Paintings and Polaroids

Chapter One

I lay in bed, weak, exhausted, chills keeping me awake in a zombie state. Although I felt like dying, I still hoped this was a 24-hour bug and not something that would require real medication. And quarantine. Swine flu? Nah! Not possible. A heater in the corner kept my room hot and stuffy. The jury’s still out on if that actually helped me or not. All I knew was that I couldn’t breathe and was sweating like a pig in heat. Nighttime city sounds filtered in through the crack in my window. A deliberate crack. Heater on for heat. Window open for air.

I obviously lived alone and clearly never paid any attention whatsoever to my mother’s home remedies. A gambling man would have bet I’d be dead in 24 hours. Any other time, I’d have been sad about that. Right then, however, I wasn’t even sure what I was thinking about.

I heard a creak that sounded remarkably like my front door opening. Just some randomness from outside, no doubt. No one would be stupid enough to break into my place. The most valuable thing I had was a three-year old laptop, barely suitable as a calculator let along anything else. …Maybe a paperweight. Literally, I had set shows to download, gone to work, come home, and it was at only 50%. Haven’t seen that since dial-up. 

Finally, sleep had a stronger pull than sickness. But a sound in my room pulled me half-way back to reality. Probably a burglar. I mumbled something about taking and selling my infected organs on the black market…I think.

At last, a light clicked on in my brain. “Oh God! I’m being attacked!” A blast of adrenaline jump-started my muscles. I rolled over to switch on the lamp. But that shot of speed was no match for my assailant. The light flashed on. Before I could react, a body pushed me into the bed; his hand covered my mouth. What would have been a scream was little more than a muffled moan.

“This is it,” I thought. At 28, I was too old to traffick into prostitution which meant rape then murder, and possibly, de-organ-ization. Shit! How was I supposed to explain this to my mother? Life just sucked today.

I blinked a few more times, determined to look my killer in the eyes. No matter what he did for the rest of his life, he’d remember my face. He’d remember that I was fearless and proud. And he could never kill that.

Oh, Lord, his eyes were gorgeous, dark blue set in a frame of mahogany skin. Fear turned to something else, something that made me conscious of his weight, of the length of his fingers, how close he was to my lips. And, of course, of the fact that I looked a fresh mess. This asshole couldn’t call before he came over?

Those eyes examined my face as a concerned frown shadowed his. He sighed, checked my forehead, then sat back, one arm resting on the bed on the other side of my legs. I forced myself to sit up. After a moment of the stare game, he spoke. “You’re very ill.”
“Julian, you have got to stop breaking into my place. How do you even get in here? Did you make a copy of my key?”

“I went to your work. They told me you were sick. Why didn’t you call me?”

“Why do I have to? Are we sleeping together?” My temper reared its ugly head. Though I admit, it doesn’t take much to unleash that dragon.

He took a deep breath, his eyes never wavering from mine. The muscles in his jaw flexed and lips tightened. But he wasn’t angry. He was studying. As he always did. Probing me with glances that made me squirm. Like I was completely exposed.
Then he asked, “Do you want to sleep with me?”

I scoffed. “No.” Of course not. What self-respecting woman would admit to wanting to have sex with a man who already confessed that he could kill her and wasn’t sure if he would or not?

He smirked then quickly recovered. And I nearly passed out. Everything about him was stunning, from the bracelet that adorned his muscular wrist, to his brutal and cutting honesty. “You say, ‘No.’ Your heartbeat says differently.”