9. Amanda

AMANDA

Idon’t know how long I stood there after he left, but it was way past closing by the time I snapped out of it. I was so flustered I forgot my closing routine for a few minutes and turned out the lights before doing one final walk-through like I usually do.

I couldn’t wait to get home to the safety of my apartment to sit alone in the dark and evaluate what just happened there. It’s true that I’ve never really looked at another man, and I certainly never looked at one with lust.

I believed that since I was already taken, it was disrespectful to my partner to admire other men, but that’s just me. So, with that mindset, I can honestly say that this was the first time a man had knocked me off my feet, so to speak.

I don’t even know anything about him just his looks alone had garnered my attention. So much for choosing my next partner with care. But why am I even thinking along those lines? I’d seen the man once, and this is how I was acting. I’ll probably never see him again.

That thought, though comforting, was a bit disheartening as well. Why that should be, I’m still not quite sure. He was attractive in a very aggressive way if that even makes sense. His good looks didn’t have an ounce of softness about them. Not his face and not that rock-hard body. Gulp!

I thought the words rock-hard, and my mind went immediately to the lump behind his zipper. My breathing got a bit choppy, and I had to press my hand against my chest. Something is most definitely wrong with me. I’ve never even objectified Dan like that.

I never once saw him as a sex object, but that, too, could be based on the fact that we got together so young. But this total stranger who I will never see again, maybe it was safe to think of him in this way.

I sure was thinking of him in that way when I took my shower that night and found my hands drifting into secret places with thoughts of him plaguing my mind. My face was hot with embarrassment when I turned the water off and stepped from the stall.

I was afraid to even dry my skin with the towel because of the lascivious thoughts that kept running through my head and the way they made me feel when I rubbed the soft cloth over my warm flesh. I sat on the edge of the bed, lost in thought. For the last few months, the only thought on my mind was the bakery. Now, it seems there was something else just waiting to take over.

When I found myself justifying having a hot, tawdry affair, I knew I had to stop and get my mind back under control. I’d already made a complete ass of myself in front of him tonight, so maybe it was best we not meet again.

But try as I might, I couldn’t get those arctic blue eyes out of my head. Piercing and intense those are the words I would use to describe his eyes. And for a minute there, I could’ve sworn I saw a flicker of something in them when he looked at me.

The whole exchange couldn’t have been more than ten minutes, but looking back, it felt like forever. Since I wasn’t going to get anything done, I turned in early for the night, but that might not have been the best idea.

Each time I closed my eyes, I saw him. Leather jacket, the white Henley, and those jeans that fit him way too perfectly. I knew he had tattoos because they were on his hands and neck, so knowing what I know about the art, he probably has two full sleeves. I wonder what else….Nope.

That night,instead of nightmares about Dan and Deidre, I got swept away by Thunder. What a name! Even that makes me quiver in sweet places that have come alive and refuse to go back to their corner quietly.

I woke feeling tired and out of sorts the next morning. My lower stomach hurt, and there was a dull ache between my thighs that was driving me crazy. I was short and annoyed with myself all the way to the bakery, but as soon as I walked to the door, I couldn’t help but hope and wish I saw him again today.

For the next week, it was like that. I felt cross at the smallest thing during the day, but the nights were the worst. I tossed and turned until the wee hours of the morning, only to drag myself out of bed a few hours later and get ready for the long, arduous day.

One good thing came out of my misery, though. With all that pent-up energy, I baked until my back and feet hurt. I was so pissed I came up with a whole new recipe. It started when I was trying to dye fondant to match the color of his eyes.

Blue velvet cupcakes with white polar wolf-shaped frosting and the bluest eyes. His eyes. That’s what he reminds me of: an Arctic wolf. His salt and pepper hair, those piercing blue eyes, and that rough animalistic persona that exudes from him.

Even the way his eyes had flickered for a second when he first looked at me face to face was animal in nature. So why am I getting wet for a wolf? His voice. I was starting to forget the exact timber of it, but I remember the thrill of hearing it. Now, my nights are spent imagining him whispering dirty things to me while he’s inside me.

My mind had become warped. It got so bad that I was embarrassed to be in the presence of others. I was convinced that there was no way they couldn’t see what I was thinking. Sex, all day, every day for a week and a half, and it only got worse when he never showed up again.

And then the phone call came. It was a young girl, but I was almost certain it was his sister or a relative because of the last name. My whole body started to tremble when I hung up the phone.

* * *

THUNDER

* * *

“But you haveto be here to help me greet the guests. I still have my hair and makeup to get done.” This little girl is not only a pain in the ass, she’s also a whiny little shit.

“Why do I need to greet your hoodlum friends? Isn’t this just another one of your impromptu bullshit parties? No liquor, you hear me, or I’ll ground you for a year.”

“I don’t drink; you know that.”

“Yeah, but what about the rest of them?” A bunch of rich kids that don’t have fuck else to do but show up at my place to make me mental. People think the jocks are bad; they haven’t been exposed to the nerd gang hopped up on whatever the fuck they filched from their parent’s stock.

Why they need to bring that shit to my house, I can only surmise, has to do with my sister or my career of choice. I’ve never given any of their underage asses weed, so I don’t know why they keep coming back. But at least one Saturday out of every month, my sister takes over my house with her shit and has them tracking back and forth through my shit.

I don’t deny her shit. From the day I took her out of that shack, she hasn’t wanted for anything, and I have made sure she got to have the life I wish I had as a kid. Yeah, I spoil her, but she’s a good kid with a good head on her shoulder. She only knows to bother the shit out of me and no one else, though.

“Fine, I’ll answer the door until you get your ugly face on, but then you’re on your own. I don’t feel like playing twenty questions with that asshole friend of yours; what’s his name? Tyler, Troy, Trey, whatever the fuck.” She blushed, which is what I was looking for. I knew she was into that kid. I’ll burn his ass in the firepit out back.

“It’s Kyle, you moron.”

“Ah, yes, Kyle.” I sneered at her, and she ran her ass back upstairs, calling out warnings of mayhem to come if I didn’t behave. I cursed under my breath and went to sit and wait for the doorbell to ring. I don’t see why she couldn’t just leave the shit open for them to walk in.

But I never question her little quirks because I never know if the shit she does is leftover trauma from her past or just her being a teenager. The last asshole that took part in her abduction was already dead and buried in my personal graveyard, so she knew she was safe now.

Yes, she knows I hunted them down because I wanted her to know. She doesn’t know that I cooked them all in a brazen bull or that I castrated them on the off chance that they’d messed with her, although the doctors had assured me that she was fine. I don’t trust them, either.

As I said, the first two hadn’t known the ins and outs or the whys. They were just there to get paid. That didn’t stop me from torturing their asses, though, and that’s what led me to the latest one. He was the one who’d hired the other two to do the job, but someone else had paid him to do the job in the first place. Now I know the name of that someone.

As it turns out, it had nothing to do with me after all. Dad owed some gambling debts, and one of them decided to take his kid as collateral. What they’d planned to do with her if he didn’t pay up, I have no clue, and they all swore none of them touched her, something she too had claimed all along, but seeing some of the shit I’d seen in the last few years while helping kids get off the streets, I was never too sure.

Now I have to bring down the last asshole, but his end isn’t going to be as easy as the first three. I don’t care what reason he had for the shit he did; he traumatized my baby sister. That’s gonna be a no for me.

* * *

Kids started showingup around half an hour later, and I just pointed to the party room. Yes, my house is one of those old castles with a ballroom of all things. My sister works the hell out of that room as many parties as she be throwing in there.

I had no use for it, but I’m pretty sure when I told her to choose a house when she was twelve, she picked this one for that room alone. The shit makes me look like some soft-ass robber baron. A castle in the damn Rockies; whoever thought of that shit was into some serious shit. And since the place was built in the eighteen hundreds at the height of the gold rush, I can just imagine.

Another ten minutes went by before she came down the stairs, late for her own party. The doorbell rang one last time, and I told her to get it her damn self which she ignored. I opened the door and almost swallowed my tongue.

“You…. what are you…?” Before I could finish asking Amanda what she was doing here, my sister brushed by me and pulled her into the house.

“You’re finally here. I’ve been telling everyone about…. It’s her.” She exclaimed once she got a good look at Amanda.

Fuck! She’s about to blow my shit wide open.

“How did you find her?” She looked back and forth between Amanda and me with a shocked expression on her face. “You’re….” She actually went to grab her hand, but the boxes stopped her.

“Joy, Kyle’s looking for you.” Luckily for me, the kid was hanging out in the doorway to the kitchen, looking like a love-sick puppy. I needed her to shut the hell up and not give my shit away.

I’d forgotten that she knew what Amanda looked like from the picture I’d had two years ago when I first started investigating her. I didn’t know that she’d even remember what she looked like, given that the picture hadn’t been the best.

I ushered her out of the room while Amanda stood there with a questioning expression on her face. “Hi again. Um, I’m sorry; where should I put these?” She held out the boxes of cupcakes she was holding, and I took them from her.

“There’s more in the car; I’ll be right back.”

I stood there holding the boxes because I’d forgotten what I was supposed to do with them. Why does this keep happening? How did she know to show up now? There’s no way she could’ve known that I was coming to get her.

Geoffrey had only gotten back to me a couple of days ago because, apparently, she had gone to great lengths to make everything about her life secret. It took him longer than usual to cut through the red tape.

I wasn’t interested in anything else but the fact that she was divorced, but then he told me the background story behind that shit, and as much as I appreciated her asshole ex for being a cum bucket, the fact that he’d done her like that had my hackles raised.

I tried to find out all I could about her life here, but apart from the fact that she’d made some very powerful friends and had opened her bakery, there didn’t seem to be much else going on in her life. That was fine by me because I had plenty of ideas how to fill that shit up.

I was working on my strategy before going for her because I figured with a burn like that, she’d still be raw or something from the whole ordeal. But she’s here, in my house, huh. Yeah, whoever is sending these messages is coming through loud and clear.