Spanked (2 page)

He raised his eyebrows in wonder as if wondering what the hell
I
was doing there.

"You must be talking about Jim," he said in that voice that was driving me crazy.

He stepped to the side and opened the door wider. "Come on in," he said.

Somehow, even though this was the first time I’d ever seen him and I didn’t know him from Adam, I felt as if I could trust this man.

All the fear that had enveloped me just a few minutes before quickly evaporated, disappeared into the thin air and I found myself walking inside the house and right past the gorgeous hunk.

As I did so, I couldn't help but catch a whiff of a sexy-smelling cologne emanating from him.

Who was
this
guy and what was he doing here? I wondered. He just didn't seem to belong here, inside this messy house.

More importantly, how was I going to find out about what had brought me here with this gorgeous hunk distracting me from my mission, I wondered as I now gave myself time to adjust to the dim light in the living room.

I gave a quick gasp as my eyes got adjusted and I saw right in front of me, lying on the couch, Mr. Dirty Fingernails. He must be the Jim that the gorgeous hunk had mentioned.

He had his eyes closed and his tongue hanging out in a weird angle.

His face was so pale, he looked like he was dead more than he was alive. And he was still naked, apart from a white towel covering his lower body.

Mr. Gorgeous Hunk approached me from behind and scared the crap out of me when he touched my shoulder.

I jumped.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to scare you."

I nodded. "Is he uh...is he okay?" I said pointing to the passed out, half-naked Jim on the couch.

Gorgeous Hunk nodded his head. "He's going to be okay." He stretched out his hand. "I'm sorry, the name's Michael. But you can call me Mike."

How about I call you Gorgeous?

I looked at the stretched out massive hand. He was wearing one of those tight muscle tee shirts, a black one, so I could see the entire length of his muscular arm. And it was a muscular one.

Fuck!

I felt a small twinge of something right in my loins. What the heck was that? It was nothing I'd ever felt before.

I put my hand in his giant paw, "Katie," I somehow managed to say.

He smiled and shook my hand. "Nice to meet you, Katie," he said. He had beautiful, white teeth that actually made me envious, made me wish my teeth looked as good as his did. "So what brings you here today?" He said.

I forced myself to focus on the issue at hand. I pointed to Jim.

"Well, I wanted to talk to him," I said.

Michael peered closer at me, “Jim? He’s out cold right now, as you can see,” he said. “You want me to pass along any message when he comes to?"

Not in a million years!

As much as I wanted to know what had happened last night, I knew there was no way I was telling this gorgeous man that I was here to find out if I'd had sex with Dirty Fingernails Jim.

I don't know why I didn't want to tell him that, seeing that I didn't even know him and he didn't know me, but that's just the way I felt.

Shit.

I looked at Jim again and I knew there was no way he was waking up anytime soon. Not with his tongue hanging out the way it was.

And he still looked nasty, dirty fingernails and all. Hell, even the towel covering his private parts didn’t want anything to do with him. It was slowly inching toward the floor, exposing that shrivelled up manhood again.

But more importantly, if Mr. Dirty Fingernails wasn’t waking up anytime soon, then that was bad for me.

Very bad.

Bad because it meant that I'd have to leave this house today without knowing the answer to my question and that, to me, was a freakin’ nightmare.

I wanted that answer today.

I needed to know.

This was really messed up. What the hell was I gonna do now? 

“Hello?” Michael interrupted my thoughts.

I looked at him and could tell, from the look in his eyes, that he was waiting for an answer to his question, "What the heck did I want to speak to Jim about?"

"Never mind," I said. "I'll come back another time." And before he could even get a chance to respond, I turned and walked to the front door. I could feel his eyes on me as I let myself outside and literally run to my car.

I got in and for a moment just sat staring ahead, my hands clutching at the steering wheel.

I didn't understand what had just happened.

My head was spinning and my mind was reeling with a thousand thoughts all at once.

The one thing I was sure of: I still didn't know if I was a virgin or not and I wasn't sure that I'd actually have the guts to go back to that house ever again.

Monday morning arrived and I was still feeling shitty on account of spending the entire weekend racking my brains, trying to recollect what had happened Saturday night followed later by the events of Sunday afternoon when I'd met Michael.

I was in a pickle and to remain sane I knew I had to make a choice and stick with it. I could either go back to my life and try and put the entire weekend behind me or I could let it ruin me by not letting it go and pursuing this Jim guy.

I instinctively knew that going back to my life as if everything was normal would drive me up a tree but I also knew that going back to Jim's house was absolutely out of the question.

I don't even know how I’d gotten the guts to do it Sunday afternoon. Must have still been suffering from a Tequila hangover.

I got out of bed and decided that this was going to be a new chapter in my life. Whatever had happened, happened. There was nothing I could do to change it now.

I was going to move on with my life and just try to make better choices from now on. I put on my gym clothes and shoes, grabbed a towel, a bottle of water and headed for the gym.

Nothing like a good workout to take your mind off the worries of the world, even if it was only for an hour.

Thank God that Monday turned out to be a busy one.

I spent the entire morning on the phone, calling up local businesses and trying to drum up some new business.

Then spent the entire afternoon with a few regular students.

I couldn't wait for the day to be over so that I could go home and drink a glass of cold, sweet, red wine. After that, I planned to soak myself in a long, hot bath.

I was glad that the day had turned out to be a busy one because my goal when I got to work that morning had been to throw myself into my work and forget my "F'd up" weekend. 

I only had one more dance class left for that evening and I had two new students coming in so I had to remain on top of my game.

One of the new students was a nineteen year old car accident victim going through rehab and when I'd talked to her over the phone, she'd said that dancing was the only thing that really inspired her to get up and out of bed everyday.

The other new student was a six year old, little girl called Lisa. I'd met her mother while we were both getting pedicures and upon learning what I did, she was eager to get her daughter started. But, she warned me, she was a busy woman and she might not always be the one bringing her daughter over.

Was that okay? She’d wanted to know.

"Of course," I'd chimed right back.

I now looked at the clock. It was almost six o'clock. Time for my evening class before I had to close shop.

So far, so good. I hadn't spent a single minute thinking about my disastrous weekend. 

The nineteen year old came in first, wheeled in on a wheelchair by her brother with her mother in tow.

I welcomed her and helped her get situated while waiting for the other new student.

Two minutes later, the door swung open and in came a sweet-as-pie little six year old girl with wavy, blond hair.

Right behind her was a tall, gorgeous man with a shock of blond hair and piercing blue eyes. His broad shoulders, muscular arms and the disarming smile made me take a step back, almost tripping over a yoga mat and falling flat on my butt.

Michael!

Yes.

That Michael.

Mr. Fuckin'-gorgeous-ass-handsome-hunk-Michael from Sunday afternoon over at Dirty Fingernails Jim’s house.

Suddenly, my day, which had been going so well, flushed down the drain right in front of my very eyes.

Michael stepped in to the room and quickly steadied me.

His hands on my shoulders as he held onto me sent electric currents through my entire body. Why was it that this man sent my body in such states of confusion?

And where was this electricity coming from anyway? How come I’d never felt it when other men had touched me?

"You okay?" He said his eyes showing concern.

I smiled back and somehow managed to extract myself from his grasp.

I nodded. "Yes." I said and bent over to pick up the yoga mat. "It's just this blasted mat that was in the way."

I could not let him see the effect he was having on me.

Outwardly I was calm as fuck but inside I was a raging tornado. This was a disaster.

What was he doing in my class?

What was he doing in my life?

What was he doing to me?

The memories of the weekend that was, the weekend that I was trying so hard to forget and succeeding until now, came roaring back with a vengeance.

I don't even know how I managed to teach the dance class that evening. With every move I made, I could feel his powerful presence in the room but when I glanced over━very quickly, mind you━he was doing anything but looking at me.

He would either be reading one of the magazines that I had out for guests or he would be on his cell phone.

Apparently, according to what he’d told me, the little six year old girl was his niece.

Now my classes usually ran for five weeks, so that meant, that if the little girl came every week, and he was the one who was going to be bringing her over then I'd get to see him every week. And with the kind of havoc he was already wrecking inside me, that to me, was unacceptable.

I was already very confused as it was.

When it came to dating and men, I was a complete doofus. I'd gone straight from high school to college and then onto my own business with laser like vision. Hadn't even stopped a minute to breath and enjoy the social life.

The few girlfriends I had all were uber socialites with veritable sex lives. And most other women I knew my age were married with kids or were divorced and had kids.

So this Michael guy suddenly tramping into my life was, to me, uncharted territory.

My feelings were all over the place and I had no idea how to proceed.

Even before the one and a half hour class was over, I knew one thing for sure. I couldn't go on like this. Something had to give and it came down to either me rejecting the little girl as a client or me talking to this Michael guy and telling him men weren't allowed in my dance studio.

Which would be total BS and he’d probably call me out on it because he'd already seen another man in the studio.

Namely the brother of the nineteen year old accident victim so I knew that that wouldn't fly. But what the hell else was I going to do?

Get a handle on my feelings?

Well, that was kinda hard considering I'd never felt like this before in the presence of any other man. I didn't know how to handle these type of feelings.

Reject the six year old girl as a client? Well, I couldn't do that. She'd done nothing wrong except have an uncle who was abso-friggin-lutely killing me.

What the hell was I gonna do now?

I decided that I was going to have to talk to Michael. No, I wasn't going to tell him how I felt or anything like that. I was just going to find out, as deftly as possible, if he was going to be coming to my dance studio every week with his niece.

But what if he told me that, yes, he was going to be coming over every week?

What was I going to do then?

I didn't have the answer to that just yet but I knew I had to do something and this sure as heck beat out all the other options I had.

Finally, after the class was over, I approached Michael and pulled him to the side while his niece was in the bathroom changing from her dance clothes back to her regular clothes.

For a moment, while standing next to him and feeling like a dwarf━I was only five foot six inches to his six foot height━I found myself at a loss for words.

His disarming smile combined with his super-sexy smelling cologne threw me for a loop and I suddenly found myself fumbling around for words.