Book Boyfriends Cafe Summer Lovin' Anthology 2015

by Melinda Curtis

  He exhaled. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. You’re right. I’ve been a jerk all evening. Can we start over?” Giving me a winning smile, he extended a hand. “I’m Fletcher Wolf.”

  I paused, then took it with my free hand. “I’m Cara Fletcher.”

  “I’m pleased to meet you, Cara Fletcher. How strange that we have the same name.”

  I forced a grin. “Yes, isn’t it? I hope it doesn’t cause problems between us.”

  “That was very smooth,” he said. “You’re a sharp cookie. But only time will tell, Ms. Fletcher. Shall we have dinner?”

  My body twitched involuntarily. “I’m sorry, but I’m not going back in there.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t really want to talk about it.”

  He huffed. “Now who’s rude?”

  “Sweet of you to say so, but I guess you’re right. I, uh, just don’t do well around red meat since, umm, I, I,…”

  “What, honey? Let me understand.” His voice had remained gentle, sweet.

  Cajoling. Was he trying to manipulate me?

  If so, he was doing a good job. “S-some people got into a traffic accident right in front of me. Their car, like, crunched against a lamp-post. I had to try to get them out. It wasn’t pretty. Their bodies were…their bodies were…” I clamped a hand over my mouth to keep from throwing up.

  “Oh, God, Cara.” His voice changed completely, becoming husky, rough...honest. He put one arm around me, but let go right away, as though he was afraid I’d push him away.

  I didn’t. The comfort felt too good. I looked up at him. His amazing eyes gleamed, luminous in the streetlight. “Were you hurt?” he asked.

  “Not, umm, physically. I was lucky. Sort of.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry. Believe me, I understand how you feel.”

  I doubted that. “How?” I asked.

  He evaded, saying, “I’m an idiot. I should have asked you where you wanted to eat dinner. I’m very sorry. For what I said about your hair, about everything. I don’t know why I’m being such an a-hole tonight.” Grabbing my hand, he guided me to the curb. With one wave, a taxi emerged from the flow of traffic.

  Opening the door, he urged me into the back seat. He handed the driver a folded bill, then bent down and said, “I’m sorry about this evening. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  He brushed his lips against my cheek. Shocked, I jerked away, but he didn’t move, his gaze still pinned to mine.

  He stood. “Take the lady wherever she wants to go,” he said to the cabbie. “Good night, Cara.”

  I leaned back into the seat of the cab with a sigh of relief. “Take me to, um, Battery Park, please. But don’t go past Ground Zero.”

  I had to think, reason my way out of the hole I was in. I couldn’t remember a more disastrous evening. Neither impressed nor intimidated, Fletcher Wolf had instead been blatantly contemptuous of my work, scared the bejeezus out of me, and then had the gall to touch me as though he empathized with me. Worse, he’d turned me inside out while remaining utterly calm and so damn sexy.

  That viper in the restroom had been right about Fletcher Wolf. He was all male. His act had everything to do with mastery and nothing to do with real sympathy. I’d been weak this evening, and told him things about myself I shouldn’t have revealed. I couldn’t appear weak to this predator. He’d bring me down like a wolfpack takes a fawn.

  Ann had been right.

  I hadn’t smoked in years, but tonight I bummed a ciggie from a kid who was also hanging around the park, staring at the flat, dark water as though it would, like a scryer’s crystal ball, reveal answers to the questions that had troubled him all his short life.

  I didn’t have those comforting illusions, not one. I gazed across the harbor to the Statue of Liberty, lit like a beacon in the night. The water between was no deeper than the crises bedeviling me.

  I was in way over my head. Despair rose in my throat and prickled behind my eyes. I couldn’t play with the big boys. My dreams and ambitions had led me into uncharted territory, like the blank parts of old maps where cartographers used to write here be dragons. And I’d just met with a real live beast.

  People like Fletcher Wolf were as far beyond me as the stars. I’d never understand him and really didn’t want to. All I needed was to make beautiful clothes and raise a healthy child. Natalie deserved everything I could give.

  I wouldn’t let anything or anyone threaten my daughter’s precious sense of safety, which had been so lacking when she’d lived with her father. If Wolf defeated me and took my company, everything would change. I’d lose my job, maybe even my home. Stability was best for Nat. Too much change risked her happiness.

  I clenched my teeth, fought off a panic attack, and tried not to consider the possibility of losing. I’d win. I had to win, for my dreams and for Natalie.

  But what about the consequences of winning? Sure, we’d come out of the starting gate looking good, even getting attorney’s fees. But the judge’s warnings rang in my mind like the tolling of funeral bells.

  Worse, we could lose. Wolf was too smart to misstep again.

  For the first time, I understood the impulse that led a trapped rabbit to gnaw off its foot to escape.

  Chapter 4

  He came to me out of the mists of dream. Tall and powerful, radiating masculine potency, his irresistible body could drive me insane with unslaked lust. His savage, streaked hair was long, feral, like a wild animal’s, and his eyes gleamed with predatory intent.

  He was a teenaged girl’s wickedest wet dream, a woman’s fall from grace, and my nemesis.

  He flirted, taunted and teased, then moved in close, hemming me in. He’d have me, for I was his thrall. At his vivid touch, sensations bloomed, flowerlike. He palmed my breasts, sending my body into bliss and my mind into glorious oblivion.

  Out of the mists of dream, he came, but why?

  I loathed Fletcher Wolf. That conservative, uptight, judgmental, pompous boor threatened to trash my world like a twister roaring through a trailer park. So why did this dream feel so good?

  The awful, the appalling, the inescapable truth goaded me into full consciousness, and I jerked upright in bed.

  I still wanted him.

  Damn!

  Not only did I want him, I wanted him badly, in the worst possible way, crazier than my first teenage crush on Tom Cruise or my puppy love for the coolest dude in high school. I wanted to make love with Fletcher Wolf, to undress each perfect inch of his body, to uncover the glories beneath his formal, fitted suit, to do it, do it, do it…and then do it some more, with his glinting, golden, wolf eyes glowing into mine every time we came together.

  With a bizarre sense of horrified, clinical detachment, I watched my nipples rise, silvery in the moonlight filtering though the gauze curtains. They lifted to taut little points even though all I was doing was thinking about Fletcher Wolf. I wasn’t playing with myself or using a vibrator. I was just thinking about touching Fletcher Wolf, nothing more, but I was hot, I was wet, and I wanted him.

  Damn. I’d thought I wanted him last night in the restaurant, when I’d been thinking about getting him into a hotel room. But now I was dreaming about banging him, explicit dreams that meant I was seriously in lust with Fletcher Wolf. This was real. This was bad.

  But maybe I could persuade myself that it was just a crush. Just an infatuation and it would pass.

  Yeah, right.

  I flopped back against the pillow with a gusty sigh, staring at the ceiling. A shadow fell across my skylight. The blood froze in my veins as the shadow resolved into a silhouette of a person’s hand and arm. A scratching sound filled my loft bedroom.

  I screamed, my voice ripping raw from my throat. The dim shape disappeared, and footsteps thumped across the flat roof. I jumped out of bed and sprinted to the window. Pushing the gauze aside, I craned my neck to see the burglar leave. Was he on the fire escape?

  A cry was followed by more thumps as Natalie, apparently rou
sed, ran up the stairs, yelling, “Mom! What’s wrong?” She skidded into the room, wearing a knee-length Raiders T-shirt.

  “Nat, oh God, Nat, there was someone on the roof.” I grabbed my daughter and hugged her hard to stop my shakes. Her thin body, warm from her bed, felt solid and comforting.

  She hugged back. “Jeez, Mom, you’re shaking. Get back into bed. You’re not wearing any clothes.”

  “No, no. I want to see if I can see him leaving. The fire escape is out here—” I hauled and banged at the sticky latch securing the window.

  “Stop it. Even if you open the window, the guy’s probably gone. But call the police anyway.”

  “You’re right.” I grabbed my robe, which I always tossed at the foot of my bed. Thrusting my arms through the familiar chenille sleeves—another comforting feeling—I tied its sash at my waist as Natalie used my cellphone to call 9-1-1.

  ~*~

  Natalie and I spent the rest of the night together huddled in bed, waiting for the police. Two officers finally arrived early in the morning, looking exhausted. They’d probably been up all night, too, and because of my sleeplessness, I had a lot of empathy for them.

  “How can we assist you, ma’am?” The younger of the two cops asked. Seated at the kitchen table, he cradled a mug of coffee in his substantial palms.

  It was six-thirty. I’d given up on sleeping an hour earlier, choosing instead to shower, dress, and brew some coffee. Both patrolmen had gratefully accepted a cup.

  “Too late now to do anything about it, but at about four in the morning, someone tried to break into the upstairs bedroom.”

  “Hmmm. There was a lot of activity last night, with the full moon,” the officer said. “Dispatch prioritizes the calls, and injury calls come first.”

  “Makes sense,” I said. “Let’s hope I never come first.”

  The older officer rose, putting down his mug. “Which is your room, Ms. Fletcher?” He clearly didn’t want to waste time on chit-chat.

  “I’ll show you.” I took my mug with me, heading toward the living room stairs. “Please pardon the mess…”

  I led them up into the loft. Unsettling, the sight of uniformed officers in my bedroom, which otherwise contained only a few pieces of pine furniture and a fluffy white rug. And, of course, my messy bed, partially covered with a white cutwork duvet.

  Burying my embarrassment, I pointed upward. “I was in bed. I’d awakened from a, er, dream when I heard scrabbling at the skylight. The moon was very bright last night, and I’m sure I saw someone trying to unscrew the bolts on the skylight.”

  The older officer grunted. “Wouldn’t be the first time. Any way we can get up onto the roof?” He glanced at his partner.

  Nat and I waited anxiously while they pried open the window and used the fire escape to check out the roof. After about five minutes, the officers climbed back inside.

  “You’re right,” the older one said. “There are scratches around one of the bolts. They look like fresh marks made by a screwdriver or maybe a knife. But I doubt there’s anything anyone can do about it.”

  I was appalled. “What? Why not? Isn’t attempted burglary a crime?”

  “Yes, it is, ma’am,” the other officer said. “And we’re very sorry, but the city doesn’t have the resources to send someone out to test for fingerprints on a case like this. See, no one was hurt. He didn’t even get in.”

  “Don’t worry about it, ma’am,” his partner rumbled. “He probably won’t be back. Do you have an alarm system?”

  “Yes, and the skylight’s wired. If it takes hours for you to respond, what’s to prevent someone from getting in here and murdering us in our beds?” I probably sounded shrill and hysterical, but staying up all night waiting for Ted Bundy to drop in did that to a person.

  The policemen looked uncomfortable. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but we feel we’ve done all we can,” said the older cop firmly.

  “Will you at least file a report?”

  “We’ll do that. There’ll be a record if there’s any other incidents.”

  I hesitated. I didn’t want to seem like a nut, but if there was a connection, I wanted to explore it. “It’s just, well, it’s just that I’m getting an awful lot of hang-up calls lately.”

  “Are you concerned about a pattern of harassment?” the junior officer asked.

  “I don’t want to seem paranoid, but yeah, I am.”

  The older officer seemed unconvinced. “It’s doubtful that this incident is related. Pranksters who use the telephone to harass generally stick to that tactic and don’t show up at the victim’s home. If you continue to get these calls, contact the phone company and put a trap on your line.”

  “A trap?”

  “A modified trace. It’ll show from which phone the calls originate. If the prankster is stupid enough to be calling from his own phone, we can find out.”

  “We’ll be sure to write that report, Ms. Fletcher,” the younger cop said.

  “Are you sure there’s no way to get the skylight tested for prints?”

  “I’ll put in the request, but don’t expect immediate action. Don’t let anyone touch the area until we get to it, okay?”

  And with that, I had to be content. But I wasn’t, not by a long shot. My troubles seemed to be piling on top of each other into an insurmountable heap.

  However, what else could I do? I did my best to forget about it and go about my day, praying for an uneventful one.

  But it wasn’t meant to be, I guess, though the first couple of hours were wonderfully quiet and productive. My team of seamstresses and designers was as excited and motivated about my upcoming show as I was. The workshop air hummed with creative energy.

  Unhappily, at about eleven o’clock, we were blessed by a visitation from one-half of the infamous Covarrubia twins.

  Supermodels both, nasty rumors had started to cloud Adam’s and Andrea’s reputations when they’d been photographed by paparazzi in a seedy bar known for smack deals and smackdowns. I decided then that if I had to hire them occasionally, I would, but neither twin would be assigned to a really important shoot or show, a decision which Maggie Andersen vehemently opposed. She said that their international reputation would lend cachet to Cara Fletcher Couture. I stood firm, though, and now Adam had arrived to plead his case with Maggie while I hid behind my drafting table in the upper loft of my workshop.

  Curled up in my favorite old armchair—a relic of my student days—Adam and his nasal, Jersey-inflected whine scraped my last remaining nerve. With Adam clad in his usual Goth-black garb, his silhouette against the armchair’s cracked teal leather reminded me of a nesting moray eel.

  “See, Maggie, things have really dried up, and I really need this—”

  His pitch was interrupted by the clomp-clomp-clomp of heavy footsteps on the metal spiral staircase leading to my loft.

  Peeking out, I saw Fletcher Wolf emerge from the stairwell, looking better than ever. I bobbed back behind my drafting table, breathing heavily, and told myself to calm down. But what the hell was Wolf doing here, in my sanctum? I didn’t want him here. No way, no how. The man was trouble.

  Adam said, “And whadda we have here? Armani, very nice.”

  “May I see Cara Fletcher?” That dark, smooth, southern-laced bass caressed my ears. I sighed and tried to push the memories of my wet dreams out of my mind. Fat chance, with the star of the porn show standing about four feet away from me.

  Maggie asked, “Who wants her?” She sounded unfriendly, which was good. I didn’t want Wolf to feel welcome in my atelier.

  “I’m Fletcher Wolf.”

  I decided not to delay the inevitable and came out from behind my drafting table, still holding a piece of charcoal. I hoped to send the message that I was busy. “Mr. Wolf. What are you doing here?”

  He was holding several anthurium flowers in his hand, delicate pink ones with two-inch-long spikes emerging from the centers of their fleshy, heart-shaped petals.

  I flushed. He’d
brought me flowers. And not just any flowers. Flowers were sex organs anyhow, and these pink anthuriums, which looked like a bunch of erect penises entering vaginas, sent a blatant message.

  Don’t flip out, I admonished myself. It’s just some flowers. He’s still suing us for a gazillion dollars!

  Did he feel the same way I did? I hoped not. If he wanted to do me, and I wanted to do him, surely we’d end up in the sack. An affair with someone who was suing me was impossible. How could I tell if he was sincere about his feelings? Maybe he was just after pillow talk.

  On the other hand, maybe I could find out something from Fletcher Wolf in bed. I wasn’t into learning new sexual techniques, but if I could discover his secrets, something that would help me win the case—

  “Good morning to you too, Ms. Fletcher. I came to see how you were feeling.”

  I rubbed my cheek as he surveyed me, aware that I was a mess compared to our dinner date and the courtroom confrontation. I hadn’t done much with my hair that day, just put it up with a clip so it wouldn’t get in my way. I wore blue contacts and a striped knit top. I guess it was clingy, because his gaze didn’t stray far from my chest. I had on old, bell-bottomed jeans and my fave pair of silver high-topped Converse sneakers.

  He glanced at the flowers, then back at me. Of course he looked perfect. The Armani that Adam Covarrubia noted was beautifully cut. The charcoal gray complemented Wolf’s unusual hair and eyes without taking anything away from his startling good looks.

  Mr. Debonair made me feel sloppy, messy and scattered.

  “Feeling? Feeling! I feel fine. Why shouldn’t I?” Oops. I sounded defensive, which was bad. Wolf didn’t need to know how much he got to me.

  He raised his brows, all smooth self-assurance. “You were unwell at dinner last night.” He fiddled with the stems, then thrust the flowers at me. “Here,” he said.

  I took them. “You work fast.”

  “I would have been here earlier, but I wanted the right gift. Roses would have been too mundane for you.”