Page 63 of Last Comes Fate

Maybe taken in the subway late at night, the only one left in the car until a stranger entered and kept me company until my stop.

Or perhaps it would be last call at a restaurant, and the maître d’ would lay me out on a table like a banquet.

Apparently, I had a thing for public sex, but now wasn’t the time to analyze that. Or, it occurred to me, the fact that the only man I’d ever had sex with seemed to have an exhibitionist streak himself. After all, how many times had Xavier taken me exactly where and when he wanted, without a care in the world for who might see?

No. Stop. Now was the time to take care of what my body had been screaming for all day, what it seemed to need every hour on the hour for the past several weeks.

Except.

There he was again.

Waiting for me in the garden.

Strolling onto the subway.

Sitting at the head of the table, staring between my legs like he’d just discovered the promised land.

Even in my fantasies, his eyes were as dark blue as the deepest night. Full of mischief, lust, and intensity.

Xavier.

“No!” I hissed into the dark, willing his face to disappear.

It wasn’t his fault, of course. For years, I’d fantasized about a man I could never have. Because then, he’d been a phantom in my dreams, someone who was just a memory. Someone I could never have.

Fantasies were supposed to end when confronted with the harsh light of reality.

Real things like babies and family and fighting and therapy were supposed to spoil the dream.

Weren’t they?

I squeezed my eyes shut even harder, trying with everything I had to imagine someoneotherthan Xavier looking at me with that kind of desire.

The cute barista at Pioneer Works.

A hot professor I’d once crushed on.

I even tried Henry Cavill, my forever standby (especially when he was onThe Tudors).

Nothing and no one else worked.

Those damn blue eyes, that sleek black hair, that broad, smirking mouth still reappeared.

“Dammit!” I shrieked, yanking my hand from my shorts and kicking out in frustration.

My foot, however, hit the plant stand at the other end of the sofa and sent the whole iron structure and the large fern it was holding to the hardwood floor with a crash.

I froze, waiting for the inevitable “Mama?” from the top of the stairs. When it didn’t come, I relaxed again.

That throbbing need in my core was still there, though. I was as wide awake as ever. And more than frustrated.

“I give up,” I growled, then closed my eyes, slipped my hand back between my legs, and let his face return.

You want me?I thought.Come and have me.

Those full lips smiled in a way he hardly ever did these days, and it was like my heart beat in response to it.

With pleasure, my love.

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