brother’s own nightclub, raped and drugged, with a gun in her hand and a dead mobster sprawled on top of her. The dead man’s comrades want retribution, blood for blood, but Vlad is convinced Artur's mafia princess is innocent and that the real killer has ambitions to start a war in Brighton Beach.
Keep reading for an excerpt from Episode #1…
INNA
INNA LAY ON something cold and hard, and a steady beat thumped beneath her. Far away, she heard the din of voices and the rhythmic swell of techno music. Closer, there was quiet, save for an intermittent drip drop, drip drop, like a faucet with a slow leak when water has pooled in the sink basin.
Sex in the Stacks Page 2