Hooked Up: Book 3 (12 page)

I zipped along swiftly, in the direction of the woody grove—New Yorkers walk fast—no meandering ever; you could get mugged that way. I wore eyes in the back of my head even though New York was now a very safe city. But this part of the park was remote. When I heard footsteps behind me, I was aware of what a risk-taker I was. Rock-climbing, trapezes, going with two jocks to their dorm alone, and dating a man too young for me with such a rampant sexual appetite—he desired more than one woman to satiate him; he’d date us both simultaneously if he could get away with it. When would I ever learn? The footsteps were male, booted, tough . . . Holy crap! I spun around, my fists in balls, and called Rex over to my side. I needed to clip him back into his leash to show the world I was a woman with a black Pit-bull mix . . . DON’T MESS WITH ME!

T
HE MORNING was icy and crisp, showing New York City at its most beautiful. Snowflakes drifted through the air as if in slow motion, and an orange glow of sun was casting warm gleams onto the white landscape of Central Park. Dogs were loose, playing and rolling about with each other; their tails up, their owners proud. The dog world going on in the park amused me; the one place where social classes of all ranks could mix happily because they all shared something in common: canines. Park Avenue heiresses and blue collar workers all eyed up their babies, talking of nothing but their dogs’ vets visits, eating habits, and quirks. I watched as Pearl and Sally exchanged dialogue, observing Rex, who trotted happily off with Pearl into the depth of the park. I didn’t like it the way Pearl was so nonchalant about her own safety. Into the depth of the wood she went, into the Ramble, alone, where some people prowled for anonymous sexual encounters, attracted by the thick cloak of vegetation, serpentine paths, giant boulders and meandering streams.

I followed her, my breath white in the chilled air, my collar up, my boots squeaking on the powdery snow. It made me think of something Pearl had said once, and I laughed. “Love is like snow,” she told me. “You never know how many inches you’re going to get.” Inches, in more ways than one, I thought, feeling myself expand inside my jeans the second I set eyes on her. It was insane; just seeing her from afar could get me aroused. And I couldn’t deny it now; I was plagued with the idea of never fucking her again. It was driving me to distraction. I couldn’t concentrate on work, she was in my dreams, my daydreams—all our lovemaking sessions, both rampant and gentle, were playing and rewinding, and playing and rewinding, in my sexually deprived, love-obsessed brain. All Laura’s talk about my getting her pregnant had done only one thing: make me obsess about getting
Pearl
pregnant. Father her child. The idea of even
touching
Laura was abhorrent to me.

My inner animal was awoken as I watched Pearl now; wearing her little wool hat, her blonde hair peeking out, spread over her shoulders as she held her head up, catching snowflakes on her fresh pink tongue. I had to kiss her. I wanted her hand to alleviate my aching groin that held so much seed, only for her. Like the park perverts, I stalked her into the wooded area, in hope that she would speak to me—my fantasies had me fucking her up against a tree. My cock flexed again, imaging how sweet that would be—I could feel that rod of mine pining for attention, eager to fulfill its biological role.

I was the prowler and Pearl my prey.

“Pearl!” I shouted after her. She carried on walking. Rex was darting in and out of scrubby groves, chasing squirrels. “Pearl, stop!”

I
T WAS
HIM
. No less dangerous than a mugger. He was dressed in a long military coat that looked as if it was from World War One, and big black boots. His hair was damp and ruffled from the snowflakes, his dark eyelashes sparkling with moisture, his curvy lips red from the cold, tilted up into his signature crooked smile. He looked delicious, sexy, mysterious. Uh oh.

“Pearl, stop!” Alexandre rushed up to me and grabbed my arm, forcing me to stumble into him. His breath was on my face, hot mist clouding the tiny space between our mouths. He had the “I’m going to fuck you” look written all over his face, and I knew I was in trouble.

“What do you want Alexandre?” Stupid question. I knew what he wanted.

“I can’t bear this any longer, Pearl, please.” He started kissing my eyes, my nose, and the animalistic groan deep within him made my stomach flutter. I knew what would be beneath that military coat. A big, huge, rock-hard Weapon of Mass Destruction.

“Christ, I’ve missed you.”

“How’s Laura?” I hissed from my tightened mouth. My white, steamy breath was like a dragon’s: no less furious.

“Please let’s not argue. Please, chérie, I’m going crazy without you. I need you.”

“You just want me for my body, Alexandre.”

“That’s not true. I need you, baby. I need—”

“You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.”

“You’re the only cake I want, I swear.” He took my gloved hand and pulled me toward him. “Come over here, we have to talk.”

“We can talk right here.”

“Too public, please baby.”

He drew me behind him, toward a large elm tree, and pinned me up against the solid trunk. “I have to kiss you.”

“No.”

But he started with his trademark wispy kisses on my eyes, on my icy cheeks and then my temple. I quivered all over and could feel my panties moisten. “Leave me alone, you bastard. How did you find me, anyway, now that I don’t have my phone?”

He breathed in the scent of me. “I have ways.”

“Did Sally sell me out?”

“No, annoyingly Sally’s on your side.” He slipped his black leather-gloved hand through a small opening in my coat and around my waist. Then the other hand. I felt him un-glove himself and his warm fingers traced their way over my bare flesh. My skin tingled. He started a familiar journey, down the back of my butt cheeks, but I slammed my behind against the tree, trapping his hand. He was inches away from knowing how wet I was, and how I longed for him inside me.

“Ouch, tigress, that hurts.”

“Take your hand away, Alexandre.”

“I know that you secretly want me, chérie, but as you wouldn’t let me see you, I thought I’d better come and claim what’s mine wherever I could . . . and it happens to be here in Central Park.”

“Get it through that arrogant, ego-inflated head of yours that I do not belong to you! I am not your soul mate, nor your
media
naranja
. You have all that already with
Laura
.”

“You
are
my soul mate, my
media naranja
, my wife-to-be, my everything, Pearl. You’re Rex’s mother, too. We’re a family.”

Little did he know there was more family on the way. “You ruined and destroyed all that by seeing Laura again!”

“How many more times do I have to tell you that I don’t love Laura? I don’t want her—haven’t for years, and certainly not since I met you. The truth is, I don’t even
like
her anymore.”

I bellowed at him, “Love and like have nothing to do with it for you. You covet her because you can’t bear to give up any of your women. You’re like a cock with his hens. You
are
a cock! One big walking, talking, cock! You have a Weapon of Mass Destruction that you go around using at every opportunity!”

He stroked a loose tendril of hair from my cheek. “I swear, believe me, it’s been tucked away, unused except by my own hand since I last made love with you.”

“You haven’t ‘made love’ with me for ages, you
fucked
me! ‘Fucked my ass off’ ‘fucked my brains out’ as your expression goes.”

“Come back and live with me again and we’ll be making love again . . . just . . . I go crazy when I see you . . . this sex fast—of us not living together—is making me go insane, so the last few times we got together, I felt like a animal.”

He took my hand. “Feel it. Feel how hard it is. All I can think of is your voice, your smile, Pearl, your face, your lips, your ass, your tits, and most importantly, your soul, your essence, your very being. I can’t live without you, chérie. Every waking moment, every sleeping second I’m dreaming of you. I’m so crazy about you, it hurts.”

“Then fucking stay away from that asparagus stick bitch, Laura!” I yelled, remembering how Sophie had described her as an asparagus.

Rex came bounding over and jumped up. My screaming alerted him and he started to bark at his master. “You see?” I screeched—“even Rex is on Team Pearl. He knows what a prize jerk you are. A lying, two-timing jackass!”

“Look, I’m dealing with Laura—”

“
Dealing
with her? You are unbelievable. Un-fucking-believable!” I tried to break away from his devouring gaze, which was swallowing me whole.

But he had my wrists in a clasp so I couldn’t escape. Christ, he was sexy.

“I swear I haven’t lied to you. I swear I’ve been faithful. I haven’t touched Laura, please trust me, Pearl. Please have faith.”

“Then why have you been seeing her?”

“I can’t tell you. But trust me.” He breathed into my face seductively. He smelled of apples and sweetness. “I was just protecting someone I love.”

“Someone
else
you love? How many of us
are
there, Alexandre? How many more women have you got hooked on you?”

“I’m sorry, chérie. But I had to see Laura, I had no choice.” He looked down at his boots. “And I’m afraid I’ll have to see her again.”

His words stabbed my heart.
I’ll have to see
her again.
I shouted out in a jealous rage, “What is it that Laura has that I don’t?”

“Something I need from her. Once I get it, I’ll never go near her again, I promise.”

I tried to struggle free. “You are quite something, Alexandre Chevalier. Wow! You really win the prize for being a French macho SHIT-head!”

He kept hold of my wrists. “Please, baby, trust me. I can’t say more, just trust me.” He pushed his soft lips onto mine and kissed my closed, bitter mouth. He began to lick me very gently, and an unbidden low moaning sound escaped my throat . . . my downfall. He pushed his wavering tongue inside my longing mouth and parted it. My jaw dropped open. Even through his thick military coat, I felt his erection pressed up against my thighs.

“Hey, you two! No indecent behavior in public!”

I opened my eyes from my reverie and said a silent prayer to St. Lucy.
Thank you, Santa Lucia, for saving me; for shining a light on this situation and showing it up for what it is: madness.
It was a police officer. He started to make his way over toward us, half smiling as if he were kidding about “indecency,” but I took this opportunity. I slipped from underneath Alexandre’s clutches and dashed toward the uniformed stranger.

“Bye, Alexandre. Rex! Come boy, come!” I galloped at full pelt in the direction of the East side.

Rex ran behind me, following at racing speed. Rex had chosen me over his master, and I felt triumphant.

I didn’t look back.

M
Y EYES FOLLOWED Pearl as she ran off, trammeling fresh snow, Rex racing after her, his deep paw prints testament of his adoration.

Even Rex was against me or he would have stayed loyal by my side. I felt wrath swell in my heart—the kind I’d experienced in the Foreign Legion, because I felt a sense of hopelessness; that the world was outside of my control. Destiny taking its own pigheaded course. I needed to expel the pent-up energy spiraling though my veins. I needed sex to calm me. That obviously wasn’t going to happen.

So I needed to fight.

That rapist fuck had had it coming to him for nearly twenty years.

Payback time.

D
AISY AND I sat on her bed, with our legs tucked under us, while Amy played with her teddies in her wigwam.

“It’s just my body he wants, Daisy, nothing more. Laura was right; he’s in ‘lust’ with me.”

“Nonsense, he wants all of you.”

“All of me
and
all of Laura. He wants her for . . . I don’t know what, and me . . . just to fuck.”

“Rubbish. Look, Pearl, if all he was after was a sexy body . . . well, I don’t mean to sound harsh, and you do have an incredible body and you really are beautiful but . . . well, if all he wanted was a body, he could flick his thumb through any Victoria’s Secret catalogue and pick off any top model he wanted—well, anyone who Leonardo di Caprio hasn’t already claimed, that is. With his money and looks Alexandre could, literally, have any
body
. But he’s chosen you.”

“I suppose you’re right. It’s true, he really could be going out with a supermodel. He could get anyone. Sometimes . . . no, not sometimes, often, I wonder what he sees in me.”

Daisy rolled her eyes with irritation. “Stop sounding so poor-me, and buck up, woman! He sees your good heart, your soul. And you may not be a supermodel, but you look bloody amazing for your age. You have a better body than most twenty-five year-olds, and a beautiful face. You look like a young Grace bloody Kelly, for God’s sake. It really pisses me off when you start all that, ‘I’m just an average-looking girl next door’ nonsense. It’s bollocks. Plus, Alexandre feels at ease with you, likes to hang out. You both love dogs.”

I thought of Laura (Cruella De Vil) calling Rex a ‘creature’ and it made me seethe. “Alexandre swears nothing’s going on with Laura, and that I should trust him.”

Daisy sucked in a lungful of air. “Well, I’m obviously not the best person to discuss this with, after what Johnny did to me. And to Amy. I trusted him implicitly. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do that again with any man.”

“At least he wants you back and he’s groveling.”

“But I don’t want him back now. How could I live with that uncertainty again?”

“What about Amy?”

Daisy looked over at the wigwam. Amy was muttering to herself in different voices and playing ‘tea party’ inside. “That’s my only concern. Amy loves her dad, obviously, but at the same time it’s no good if we’re unhappy together—that’s no good for her at all.”

“You need more time to think it through. Let Johnny wallow in his misery a bit, it’ll do him good. Make him appreciate what he’s lost.” I realized I sounded like Alexandre—that was exactly what he’d said to me.