by Artemis Hunt
I shake my head. Even though the mental images Lyla concocts are vivid and vulgar, melancholy is the current theme that permeates my side of the bed. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll never know. But I do know I can’t go on with him like this. I need something more . . . normal.”
“I think you’re making too big a deal out of this. So what if he can’t commit? I’d use his body every day and ride him like a bull. So I’m crude. Kick me.”
I don’t think I even want to bother kicking her.
The doorbell chimes.
Lyla raises her eyebrows. “Who can that be in the middle of the night? Oh, I know who. Mr. Lafferty next door has been trying to get into my pants, like, forever. I’ll bet he’s taken his Viagra again and that old and fat Mrs. Lafferty who has a mole with a hair on her chin won’t let him do her.”
I’m amused despite myself. Not being with Chris hurts in my bones like a viral ache, but being with him hurts equally as much, so I’m better off where I am.
I’ve typed out my resignation letter, electronically signed it and sent it to him via email, cc-ing HR. It’s going to be a rude surprise for Mr. Sully in the morning. I’ll follow it up with an official dispatch.
It’s the right thing to do, I convince myself.
Lyla’s trite voice wafts into the bedroom. “I don’t think she wants to see you, Mr. Morton, but I’ll ask her anyway.”
I sit up in shock. Chris is here? How did he guess?
Oh, of course. During my interview, I told him about having a friend in Accounting, the only person I knew in the whole of Chicago. He’s smart, so he made the connection.
I’m wearing Lyla’s oversized T-shirt, and I don’t exactly look my best. I pat my hair down hastily and get up from the bed as Chris walks into the room in the clothes I last saw him in.
He’s disheveled, haggard and pale, but he’s still a glorious sight to behold. My heart immediately goes into stoppage mode. This is the exact reason why I didn’t want to break up with him in person. I knew I wouldn’t have the guts to do it to his face.
Just one look at his beautiful face, and I’ll melt again.
I feel myself already melting into a puddle. I’m weak, and I have to be stronger. I have to say ‘No’.
Lyla is behind him, curiously peeking in. I try to signal to her to leave us alone, but she’s persistently standing in the doorway of her bedroom. Well, I do suppose it’s her bedroom.
“Beth?” Chris says.
“Chris – ”
The first sentence out of Chris’s mouth is not what I expected to hear at all.
He says, “I accept your resignation.”
BETH
I’m stunned.
So is Lyla, by the frozen look on her face.
“You do?” I squeak.
“You do?” Lyla echoes.
Chris says, “Yes. If it’s one of the barriers in the way of us being together, then I don’t want to be your boss anymore.”
He turns around to Lyla and says in a low but firm tone, “Can we have a little privacy, please?”
Lyla gulps. “Uh, yes, Mr. Morton. Right away, Mr. Morton.”
She scoots off.
I’m rooted to the spot. Chris comes in and shuts the door behind him. His expression is bruised but hopeful. His beautiful hazel eyes are pained.
“I’m not going to make promises I won’t keep, and I totally understand if you don’t want to see me ever again. But we have something between us – something far more than just friendship or a purely sexual relationship. And we owe each to ourselves to try. That’s all I’m asking, Beth. Let me try to have a normal relationship for once, and I want to try it for the first time with you.”
I’m listening. My insides are churning inside, and there are butterflies in my stomach and everywhere else, but I’m still listening.
He goes on, “I don’t know what the future will bring us, but that’s probably the case between two people in most relationships. Doesn’t stop them from putting a foot in the hot water though, no matter what prejudices and preconceived ideas they came with. Because you are prejudiced against me, Beth. You think I can’t change because of my past, but I’m already changing even as we’re talking. We’re all changing every day in our lives as new events and new experiences force their way upon us.
“So give us a try, that’s all I’m asking. I know I’m saying it for the second time this week, but I mean it and I don’t know of any other hearts-and-flowers way to say it.”
He pauses.
My eyes begin to fill with tears.
“I’ll help you get a job and back up on your feet, but you don’t have to take anything you don’t want to from me,” he adds.
I’m still frozen.
Again, the war rages fiercely between my stubborn head and my heart.
He’s right about my prejudices. I’m judging him for his past, and for something he hasn’t yet done. He has been nothing but brutally honest with me from the start. And he’s being brutally honest with me now.
I can’t ask for more than that from a man. I really can’t.
I find myself saying, “Yes.”
And this time, the tears that threaten finally spill down my cheeks in a deluge. It’s a watershed, but suddenly, I’m in his arms, and he’s in my arms, and we are pressed together in a world where there are no certainties – but only trials, effort, hope and a lot of blossoming love.
BETH
It is our seventh day together, and we are lying in each other’s arms in a boat down Chicago River, watching the architectural wonders on either side stream by. It’s almost like a Venetian gondola, and our boatman is steady as he steers us downriver.
We have both taken the day off to celebrate this occasion. Of course, I’m now gainfully unemployed.
My bags have been packed and I’m moving in with Chris temporarily until I can earn enough to find a better apartment. That is one concession I won’t make. I don’t want his money, and I won’t yet move in with a man I’ve only intimately known for a week.
I’m aware that might be yet another threshold I may soon cross. Another life ideal I have to put a sledgehammer to.
Maybe the future will bring us up the river, and maybe we may just trail lazily down it.
But right now, everything feels right.
WORKS BY ARTEMIS HUNT
EROTIC ROMANCES
The ‘Inhumanly Handsome, Humanly Flawed Alpha Male’ series
A Virgin Enslaved
The ‘Maid for the Billionaire Prince’ series
Mysterious Desire
ROMANCES
The Body Snatcher Wears Lipstick
Snow White and the Alien
EROTICA BY APHRODITE HUNT
The ‘Initiation’ series
Open Your Legs for Me
Blindfolded and Spread-eagled
Thighs Wide Apart
Teacher, Please Spread my Pussy
The Final Initiation
The Initiation: A Bundle of 5 Stories
The ‘Initiation 2’ series
Open Your Legs for my Family
Bend Over for my Family
Publicly Display Yourself for Me
Sex Slave at Sea
Paraded before the Billionaires
Sex Slave at the Auction
‘The Royal Captive’ series
Prince Miro’s Capture
Prince Miro’s Submission
Prince Miro’s Enslavement
Prince Miro’s Punishment
Prince Miro’s Escape
Prince Miro’s Final Confrontation
The Royal Captive: Vol 1 to 3
The Royal Captive: Vol 4 to 6
The ‘Naughty Nymphomaniac’ series
I was a Naughty Nymphomaniac
Officer, Please Spread and Cuff Me
Gang Banged by the Chain Gang
Tempting the Hot Navy SEAL
The ‘Delicate Piercings’ series
Her First Clit Ring
Her F
irst Clit Ring 2: Menage
The ‘Undercover’ series
Undercover: Exposing the Bad Doctor
Undercover: Stealing from the Sexy CEO
The ‘Alien’ series
Trapped with Sex-Starved Aliens
Trapped with Sex-Starved Aliens 2
Hot, Wet and Steamy (individual stories)
When He’s Inside You
My Stepson is a Naughty Stripper
The Gorgeous Naked Man in my Storm Shelter (Erotic Suspense)
Dear reader, as this list is not always comprehensive due to more stories being churned out after this point in publishing, please visit http://artemishunt.blogspot.com/ and http://aphroditehunt.blogspot.com/ for more stories and updates. I write as Artemis Hunt for erotic romances and Aphrodite Hunt for pure erotica. So please be aware of what you’re getting into, dear reader, when you read one of my stories. Thank you so much for your support.
READ THE FIRST CHAPTER OF MYSTERIOUS DESIRE
I don’t know what I’m doing here – kneeling before a toilet bowl in the second floor men’s restroom of a swanky hotel.
Oh wait. I do.
I’m trying to get through college, trying to make up the payments because my Mom lost her job. It isn’t her fault. In this economy, her company was retrenching half the staff, and since she was only two years into the job, that qualified her to take less of a package than the oldies. So she’s the one who has to take the fall.
The only problem with having so many retrenched people around? The jobs are scarce. Waitressing is good, but since I came in so late on the game, all the good jobs have been taken up. Morton’s. McCormick’s and Schmick’s. Giordano’s, home of the deep dish pizza.
So the only gig I can find is this one – being a maid in a hotel in downtown Chicago. It pays relatively well for what it’s worth since it’s a five-star hotel on the Magnificent Mile and everything.
As for my Dad? He blew when I was ten.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not wallowing in self-pity. I’m too busy scrubbing the toilet bowl in this stall until I can see my face on the concave surface, besides my reflection in the clean water. That’s how Mr. Mangorean likes them.
“Not one atom of grime must be discerned, Ms. Turner. We host Presidents and Secretaries of State.”
Well, there was only that one time during the Democratic convention, I want to say. But I don’t, of course. And I didn’t know grime was measured in atoms.
“So make sure it gleams, Ms. Turner. Gleams.”
There’s a fanatical gleam in his eye when he says this. I figure Mr. Mangorean is one of those people who love their jobs too much.
Still, I’m grateful to have a job. Any job. And so I put my head down, scrub until my right arm aches something awful. My reflection in the porcelain is that of an average-looking, dark-haired college junior. OK, I’m on the fairly attractive spectrum, but I’m nothing to shout home about. It’s not like I’m a cheerleader or something. The hot boys were always interested in my friends and roommates, never me.
It never bothered me. Mom and I were just trying too hard to get me into college, and now that I’m in – to keep me there. Survival just got in the way of boys.
Outside the stall, the door of the restroom whines open.
Drat.
Typical of people. They just ignore the ‘CLEANING IN PROGRESS, PLEASE DO NOT ENTER’ sign at the door and waltz in as if they own the place. I mean, neither do I (own the place), but at least I know how to avoid wet hotel bathroom floors. There was this one time that I almost slipped on one, the klutz that I am, and I’ve been avoiding them ever since.
Footsteps. The clippity-clap of men’s shoes on the wet linoleum. If he should slip and sue the hotel, I’m so not going to be responsible for this.
I wonder if I should give a shout-out like “Excuse me, sir, but did you notice the yellow sign outside the door? I’d really appreciate it if you’d go to the restroom downstairs.”
The one that doesn’t have an atom of grime in it last time I checked, since I’ve just cleaned it thirty minutes ago.
I don’t have to be anal about this. Maybe he’s desperate to take a leak. Maybe it’s an emergency.
The footsteps stop. After a while of not hearing anything else, I cautiously peek out of the stall.
A man is standing before the large mirror that stretches all the way across the wall with the multiple black marble sinks. And not just any man.
He’s the most gorgeous man I have ever seen.
I’m not just saying that. He really is, according to his reflection in the mirror. He has smoky eyes that look . . . well, I’m not sure what color they are from this distance . . . but they are half-closed and framed by the longest and most beautiful lashes, as if he’s contemplating something important. His brow is slightly furrowed, and he’s got the cutest little depression in his forehead just in between his frowning eyebrows.
His dark brown hair is longish and just kisses his shoulders. His lips are full and lush. And oh, his body beneath his charcoal grey suit. He’s wearing the suit – but his body is extremely tight. I can tell about these things. I’ve never had personal experience in touching a body like that, but I just can tell from my fantasies, you know what I mean?
A man who looks like that should be off-the-charts illegal. So what’s he doing here in this forbidden-for-thirty minutes-of-cleaning restroom? My restroom?
(Oh yeah, now I’m getting possessive about public restrooms. I’m just one step to becoming Mr. Mangorean.)
He’s so fixated with his own reflection (I know I would be too if I were him) that he doesn’t notice me.
He’s muttering to himself: “Damn, damn, damn, Fuck. Damn the bastard . . . to hell.” He grimaces and turns on one of the taps. Then he leans over the sink to splash water onto his gorgeous face.
He’s even hotter when he’s wet.
Amid the sound of the running water, he still doesn’t notice me as he raises his face – water-streaked and glistening like a river god’s.
He says, with heat, to his own reflection, “You’re not going to do what he tells you. This is the fucking last time.”
His accent is a little off. He speaks perfect English, of course, but he doesn’t talk like everyone around here. He’s not British. He’s not Canadian. I can’t really put my finger on his accent, but he’s only said very little, so far.
I should really give him his privacy.
Hell, he should give me my privacy.
I clear my throat and creep out of the stall, still holding my brush in one hand. The one that has been scrubbing away the atoms of grime.
He still doesn’t turn.
“Excuse me,” I say loudly. My own voice echoes weirdly in my ears. “Excuse me!”
The man swivels his head. His eyes widen in surprise as they see me.
I wave my brush. “I’m cleaning up in here, so if you’d like to use the first floor restroom, it will be a lot more private.” If there’s no one else in it, of course.
I think his eyes are a marvelous blue-green. Oh my God, they are dreamy. This is the last time I will ever see them, so I’d better soak them in while I can.
I’m staring at him and he’s staring back at me. I don’t know. We must have stared at each other for the longest time, or what I believe is the longest time – because time seems to have frozen for me. And even the trickle of sweat that runs in between my butt cleft seems to travel ever so slowly . . . as the atoms of electrified air between us freeze.
Of course, I’m sure it’s only stopped still for me. With him, the clock is ticking on as normal. My clock is ticking somewhere inside me too – I can feel it in my pulse.
Ba dup. Ba dup. Ba dup.
My breath catches in my throat.
The edges of his mouth crinkle and actually turn upward.
“Hi,” he says softly.
Hi?
I almost turn around to see who he’s saying ‘hi’ to. Because men who look like that don�
�t say ‘hi’ to me. Least of all a maid on her knees who is half in and half out of the open door of a toilet stall.
“Hi,” I squeak back.
His wonderfully-shaped lips part ever so slightly and his nostrils flare as he takes me in.
“Hi,” he says again. He splays his hand. “I’m just, um, cleaning up here.”
I don’t know what’s going on with me, but I can only mutely stare up at his face. You know that feeling when all your senses flee you and there’s this all-powerful electromagnetic attraction that consumes you and makes your guts go upside down and inside out and all squelchy? Well, my roommates tell me that all the time but I’ve never personally experienced it.
Until now.
I feel like the floor has suddenly dropped from under my feet.
It can’t be just his looks. It can’t be.
“Are you all right?” he says, concerned.
I realize I’m still on the floor. I hastily put down the brush, and oh – I do feel a little woozy. Blood has definitely drained out of my head and into my goodness-knows-where, but I experience a tightening in my most intimate of places.
I recognize it as primordial lust.
Oh my God. I’ve just met this man whom I will never see again . . . and I’m lusting after him?
“It’s not lust,” I can hear the voice of my roommate, Deanna, telling me. “It’s love at first sight. I’m telling you. You’ll know when it happens.”
“There’s no such thing,” I scoffed at her then.
No one can fall in love at first sight. It’s always lust. Some animal attraction that implodes you. But here it is. And I don’t want to think it’s just lust. I can’t seem to get up. My knees have turned to shaky pudding. My insides have melted.
No, not lust. It’s kismet.
Like I’ve just met my karmic soul-mate.
With a couple of steps, he’s at my side.
“Hey, you all right?”