by Avery Aster
She smiles at me, trails her fingers over my scars one last time.
And then she is gone.
Chapter Four
Bright sunlight slanting in through the gaps between the branches wakes me in what feels like early morning. I’m disoriented as I open my eyes, pull myself to a sitting position.
I’m lying on the dirt floor in the tiny shack. Through the gaps in the crude walls I can see the forest, can hear the humming of insects, the whisper of the breeze through the trees.
What the fuck just happened to me?
Furrowing my brow, I let the images tumble over me, each one coming faster and faster. I’m dressed in the clothes that I wore to sleep in last night, and when I hold out my left arm, I see only the marled skin of my scars—not swirls of dark ink.
Disappointment is a crushing wave of depression that threatens to flatten me. It can’t have been a dream. I won’t let it be.
The woman—the castle—the magic.
It was too real—too right.
“Face reality, Vardalos.” Wincing, I crawl to my hands and knees, struggling to fight back the encroaching clouds.
The dream, or visions, or whatever it was... it was probably just my body and mind’s way of getting rid of the extreme stress that I had been under for the last six months. I felt safe here, in the middle of the southern Atlantic ocean, and so my subconscious had gone for broke.
Sitting back on my heels, I inhale deeply and try to get a handle on myself. And that’s when I see it—the flower, still miraculously fresh and whole, lying on the ground.
The flower that I tucked into the golden ribbons of her hair.
With a whoop I grab at it, clutching it tightly in my palm, not even caring that I’m crushing it. Part of me wonders if I’ve become completely unhinged when I scramble to my feet and hightail it back to the beach, and the rest of me just didn’t give a shit.
I know now. I know she’s coming.
Running past the stacks of my supplies, I race straight into the water. The plane is more or less where it had been the night before, rocking back and forth on the rippling surface of the water.
“Joely!” I bang on the door with enthusiasm. “Open up! We’ve got to go!”
I rap once more for good measure, then dunk beneath the surface of the water, clothes and all. When I surface, a sleepy, owl-eyed face is blinking out at me.
“Mr. V?” Joely looks puzzled and sleepy and kind of like an adorable kitten. Everything looked better today, I think with a smile. Even irritating know-it-all pilots. “ Mr. V, what happened? Are you okay?”
“Never better.” Grinning up at her, I shake like a dog to dry my hair. She shrieks when droplets spray across her, then crosses her arms and scowls.
“This better be good. I am not a morning person.” she mutters crossly as I grab hold of the plane and hoist myself in, dripping wet. “Especially not after the night I had. Jesus, Mr. V. What the hell’s gotten into you, big guy?”
“I need to get back to Miami. Just for a few days.” Just long enough to make some calls, to set the wheels in motion.
This island would be home to a resort after all... it would just be a little bit different than I had originally intended.
I knew, though I had not a shred of rational proof—I knew that this was meant. It hadn’t been a fantasy, it had been a revelation. An awareness filled him, a knowledge he couldn’t explain and didn’t need to. His life had a purpose now.
The island knows what you need…
Blearily Joely rubbed her hands over her eyes, studying me, probably debating whether or not I’d gone crazy or been replaced by one of her Bermuda Triangle aliens. I grin as, finally, she crosses to the cooler in the small cargo area of the puddle jumper. Fishing out a can of cola dripping with condensation, she cracks the top and chugs.
“I need fifteen to do my checks, then we’ll fly.”
She’s true to her word. Fifteen minutes later we are soaring out of the lagoon and into the bright blue morning sky.
We fly in silence for a few minutes. I don’t mind—my mind is racing.
“What happened last night?” She asks finally, turning her attention from the sky for a brief moment. “What changed?”
I’m not going to recount my night. It’s personal. “You wouldn’t believe me.”
Joely laughs softly and I see something in her expression that makes me wonder if she didn’t have her own epiphany last night. The way I was feeling now, I’d believe it.
I stretch, settle back in my seat and watch the island shrink in the distance.
“Eden. I’m going to call it Eden.” My own paradise.
She chuckles again. “Okay, boss. Not super original, but I like it anyway. It fits, I think. Definitely looks like an Eden.”
Boss…
I watch her handle the plane with utter confidence, thinking about how comfortable I feel around her. Like I know her, like I always have. I owe her. I trust her in a way I don’t think I’ve ever been able to trust anyone else, even before everything changed. Hell, I’m not sure this would have happened, if I’d have ever made it to Eden without her. Suddenly I have another one of those gut feelings I’ve decided never to question again, and the words fall from my mouth, sounding right as I say them.
“Joely? I have a proposition for you...”
# # #
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About Lauren Hawkeye
Lauren Hawkeye/ Lauren Jameson never imagined that she'd wind up telling stories for a living... though when she looks back, it's easy to see that she's the only one who is surprised. Always "the kid who read all the time", Lauren made up stories about her favorite characters once she'd finished a book... and once spent an entire year narrating her own life internally. No, really. But where she was just plain odd before publication, now she can at least claim to have an artistic temperament.
Lauren lives in the Rocky Mountains of Alberta, Canada with her husband, toddler, pit bull and idiot cat, though they do not live in an igloo, nor do they drive a dogsled. In her nonexistent spare time Lauren can be found knitting (her husband claims that her snobby yarn collection is exorbitant), reading anything she can get her hands on, or sweating her way through spin class. She loves to hear from her readers!
One Night With The Billionaire
Copyright 2015 Lauren Hawkeye
This is book two of the
A Virgin, A Billionaire and a Marriage series.
It is a category length novel that stands alone- no cliffhangers!.
Click here to find out more about One Night with the Billionaire.
Certifiable genius Mari Hart has spent her life focusing on school and getting ahead. Freshly out of school at age twenty, with two doctorates in hand and no idea what to do next, Mari decides to allow herself one night to be young, something she’s never done before. She’s smart, and she’s responsible—what could go wrong?
But at Florida’s hot, kinky new nightclub she sees something that she shouldn’t, and even her incredible intelligence can’t save her—but billionaire Alexios Kosta can. One of the world’s richest men—one with dark secrets of his own—Alexi has the power to make all of Mari’s problems go away.
The catch? To obtain full protection, Mari must become Alexi’s wife. And it isn’t long before their public displays of affection spark something far hotter than either could ever have imagined….
Excerpt
Bang.
&n
bsp; Smack.
“Oh my God, yes!”
“Don’t stop don’t stop don’t stop!”
“You are the king!”
Rolling my eyes, I sit straight up in bed. The pillow I’ve been holding over my ears gets tossed across the room in an uncharacteristic fit of anger, allowing the previously muffled sounds to penetrate straight to my eardrums.
Penetrate. Bad choice of words. Because unless my ears deceive me, there is a whole lot of penetrating going on next door.
Bang.
Squeal.
THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP.
“Noooo.” Covering my face with my hands, I slide over to the edge of the bed. I can’t handle this... this going on next door. I just can’t.
Raising a fist, I briefly contemplate knocking on the wall... not loudly enough to be rude, although clearly they’ve thrown that convention out the window. No, just loudly enough to point out that maybe, possibly, some of their neighbours are trying to sleep.
Instead, I let my hand fall back into my lap, but no matter what I do, I can’t block out the sounds. The sex sounds.
It shouldn’t be such a big deal—shouldn’t bother me so much. I shouldn’t be straining, trying to overhear. I should just buy some earplugs and go back to sleep.
I can’t. And it’s not logical to lie to myself, so I admit—within the confines of my own skull—that I’m actually fascinated because I’ve never been this close to... to such shenanigans before.
The thumping stops momentarily, and I breathe a sigh of relief. Surely this can’t continue forever. This is my third night in my new apartment, and I’ve endured the nocturnal party each evening. But surely my new neighbours aren’t that... avid. Right? It’s not possible to have that kind of stamina. Surely there would be fatigue involved at some point. Possibly some chafing.
I chose this apartment building after extensive research because it was clean, in a new neighbourhood, and represented the ideals that I wished to embody as I embarked on my career. It wasn’t cheap, but I had a substantial amount in my bank account. The funds deposited by my mother before she’d deemed me an adult and sent me out into the world were largely untouched, since I’d received full funding for school. And now, at twenty years of age, a doctorate in each hand, I had numerous lucrative paths to pursue.
Point being, I do not find it acceptable to have to listen to the cat-like yowls of my neighbors fornicating at three in the morning, every morning. A human needs seven hours of sleep to perform at maximum capacity.
As if they have a direct line to my thoughts, the thumping starts up again. At first it’s just a few soft bumps that could possibly be construed as the bed settling under the weight of their inhabitants.
But then the thumping starts again. And the yowls.
“Hold on to the headboard. If you move your hands, I’ll spank your ass.” The male voice is so clear, it could be right there in the room with me, and my mouth falls open with disbelief.
Did he really just threaten to spank her? Is she in trouble? Should I call for help?
But within moments her mewls of pleasure answer my question. She’s not in trouble. Not even a little.
A sense of melancholy descends into my chest, and at the same time an ache appears between my thighs. Surely it’s just a primal response to the sounds of mating. That’s what my intellect tells me.
My body says something entirely different. If a twenty year old virgin body is to be trusted.
Virgin. Yes, I’m twenty years old, and have never been touched. And when I say never, I do mean never. I’ve never had sex, never been kissed, never even held hands or gone a date with a boy. Starting college at fifteen hinders one’s opportunities, after all. Plus, I’ve never deluded myself—my purpose in this world is in the ranks of academia. Not in the pleasures of the flesh.
But listening to grunts and groans of ecstasy... it’s more than I can handle.
I’ll go knock on the door. I’ll just request that they keep their... ahh... amour to a quieter level.
Just a few deep breaths to calm myself first. I would never survive if my new neighbours knew that my body had grown aroused from listening to them make love.
Wiping damp palms on the thighs of my pajamas, I slide my glasses onto my nose and make my way across the hall. The ruckus is even louder out here, and I feel blood rushing into my cheeks.
What must it be like, to not care who knows that you’re doing... that?
None of my business. Steeling myself, I walk the few steps to the next door, and knock. If anything, the sex noises just get louder. Starting to become irritated, I knock again, harder. Still nothing.
Finally I give in, in a way that I never do, and pound on the door with my fist. It feels good, slamming my hand into the wood, frustration dissipating with every smack.
The noises stop, replaced by heavy footsteps. I school my face into a polite smile, ready to be a friendly little neighbour, even though that’s not at all what I feel like. I feel tired, irritated, and aroused.
But if we all went around acting on unrestrained emotions, we’d be no better than a bunch of monkeys. And in my current circumstances, the word monkey makes me think of a slang term I once came across—monkey sex.
Hot, sweaty monkey sex.
Dear God, my brain is broken.
“Do you know what time it is?” The door before me swings open, revealing...
Oh. My. God.
Revealing a greying man, probably in his later forties, given his physical appearance. He’s decently attractive, if you ignore the thirty some year age difference between us.
He’s also sweaty and absolutely, completely naked. And absolutely, completely aroused.
I have doctorates in astrophysics and medicine. I have an IQ of 182. But I have absolutely no idea how to deal with the sight in front of me.
The man grins as my eyes stray to his throbbing member, then snap back up to his face. His own eyes rake over me, lingering in the area of my breasts, causing my hands to clutch at the lapels of my pajama top.
“Cute.” The man smirks at my sleepwear. I feel a steel rod snap into place in my spine.
Get a grip, Mari. Surely that big brain of yours can find a connection to your tongue!
“What the fuck’s going on?” A sulky female voice emanates from the apartment behind the man, and then a woman is peering around him. She’s naked too, though I’m saved from that visual by the sheet that’s clutched to her breasts.
Her hair is long and blonde, and in quite the disarray. Slumberous blue cat eyes regard me thoughtfully, lips twisting into a smirk, and I will myself to hold still.
“Oh, it’s you. The brain trust.” Her smirk widens.
“I... yes.” I’m surprised she—Jenny—recognized me. I taught two of her freshman classes, despite the fact that she’s a couple of years older than I am, but she skipped half of them, and was more interested in the boys sitting around her than my lectures when she was there. And even then, it had been hard not to notice that the boys were interested in her right back.
Blonde, popular, sexy—Jenny was all the things that I was not. And now I’d seen her naked.
Awkward.
“What do you want?” As if just realizing that her man is naked in front of me, she shoves the sheet in front of him, which only causes her perky breasts to be revealed. I roll my eyes skyward, trying not to look at either of them.
“I... I’m wondering if perhaps you would mind keeping it down.” I swallow thickly when silence greets my request. A silence that drags on until I can’t help but look back down.
“What, you have a hot date tomorrow?” Jenny looks like she’s channeling Regina George, her face is so mean. “Need your beauty sleep?”
“No.” What does that have to do with anything? “But a human woman my age needs an average of seven hours of sleep to maintain her health and mental well-being.”
“What?” The man stares at me, incredulous, before turning to Jenny. “Did she really just
say that?”
“Yeah she did.” Jenny turns to her lover with an eye roll directed at me. Looking down his body, she fastens her gaze on his erection and runs her tongue suggestively over her lips. “Come on. Let’s go take care of that little problem for you.”
“But she’s so sweet. It’s adorable.” The two of them examine me as though I’m a kitten, the man with something I surmise must be lust, Jenny with more than a hint of aggression.
And then the door slams in my face. I could knock again, demand that they honor my request...
This encounter has told me that I’m not likely to get very far. I have no choice but to turn back to my apartment and, given the late hour, return to bed.
Alone.
Always alone.
If my mother was still in my life, she would have reminded me that people who spend their nights fornicating are little more than animals and that I am far above them. I have a loftier purpose.
But she wouldn’t have said it with love, just her belief that the genes she selected for me—hers and the ones belonging to a carefully chosen, anonymous sperm donor—were superior.
Right this moment, I can find no comfort in that. I should be celebrating, with my doctorates in hand and life before me.
But I’m not. Right this moment, I want to be normal. I want to a fornicating animal. I don’t want to be the girl that the neighbours look at like a freak.
Intellect can’t push my emotions aside as I stiffly return to my bedroom. I’m straightening the sheets when I again hear voices on the other side of the wall.
“Why’d you slam the door?” It’s the man’s voice, a low rumble through the drywall. “She was cute. I wanted to ask her to join us.”
“Do you have a nerd fetish now? I’m into role playing, but I’m not wearing those horrible pajamas for you.” I can see Jenny’s shudder in my mind’s eye, and I stand, suddenly cold, frozen in place. “Besides, she wouldn’t have a clue what to do with you.”
“Maybe a little innocence isn’t a bad thing.” I’d have to be deaf to miss the note in the man’s voice, the fact that he’s goading her. Jenny, however, does, or else simply chooses to ignore it, secure in her own plentiful charms.