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  I looked around my little apartment. It was tidy since I didn’t have much. Just a few pictures of me and... him.

  I wondered for a moment if it would leave Jonathon with the impression that I was married or in a relationship. I wasn’t. And I hadn’t been in many years. I hadn’t even wanted to be in a man’s arms, not until I saw Jonathon.

  I questioned if it was a relationship I desired or a man to make me feel like a woman again.

  Relationships were complicated. People got hurt. Men and women wanted two different things. We wanted hearts and flowers. They wanted sex and the physicality involved, or that was what we thought, anyway.

  By we, I meant women who believe that all endings should be happy, and that if they weren’t, we would live each day wishing for a different ending.

  I had learned that it was not true about me. I knew there was a beginning, a middle, and an end to each person’s interpersonal story. I knew that life was full of those relationships, all making up chapters in my book that was life.

  I decided on the latter.

  Would Jonathon be another chapter?

  I certainly hoped so.

  I finally pushed myself off the cold, metal door and quickly walked around, tidying up the place. I found myself placing flowers and figurines in front of the pictures, preferring not to have those awkward conversations if it could be avoided, yet I wouldn’t hide my past. It was that who had made me who I was today.

  Coffee. I giggled to myself, and then thought it was much more convenient than asking for sugar. Or, in my case, offering it.

  I stopped in front of the mirror and looked at myself, remembering I had also been at the gym and a shower might be a good idea for me as well.

  I didn’t have time to do my hair, so I simply scrubbed my body and swiped the razor over my legs, armpits, and between my legs. Every skin follicle seems to come alive with every sensation, every bead of water, and every touch. My need for this man only grew as I readied myself for his arrival.

  While toweling off, I felt silly. He probably wasn’t interested in anything but my coffee beans.

  Then I cringe at the thought of having just shaved my pubic area. If things got steamy, would he wonder if I had prepared for him? Or would he think I was a woman who was overtly sexual and had been with man after man after man?

  I pondered the idea that it might be what a man like him wanted—a woman who was that sexual, who thought more like a man than a woman when it came to her sexuality. He wouldn’t be completely wrong in that thinking.

  Sex was sex. It was physical. It was an exchange, a connection, a release.

  I was a smart woman. I knew that a man didn’t fall in love with a woman for her body’s ability to please him. He fell in love with a woman whom he respected, and one who could stimulate him mentally as well as physically. He fell in love with a woman because he needed her in his life, not because he liked her in his bed. He fell in love with a woman because she would take a bullet for him.

  When I heard a knock on the door, I quickly pulled the clip out of my hair and threw on a pair of leggings and a t-shirt.

  I opened the door to find him standing there, freshly showered and smelling of man and soap.

  I opened the door wider and invited him in.

  “Let me grab you that coffee,” I said, tucking my hair behind my ears as I turned around.

  In the kitchen, I reached up to the top shelf of the cupboard and pulled down the bag of coffee beans, and then turned to grab a baggy to put some in for him to take.

  But I couldn’t turn. His hands were gripping the counter top, caging me in.

  I felt my entire body buzz at just the knowledge that he was so close and seemed so... alpha.

  “I’m not here for coffee, Annie.” His bravado voice was so sexy, confident, aware.

  I felt my knees begin to shake slightly.

  “No?”

  “I think we both know why I’m here.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Turn around, Annie. I want those lips.”

  I turned slowly and looked up at him.

  “These ones?” I asked, licking them slowly.

  He nodded as he stared at my tongue, and then he wrapped his massive, muscular arms around me, lifted me off my feet, and then carried me into my bedroom, staring into my eyes the entire time, saying nothing verbally. In his eyes, though, I knew what his intentions, desires, and needs were.

  And I knew my eyes were telling him the same story.

  He laid me on the bed then leaned down, his wet hair, fresh from a shower, hanging inches above my face as he held his body over mine. The weight was deliciously comfortable as I felt the tingles building deeply in my belly.

  Inside, I was pulsing everywhere, anticipating his first move.

  His lips, I hungered for them. I craved the way they had tasted in my dreams.

  I felt starved after just a day without them.

  He leaned lower, his hands holding mine hostage above my head. Avoiding my lips entirely, he kissed down my body, until he was all the way down to my navel. There, he pulled my shirt up, and that was when I remembered I had not put on a bra after my shower.

  At that moment, as he pushed my shirt up with his nose, as he nibbled his way to my breasts, I was forever grateful I had forgotten.

  When his mouth took my left nipple, and he sucked on it, I felt euphoric.

  “Oh, God... Yes, Jonathon.”

  I close the book and sit back. My dick is hard, and my heartbeat is fast.

  I look at the clock. I have twenty minutes before I can head back down.

  Son of a bitch, I think as I look down at my cock.

  Chapter Eight

  Tatum

  I sit at my laptop, looking out the window of my hotel room. It’s dark. I lost track of time. Then I look at the bottle of wine and realize I am on my third glass. My mind can’t seem to get in the zone.

  The blank screen taunts me. The blinking cursor begs for letters to form words, words to form sentences, and sentences to tell a story.

  I have written and deleted three thousand words from my manuscript today. I hate this story. I hate it, and I want to tell Melanie to stick it in her ass like I am making the hero do to the poor virgin woman in this damn book.

  Anal. Seriously, who begs to have a dick shoved in their ass? Ugh.

  I stand up and look at the river. It calls to me. It looks much prettier at night when you can’t see the mucky, polluted waters caused by years and years of factories dumping their wastes into it. What a waste, literally.

  I close my eyes and think maybe the characters in this damn romance novel should take a sexy dip in the river, but then I think of skin-eating chemicals or brain-eating super bacteria that have mutated because of the chemicals. And then my characters will be forced into comas and die a slow death while their families have to sit and watch them waste away.

  Get a grip. For Christ’s sake, you faked orgasms before; the least you can do is fake a damn happily ever after for a fucking paycheck, I tell myself.

  Melanie never asks me for something this big. She wouldn’t have if it wasn’t important. This is me trying to rationalize my way into the writing groove.

  I grab my glass of wine, pour the contents into the cup my iced coffee was in from the coffee shop this morning, throw on my black coat, and decide to get some sins-piration from the mucky—I mean, beautiful—river lit up by the twinkling moonlight.

  I walk out of the hotel room and consider leaving a note, just in case he uses the key card I gave him. Shutting the door behind me, though, I think how ridiculous it was to leave it for him in the first place. How would I know if he even got the damn thing?

  This book, living fictitiously, is screwing with my sense of reality and reason. Yet, even knowing this, it’s hard to stop myself from popping a Post-it on my door in case we miss each other in the elevator.

  To passing ships in the night, I think, realizing that being closed up ten hours in a hotel roo
m alone with myself while concocting fairy tales for peoples’ entertainment is causing me to think foolishly, as if I am some love-struck, naive woman.

  “Like Melanie,” I say out loud as I hit the button and wait for the elevator.

  Outside, I sit across the street from my hotel on an iron and wooden bench in front of the river. I suppose it could be romantic if someone was here to share the moment with me. Someone with dark hair, green eyes, and who stood like a statue and had a manbun. Someone I expected to be bringing back my book tonight, but has yet to show up.

  Clearly, it was a one-time thing. Clearly, he didn’t want a woman like me. Hell, I put myself out there in a way I never had, never wanted to, but with him... God, with him it seems so wrong, but in a way that is oh so right.

  I should be embarrassed. I laugh to myself because, who lays spread out on a bed, fingering themselves for a man to just kiss them? Then he went and jerked off instead of fucking me? What the hell is up with that?

  I’m not that bad.

  I was never pretty in the prom queen/cheerleader way, yet I’m not ugly, either. I am smart too, dammit. Doesn’t that count for something?

  “Not in today’s world,” I answer myself out loud.

  Get a hold of yourself, Tatum. And no more ten-hour binge writing, especially not fiction of this nature. More importantly, not in the way that leads to blank screens in the end.

  I lean forward, rest my elbows on my knees, and hold my head in my hands.

  I was also never a girl, or a woman, who needed a man to validate whether or not I am desirable. Why am I second-guessing myself now?

  Well, smart one, I scold myself. You’ve never been so on fire before.

  Fire, I never played with the stuff. It is naturally destructive, uncontrollable, and can do irrevocable damage. I am also never one to shy away from a conflict, a task, or a mere mortal because, as my grandmother taught me, “No one can make you feel anything you’re not, unless you let them.”

  As if the universe thought I was giving it the proverbial finger, someone comes out of nowhere and grabs my bag, returning the fuck you. They don’t grab my drink. No, they grab my bag. Even worse, my purse is a cross body, and I am quite literally attached to it.

  In a haze, things seem to happen in slow motion. I know panic should hit me, but it doesn’t. My mind simply blanks.

  “Let go!” I shout as he pulls at it. “I said, let go!” I drop my coffee cup filled with the sweet wine to the ground and start to fight my attacker.

  I am pulling, he is pulling, and I am losing the battle since he is bigger, stronger, and probably on some drugs, so he’s fearless.

  God, why did I come out tonight? Why did I drink so much wine? Why did I let myself come here?

  It’s too dark to see his face, and he has on a hoodie. I know as soon as I am out from under the streetlight, I am going to get hurt... or worse.

  He pulls, and I realize his strength is greater than I first anticipated. Instinct takes over and fight or flight kicks in. I try to free myself from the damn bag and get the strap up and over my arm, when he pulls harder.

  “Help!” I scream, seriously needing it.

  He yanks so hard I fall to the ground, the strap nearly cutting into my neck. He won’t stop pulling.

  Gagging, I try to remember to yell something, anything to draw attention. I try to kick out, but I fail to make contact with my assailant.

  I’m going to be strangled by this damn Coach bag Melanie gave me last year for Christmas and die on the streets of a city I promised to visit and never did.

  I think of Gregory, and how I promised him I would come here. After seven years, I finally did, and for what? This?

  “Help! You mother—”

  Two hits then a splash; that’s all I hear. That and the sound of me gasping for air.

  A hand clamps onto my elbow and hoists me up. I look up to see “Legacy” across a black sweatshirt. I look up another foot, and there he is. Wet hair, not pulled back, and his eyes are fiery.

  “Do you have a damn death wish?” he snarls at me.

  I shake my head then grab my neck. It hurts.

  His eyes widen, and I close mine, not wanting to be scolded or scrutinized anymore.

  “Let’s get you back to your room. It’s safe in there. You have an aversion to safety, Tatum?”

  The way he says my name is so sensual. It’s like he’s licking, rubbing, and sucking it right here on the street, making it even more sensual than in the confines of a hotel room.

  All thoughts of my aches go away as a new ache builds between my legs. I was just accosted on the street, yet Angelo stands in front of me and all rational thoughts and reactions fly out the window.

  “No,” I whisper.

  “No to me taking you up, or no to you doing stupid shit that could have gotten you robbed, or even worse?”

  “Where is he? Did we catch him?” I ask, holding the left side of my neck and trying to look around him for the hooded culprit.

  “We”—he pauses for an exaggerated effect—“tossed him into the river.”

  “We what?” I yell, shocked at what he said.

  He says nothing more. He just looks at me with his jaw popping and his eyes narrowing.

  I start to take off my shoes when a pain shoots through my neck.

  “Sonofabitch!” I grab my neck as I kick at my damn shoes. My eyes flutter with flashes of light, and I feel like I could vomit.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” he asks in a very calm, yet deep rumble.

  “We can’t just let him drown! We have to save him.”

  “Look”—he pauses like he’s unsure of what to call me—“Annie.”

  “Tatum,” I say in a squeak, feeling like yes, this fiction crossing into reality might be going too far, even as I want him to touch me, kiss me, lick me, and so much more.

  “Right.” He shakes his head and runs his fingers through his long hair and starts again. “Tatum, look.” He points. “He’s on the bank. Now he’s running like the scared little chicken shit he is. He’s far from drowning.”

  “Well, we should call the police. He needs to be accountable for his actions.”

  “You want me to chase after him, drag him up the bank, and do what? Sit and have a soul to soul moment with him about his actions?”

  Shoving my foot back into my shoe while holding my neck, I huff. “Right, we should talk to him; tell him he shouldn’t have done that. And maybe we can find out why he did it and help him figure out a way to make better choices.” As if by instinct, I grab his hand and take two steps before I realize moving him is nearly impossible. Okay, it is impossible. “Let’s go.”

  “You really think—”

  I drop his hand and start to move quickly toward the hooded man running down the riverbank.

  He grabs my hand, stopping me.

  “He’ll get away,” I protest.

  “Tatum, you aren’t going to change a man like that. You either put him behind bars or let him go.”

  “That’s B.S.,” I say as I walk quicker.

  “Woman, again, do you have a death wish?” he asks, gripping my bicep.

  On a huff, I respond, “You already asked me that. I don’t have a death wish.” My neck is on fire, and my head is beginning to pound. “I’m not afraid of anything or anyone,” I say with a quick nod that reminds me yet again of my pulled muscle. “Dammit.”

  “You should be afraid.”

  His words, I can’t help wondering if it’s him he is talking about. Regardless, I go with the first.

  “He didn’t have a weapon,” I argue.

  “Hands can be lethal and deadly weapons, Tatum,” he says, dragging me toward the hotel. “At night, a woman like you certainly shouldn’t be sitting outside by the river alone.”

  “I was looking for inspiration,” I reply, taking longer steps to keep up with him.

  He looks over his shoulder at me, rolls his eyes, then turns around and keeps walking. He walks into
the hotel to the elevators and hits the button before releasing my arm. When the door opens, he tells me. “Go back to your room, Tatum. And stay there.”

  I step in, expecting him to follow. When several people enter the elevator, I stand there, watching him as the door closes, him still on the other side.

  Sonofabitch, I think as the elevator ascends to the second floor, stopping for a couple with a baby.

  For the entire ride, I wonder why he’s there at every corner, which is an ignorant notion. I mean, I did leave the journal purposely for him to read. And in the beginning, I followed him wearing a silly hoodie like I wouldn’t stand out. Again, I did pour my every fantasy of him into a journal and left it for him in the hopes of him showing up. Yet, he clearly has no intention of touching me.

  But he did. He did touch me. He also called me Annie. He touched my arm and led me inside, making sure I was in the elevator and heading back to my room. Does he want to play this ruse with me? Will he be my Jonathon, and I his Annie?

  He threw a man into the damn river! I almost... almost swoon over that.

  I want to smack myself in the forehead. All this researching romance tropes and the online articles on writing a hero that’s swoon-worthy are seriously getting to me.

  If I were that kind of woman, the one who believes in the alpha man and all his “me, man; you, woman” stuff, I would feel heat resonating throughout my body, my face would be flushed, my pussy clenching, and... Oh hell, I’m swooning. Ugh.

  Again, I want to smack myself.

  When the door opens on my floor, I step out and see him standing there, eyes blazing, chest quickly rising up and down.

  “How...? Where...?”

  “Took the stairs,” he answers.

  “Why?”

  “Don’t like the elevator.” He starts walking toward my door, pulling my book out of the pocket of his hoodie, then pulls out the key. Without a word, he opens the door and walks in.

  Nervous, I stand frozen at the door.

  “You want me to ask for coffee? Or you just wanna get right down to it?”