Spanked (4 page)

When he’d held me captive with his eyes while scribbling something on my hand and I quickly looked down at my palm.

I almost collapsed with relief when I saw a number, seven digits, staring back at me.

For a moment, I was dumbfounded.

His telephone number?

So he
did
want me to call him.

He did want to see me again.

But I wasn't sure if I should.

I mean, he never told me how he felt. What was I supposed to say to him when I called? "How do you feel about me? Do you actually like me?”

Yeah. Big, fat chance of that happening.

For a split second, I thought of walking over to the sink and washing the number off my hand, so that I didn't change my mind later and actually end up calling him.

I must have looked down at that number on my hand for a good five minutes, at least.

I was stuck and I didn't know what to do.

After a few more minutes of going back and forth within myself, I finally decided not to throw the number away.

Who knew when I might need to talk to the guy again? A situation might arise in the near future where I would probably need a good-looking date for a social occasion or something.

You just never know in this crazy world.

Eight days after I'd last seen Michael, I was stretched out on my couch watching the news and eating some chocolate ice cream after an especially hectic day when a news item flashed on the screen that caught my attention.

The TV news anchor lady was talking about a man who’d been arrested after being involved in a big fight at a local bar.

Now normally I wouldn’t care about watching the news at all, especially the
Crime Report
segment where they showed who’d been arrested that day for something or another.

I preferred to keep all that negative stuff out of my life. But today the remote control was lying on top of my small living room table━which was miles away from me, or so it seemed━instead of it’s usual position right next to me and I was too tired to reach for it.

So I ate my chocolate ice cream. And watched the news. Even the
Crime Report
segment. And saw the face of the arrested person behind the news anchor.

Jim.

Yes, none other than Dirty Fingernails Jim.

I stared at the TV for a moment, not believing what I was seeing, hearing.

Instinctively I reached for my cell phone to call Michael, then retracted back.

What the heck did I want to call Michael for?

The fact that I'd met him at Jim's house didn't mean that I had to call him because I'd just seen Jim on TV.

Besides what business was it of mine?

If Jim was in some kind of trouble with the law, he'd surely get his one phone call and he could use that to call for help.

The last thing I needed to do was call Michael. Not because I didn't want to, but because I was trying to forget the man and the feelings he invoked in me.

So, no I wasn't going to call Michael and that was that.

I had done pretty good when it came to trying to forget about Michael these last eight days. It had taken a pretty herculean effort on my part that had included slamming myself with tons of work at my job followed by heavy, intense cardio at the gym immediately afterwards.

By the time I got home every night, I was pretty darn tired and ready to hit the bed. I could hardly be bothered to cook, let alone sit down and start thinking about him or any man for that matter.

The news item about Jim flushed all that away, taking me all the way back to the day I'd first met Michael. His hair, his eyes, his sexy seductive smell.

Aaaaah!

What was wrong with me and this man?

And why couldn't he just go away?

Sitting on that couch, the TV now just a distant blur, the more I kept thinking about that first day. And the more I kept thinking about that first day, followed by the sparks that flew on the very last day, the more I was tempted to pick up the phone. I literally felt like tying myself down to a chair so that I wouldn't do it.

But the feelings were kicking my butt big time.

I put the ice cream container on the table in front of me and picked up my cell phone.

I pulled up Michael’s number and looked at it for a long time as if doing that would make him just materialize out of thin air.

It didn't take long after that before I pressed the green "call" button and put the phone to my ear.

My heart was racing fast and pounding hard against my chest.

My fingers clenched hard on the cell phone.

"I'm just going to find out if he's okay," I told myself. "If him and his friend Jim are doing okay."

The phone on the other end started ringing and for a second I thought about hanging up, forgetting all about it.

But I figured that if I hung up now, my number would then show up on his caller ID and he’d know that I’d called him and he would then want to call me right back.

That, to me, was way worse.

I’d rather talk to him now and get it over with than have him call me back, I reasoned.

My resolution not to call Michael now broken, I dug in and readied myself to talk to him.

Suddenly the phone stopped ringing and the deep baritone voice that had practically floored me the first time I'd heard it, came on.

"Hello?" He said.

I stumbled around for a moment while I tried to come up with something to say. Everything that I’d planned on talking about immediately evaporated into the thin air.

All my plans about keeping it simple and calm, not acting like a little teenage girl, all that stuff was gone. His voice alone was enough to throw me off kilter.

"Hello!" I said.

"Who is this?" Michael said.

The words, "Wrong number" almost escaped from my lips. If he didn't know who he was talking to, maybe I could still get away with calling him first.

Instead I found myself saying, "It's Katie. From your niece's dance class."

There was a pause from the other end and I wondered if he was now regretting giving me his number in the first place.

He was probably thinking, "What a loose bimbo!"

Color flushed to my cheeks and a deep sense of embarrassment flooded all over me as the pause continued for a moment longer than was necessary.

"Sorry," he said. "I had to turn down the volume on the TV. Who’s this again?"

I closed my eyes and wished that this was all a dream. I wasn't really calling him. I was just having a nightmare.

But when I opened my eyes, I was still holding the phone to my ear.

"Hello?" Michael said.

"It's Katie," I said again. "From─"

"The dance instructor!" He boomed over the phone, cutting me off.

Relief now washed over me. At least he remembered me.

"How the hell are you?" He said.

"Doing good," I told him. "You?"

"I’m okay," he said. "Except I just got a call from my friend Jim, remember him?"

Only too well
, I wanted to tell him.

Instead I said, "Actually that's why I was calling you. I just saw him on the news. Something about him being arrested and since I knew you guys were friends, I wanted to call and see if you guys were doing─."

I realized I was talking too fast, as if I was very excited to be talking to him, so I cut myself off.

"Yeah," Michael said. "Hey, now that I have you on the phone, you think you could do me a huge favor?"

"Sure," I said without thinking.

"I'm a little bit handicapped at the moment so I really can’t drive," Michael said. "I was wondering if you could drive me over to the county jail so that I could bail Jim out..."

WHAAAT???

No way! Don't do it! My inner self screamed at me.

But what's the harm? I asked myself. I'm just driving him. It's not like I even have to talk to Jim or even do anything with Michael, I argued.

DO NOT DO IT!

But if I didn't drive Michael to bail his friend out, then I'd probably never see him again and to top it off I'd also feel bad about turning him down. Besides, wasn't that ostensibly why I'd called him in the first place? To find out if they were both okay? And now that he needed my help I was going to turn him down?

What the heck...

"Listen, if you can't do it," Michael began. "That's okay. I was going to take a cab anyway."

And that did it for me.

Now I really had to take him.

"I'll do it," I found myself saying. "Go ahead and text me your address."

I hang up and leaned back against the couch.

What the hell had I just agreed to?

About forty-five minutes later, I pulled up to the address that Michael had sent me. A small, whitewashed bungalow with large windows and a neatly trimmed hedge. I looked at my reflection in the rearview mirror to make sure my makeup didn't look botched. That I didn't have a hair out of place.

What does it matter? I rebuked myself.

It's not like you're going to sleep with him, are you? I told the person staring back at me in the mirror.

Certainly not, I confirmed to myself.

My sexual adventures were done as far as I was concerned.

No more messing around with my goodies. And that went for any man.

I pulled out my phone and typed a small text message to Michael: "I'm here."

I’d decided to wear something casual. Nice, comfortable fitting blue jeans and a black turtleneck sweater.

Nothing that would scream and call attention to any part of my body. A few moments later, Michael's front door opened and there he stood.

Looking as gorgeous as I last remembered. Blue eyes penetrating me even from that distance. Hair still calling me out,
“Come run your fingers through.”

As my eyes travelled the length of his body, I saw what looked like crutches under his arms.
I sat forward to look and saw that his right foot was in a cast.

He started hopping toward the car.

What the...? I said out loud to myself and then realized that he'd probably need help with the passenger door.

I jumped out of my seat, went around and opened the passenger door for him. He smiled as he limped and hobbled down the driveway.

As he neared the car, he flashed me a smile that awoke the goosebumps down in my tummy. Even injured, this man could still drive me crazy. I fought hard to remain calm, trying to remind myself of my goal: No more of that sex stuff. With
any
man! I added.

When he reached the spot where I was standing holding the door, he leaned in and planted a kiss smack dab on my lips.

Sparks flew and my heart stopped beating.

Time stood still.

Suddenly I was flying on a magic carpet ride.

Fuck!

It was going to be hard staying true to myself.

"How you doing, you sexy lady, you," he said as he slid into his seat.

I couldn't speak.

I was still on cloud nine from the lips-to-lips kiss he'd just given me.

So I just flashed him a smile, nodded and quickly closed the door behind him. I somehow managed to compose myself and walk back to the driver's side.

Before I got back in however, I noticed that I was feeling a little bit woozy and that my loins were stirring. This was new, I thought, but I didn’t have time to stop and reflect about what was going on with me. I had to get going.

I opened the car door and got in.

As soon as I was settled in, he said, "Hey, I want to thank you again for doing this."

I nodded. "No problem," I said and avoided all contact with his eyes lest he saw how much his presence, his lips had jarred me.

Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw him move and before I knew it, he’d leaned over and whispered in my ear, "I fucking missed you."

What?

I turned around to face him, see if he was serious or just playing around with me. And that’s when I collided with his lips.

Before I realized what was going on, his lips were on mine and his tongue was deep inside me, feeling and exploring the roof of my mouth!

I sat there frozen for a minute, not understanding what the heck was happening.

But his tongue kept exploring inside me, probing, evoking something within me that I couldn’t quite fathom.

I could taste the sweet-sour taste of something...vodka, maybe?

I wasn't sure.

But it sure tasted good.