HOOKED: An Erotic Romance Read online

  ‘I need your names though,’ he said. ‘For my sheet.’ He pointed to a sheet on a clipboard in his sports bag.

  ‘Ah,’ I said, trying to regulate my breath. For some reason, even though I knew I had at least a reasonable level of fitness, my heart rate wasn’t returning back to normal. ‘My friend is Rebecca,’ I said.

  ‘And you?’ he asked, twisting his chest around a little, so that he was facing me head-on, his eyes piercing me.

  ‘I’m Michaela,’ I breathed, almost in a whisper.

  ‘Very masculine,’ he said. ‘Almost Michael.’

  ‘I suppose it is,’ I said, feeling embarrassed of my name for the first time in my life. It was strange, being around this overtly manly man. For some reason, he made me want to play up to my feminine side, to take my blonde curls out of their high ponytail, let them cascade down my back, to start giggling and pouting and doing the things that girls do. The things I never normally bothered doing. ‘What’s your name?’ I asked suddenly. ‘If you don’t mind me asking.’

  ‘I don’t mind,’ he said. ‘It’s Raoul.’ He pronounced each vowel in the middle of his name separately. Rah-ool. All that exhalation of breath. It was the sexiest name I’d ever heard.

  ‘Nice name,’ I said, full of wonder.

  ‘It’s Anglo-Saxon for “wolf”,’ he replied, and bared his teeth at me.

  ‘Wolf,’ I echoed, feeling my legs go weak. Must have been from all that standing and punching. I must have exhausted my muscles. I felt like I could drop to the floor.

  I felt his eyes, which, up until now, had been looking steadily into mine, wander a little lower, resting for a moment on my chest, rising and falling heavily with my big breaths, and then they wandered lower still, to my tiny waist, my plentiful hips, my tight hot pants.

  ‘I’ve got to pack up now,’ he said, turning back to his sports bag and undoing the knot of his belt, before I’d even had a chance to say goodbye to him. ‘Don’t be late next week,’ he said gruffly.

  Well. What a brute this guy was. I’d never come across such a bad-mannered teacher in all my life.

  I turned to walk out.

  Why was my heart still beating so fast?

  I walked out of the garage, burning with rage - and something else.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  A Jab In My Chest

  I was so angry, as I walked home, that I was barely looking where I was going - just striding across the sidewalks, not even watching the traffic carefully, muttering under my breath.

  How could a man make me feel like this? I’d always been so in control in the past. People rarely ruffled my feathers, and when they did, it was over something important, like work. Not this - a night-time exercise class I’d only gone along to to help out a friend.

  It’s not like I fancied him or anything. I could never be attracted to a man like that. I was attracted to men in suits. I liked my men successful; real go-getters, men who wined me and dined me, who bought me flowers and treated me right.

  Or at least, I thought that was what I was attracted to.

  So why had I rejected almost every guy that had asked me out in over a year? I’d only dated two guys since I’d been promoted to manager. One of them was the manager of a rival company. It felt good at first, to date someone at my level. A man that knows how to manage a team sure knows how to manage a woman. At first it had been fine. We’d been out to a few restaurants, to the theatre… even a weekend away in the Cotswolds. But soon enough, I got bored of it. Even the sex, which was alright sex as far as it went, began to bore me. It felt like a distraction, something I just had to get through so that I could make my excuses and leave, get back to my spreadsheets and my work.

  And then there’d been the photocopier man. I didn’t normally do things like that, but I’d had a bad day and I was feeling harassed and horny, and he was trying so hard to impress me while we were left alone in the office that evening. I knew he wanted me. We did it there and then, against the photocopier, just like the old cliché. But I don’t know what it was ; I just couldn’t get properly excited about it, even though it was so different from the wining and dining approach I’d stood by resolutely for the rest of my life. I think the photocopier guy had maybe just wanted me too much. It’s really unattractive to see someone trying so hard. Maybe that’s what it was.

  I crossed the road, barely looking at the lights to check the green man was lit up, and then passed some office blocks.

  Yeah, I was married to my work. That was my problem. If only something could take me away from that a little, help me let off some steam.

  I walked towards the underpass, barely noticing how dark it was getting.

  Maybe that’s what I was feeling now. Getting out some of that aggression had opened something up inside me. But what was inside that space I’d opened up? Was it just an empty hole, gaping like an open wound?

  Suddenly I felt a sharp jab in my chest, and for a moment I thought maybe I was having a heart attack, but then I became aware of two big guys with shaved heads, tackling me to the ground.

  ‘How much you got?’ snarled one of them, grabbed the ten pound note I hadn’t noticed I was still holding in my fist.

  The other guy put his hand over my mouth and pinned me down to the ground. ‘What’s a pretty thing like you doing out here alone, dressed like this?’ he asked, running his hand down my thigh. I tried to scream but all that came out was a muffled, garbled noise.

  I needed to do something. Fast. But I didn’t know what.

  I tried to bite down on the fingers in front of my mouth, but the hand was clamped down too hard for me to open my lips.

  Behind me was a shout, and I braced myself. There were more of them. This was it: I was about to die - or worse.

  As I lay on my back, looking up at the sky in terror, I saw a silhouette move over me, heard the heavy thwack of flesh on flesh, and saw the guy who had taken my ten pound note fall back onto the ground.

  I saw the dark shadow of a muscular leg, flicking out, and then another thwack, and the hand flew off my mouth and the other guy was on the ground as well.

  ‘Come on,’ said a low voice, giving me my ten pound note back, and then taking my hand and lifting me to my feet. Two strong arms picked me up, right off the ground, and carried me, with ease, away from the thugs, who lay groaning on the ground, grabbing their limbs, shocked and in pain.

  It wasn’t until we reached a car under the safety of some street lamps that I dared look up at my rescuer.

  ‘Are you okay?’ asked that same gruff voice I’d been cursing just a few minutes ago: Raoul.

  ‘I… I think so,’ I said, suddenly feeling the cold upon my skin, shivering.

  Raoul lowered me to the ground, checked I was steady on my feet, and then took off his jacket and put it around my shoulders. ‘Those guys won’t be bothering anyone again for a while,’ he said.

  I looked back towards the underpass, saw them still lying there, groaning. ‘That was amazing,’ I said, breathlessly. ‘The way you took them both down like that. So quickly. Thank you.’

  Raoul nodded and put a hand on my shoulder. I felt electricity fizzle where his palm touched me. ‘I was driving past and saw it happen. Didn’t realise it was you, though.’

  Something about the way he said that sounded dodgy. Had he been following me home? Surely not. Why did I think this guy would be interested in me in any way?

  ‘You look shaken,’ he said, giving my shoulder a squeeze. ‘Let me drive you home.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Cotton panties

  Raoul followed me up the small concrete steps leading up to my apartment building. I sensed he wanted to check I got into the flat okay. I felt like I’d been rambling in the car, was shaking slightly and still in shock. I must’ve been a sorry sight.

  I found my key and, trembling, managed to get it in the lock. ‘I’ve never been mugged before,’ I said quietly, ‘and certainly not attacked like that.’

  Raoul said nothing, b
ut followed me into the building and waited beside me as I pressed the button for the lift.

  ‘It really makes you realise how vulnerable you are,’ I continued. Then I stopped, and looked at his strong brow, his broad shoulders, his hard stomach. ‘I guess that’s not something you feel very often: vulnerability,’ I said, and the lift pinged and the doors opened.

  I got into the lift and pressed number two, and, silently, Raoul followed behind me. It was strange. His gaze had been so sure of itself earlier, when he had stared intently into my eyes back at the gym, when they had trailed down my neck, onto my breasts, and down… But now, it was like he didn’t know where to look. Or like he desperately wanted to look somewhere in particular, but felt it inappropriate. Wouldn’t let himself.

  I caught sight of myself in the lift mirror, and recoiled. My face had mud on it where I’d been pressed into the dirt, my hair was coming loose, and I had sweat patches under my arms, even though I was shivering. What a mess.

  For a moment, I caught Raoul’s reflection looking at my own, and I felt it, the intensity of that look between us, in the silence of that small space. ‘I-,’ I began to say, unsure what words were about to topple out next. ‘I-,’

  Fortunately, the lift doors opened.

  Thank God. I’ve no doubt I would’ve embarrassed myself had I continued to speak.

  We walked towards my front door in silence, and then I opened the door to my flat. ‘Let me get you a cup of or something,’ I said, in that terribly British way of mine, aware that Raoul probably wasn’t the sort of guy that drank cups of tea. ‘Or I could get you a beer, or…’

  I led Raoul into my living room, embarrassed at what a mess I’d left it in. There were work files spread all over the coffee table, a coat flung over the sofa - and - horror of horrors - there were knickers drying on top of the radiator. Not my best knickers either. Just my plain old white cotton undies, with a small, white trim. No lace or bows. Why couldn’t I at least have left my French knickers out to dry?

  I guess the answer was this: because I never went on any dates any more, and I never had any reason to wear fancy knickers. White cotton panties were all I ever needed.

  Thinking about my underwear made me aware of how little I was wearing now. That I was standing in my living room with a guy I’d only met for the first time that evening, a guy who’d been ordering around forty well-built people in a rough old garage, shouting at us to throw punches this way and that, telling us we weren’t punching hard enough, that we didn’t have enough intention behind our shots.

  Here he was now, in my living room, and I was half-naked. At least I had his jacket over my shoulders, wearing it like some kind of cape.

  And he - why was he so quiet?

  ‘Michaela,’ he said suddenly. Hearing my name said out loud like that, with that foreign accent of his, made me weak at the knees.

  ‘Yes, Raoul?’ Two could play that game. I’d say his name back to him. Pronouncing those vowels just how he liked it. See if that had any effect on him. Imagine if I could make a guy like him weak at the knees!

  He looked down at me, then lay his hands on my shoulders. He opened his mouth, ran his tongue slowly across his lips, as if he was about to say something, then paused. He whipped the shirt off my back, and said: ‘I’ve got to go.’

  Without another word, he turned around and walked out of my apartment. The door slammed moodily behind him.

  That man really wasn’t one for goodbyes.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Rah-ool

  After exercising in a sweaty gym, and then being pushed into the mud by thugs, it’s hardly an understatement to say that it was a relief to get in the shower. There was something oddly reassuring about seeing all my shower cremes, nearly lined up. The expensive, rosewater one, for my face. The sandalwood shower gel, and zingy grapefruit and salt scrub for my body. The ylang-ylang shampoo and conditioner. All the smells I associated with being clean, refreshed, ready to face the world again.

  I washed the mud off my face first, relieved to rid myself of the marks of the assault, wondering whether I should’ve been to the police about it tonight. I’d been so wrapped up in the fact Raoul had rescued me, I hadn’t thought about it. I’d call them in the morning. Guys like that never deserved to get away with it, although I knew they wouldn’t be doing anything like that again for a while - not if those thwacks I’d heard were anything to go by. They’d be limping for days.

  The shower gel next, a delicate sandalwood creme, which I took time to rub all over my body, making sure I paid attention to my armpits, where I’d been sweating the most, but also the back of my neck, my shoulders, my breasts.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about the sound of Raoul’s fist thwacking those guys. So forceful, like he didn’t even think about what he was doing, he just acted entirely upon instinct, on impulse. There was something so strangely passionate in that, the confidence of a man who knew when to punch and when to hold back.

  I massaged the cream into my breasts for a little longer, enjoying the feeling of my nipples hardening under the stream of hot water.

  Rah-ool.

  It was such an exotic name. Where did he come from?

  I watched the foam drip in rivulets down my stomach, feeling a new tightness in my muscles that I’d never felt after thirty minutes on the running machine at the gym. My whole body felt like it had been tuned up a notch, sensitive and strong, ready for action.

  I moved my hands down to my flat stomach, rubbed the cream over my taut skin, then moved my hands down, further still. I opened my mouth under the jet of water and let a hot stream of it run into my mouth.

  ‘Rah-ool,’ I said, my mouth full of hot liquid. ‘Rah-ool.’

  I moved my hands further down still, onto the mound of soft pubic hair, the hair that I hadn’t bothered to shave in months, hadn’t had any need to do so, it had been so long since anyone had seen me, and then I began to caress myself, slowly at first, gently, circling my most sensitive parts, and teasing my soft pink lips.

  Then, thinking still about the sound of those punches, and the feeling of Raoul’s palms pressing down onto me, against my stomach, and down, down onto my arse, I pushed my fingers inside myself, and let the water in my mouth shoot out, a hot wet spurt.

  I moaned with pleasure, the vowels in Raoul’s name escaping my open lips again and again.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Blatant Lying

  ‘So,’ said Rebecca, on the phone, as I sat at my desk, looking at a pile of unanswered emails. ‘Are you up for kickboxing again tomorrow?’

  Almost a week had passed, and I hadn’t said a word to Rebecca about the mugging, or about Raoul coming to my apartment. She’d tell me I was stupid, I know, to have let him into my apartment when I hardly knew him, and she’d have had a go at me for not contacting the police. I did contact them, of course, the next morning, as I’d agreed with myself, but still - I didn’t exactly come off well in that whole story, and I didn’t want my best friend knowing how foolish I’d been.

  Besides - she had enough on her plate. Darren had collected his things, and she was experiencing single life for the first time in three years. She didn’t need any hassle.

  ’Tomorrow?’ I echoed, clicking away on my mouse, dragging things, unread, into my trash icon. So much spam email these days. I needed some sort of firewall protection, or whatever it was. I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t great at all that IT stuff. People, though - I was good at people. Normally I was, anyway.

  ‘Gosh, I hadn’t realized it was tomorrow,’ I said, aware of how blatantly it sounded like I was lying. ‘That’s come around quickly.’

  I began dragging emails into the trash without even checking them first. I was getting flustered.

  ‘Uh, yeah… sure. I’ll be there tomorrow night.’

  ‘Wear something sensible this time,’ she said cheekily, and then hung up. Very nice.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Going Crazy

  Sorry hun, the text messa
ge read. Won’t make it tonight. Darren wants to talk. xxx

  Shit. I was only five minutes away from the gym. How was I going to cope on my own, without a partner? Should I even bother going, if Rebecca wasn’t going to be there? How would Raoul treat me, after what happened between us last week? Was he going to keep staring at me, in that quiet, blazing way of his?

  The truth is, I desperately wanted to see him again. Even though I’d barely been able to walk for two days after the training last time, all those sit-ups and leg raises and planks and what-not. It had been the most intense class I’d ever taken.

  But Raoul had ignited something within me. I’d said his name over and over to myself so many times that week, and I’d been feeling pretty horny as I’d been doing it. I’d found myself rubbing my groin against my desk chair at work, grinding my crotch down into the leather, massaging it and turning myself on. Almost got caught doing it when one of my colleagues walked into the office without knocking.

  And at home - at home I’d been going crazy. I’d touched myself in the shower, in bed, on the sofa, at the kitchen table - all over my apartment - and all the while, saying that name, over and over again, wondering what it might feel like to have those biceps wrapped around me. And this wasn’t normal for me. I barely touched myself these days. Perhaps on a lazy Sunday morning, when I had nothing pressing to do, and an hour to spare, I’d stay in bed, and try, slowly and lazily to make myself come.

  But this was completely different. I’d been in a constant state of arousal. The lightest touch brushing against my skin - a bit of fabric, a breeze - anything was enough to set me off again. I must have had over twenty orgasms in seven days - and yes, a couple of those were at my desk at work. This was getting out of control.

  I was sure that it had nothing to do with the actual, real-life Raoul. Yes, okay, meeting him had set me off. His exotic name and his tight skin, his muscles, his piercing scowl. But obviously, in reality, I didn’t want a guy like that to fuck me. Of course not.