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Category: Erotica/Erotic Romance/Romance
Description: Pandora's Box--a club where the members got the chance to act out their favorite fantasies ?. Chloe had dreamed of meeting a tall, dark, and debonair British man like the ones in favorite books forever.She'd dreamed of an instant, wild attraction neither of them could resist.She found it in spades with Basil Pembrook. Unfortunately, Basil wasn't her designated rendezvous, but she didn't discover it untilafter they'd had wild sex!Awkward! Rating: Carnal/Erotic-adult situations and language. Genre: Contemporary Erotic Romance.
eBook Publisher: New Concepts Publishing, 2010
eBookwise Release Date: May 2010

47 Reader Ratings:

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Available eBook Formats: OEBFF Format (IMP) [109 KB]
Words: 22788
Reading time: 65-91 min.

Chapter One

I felt like I had a bull's eye painted on my forehead--like someone who had a contract out on them and knew it.

Sort of.

There was a thread of excitement and anticipation beneath the absolute terror that dogged my steps as I made my way along the busy city sidewalk. I was wearing red, my signal that I'd agreed to the terms of engagement.

I must have lost my mind, I thought in sudden anxiety, hesitating in front of a store window and staring at the reflections behind me. I didn't focus on my own. I'd worked hard at buoying my self-esteem and convincing myself I didn't look thirty five even if I was and that I looked hot enough to appeal to the handsome stranger I was about to have a rendezvous with. I didn't want to risk losing that self-deception with too healthy a dose of reality. Even so, I could see my dark blond, shoulder length hair, which I'd worn loose, flapping wildly around my head. Trying to convince myself it would give me a sexy windswept look rather than the tangled bird's nest of a bag lady, I focused on searching the streets for a man who might be looking that would fit the description I'd been given.

The wind caught the flared skirt of my short dress at just that moment and flipped it up my back. By the time I'd fought it down, I discovered I had the attention of every male within viewing distance.

Big surprise! Wearing a thong on such a windy day had been a stroke of brilliance!

Feeling my cheeks pulsing like a neon sign, I decided to gather what was left of my dignity and move, ignoring the smirks of the strangers around me. I hadn't spotted the tall, dark, and debonair Brit that was supposed to fulfill my favorite fantasy, but I decided to leave it in the hands of fate. If it was meant to be, he would be right on time. He would've spotted me by now. He would follow me into the expensive department store that was my goal and ....

I'd probably have a panic attack!

Coward! Spineless, lily livered twerp, I chastised myself! It was no wonder my entire life had been dull, uneventful, colorless! I didn't have the balls to have fun! I wasn't wild and carefree! I was a prudish spinster, to use the barbaric, archaic term for women who failed to find a mate!

Not that I wanted one, by damn! There'd been a time when I had, but after one failed relationship after another, I was thoroughly jaded.

I was pretty set in my ways, if it came to that. I was pretty sure I'd moved way past any ability to compromise for the sake of a relationship.

No, I just wanted to do something daring ... for once in my life.

Trying to shake the little voice in the back of my mind reminding me why I never did anything daring, I walked briskly toward the department store at the end of the block. But there it was, sprung full blown from the recesses of my mind--the answer I didn't want.

I never did anything daring because it always turned out badly for me. I was pretty sure I had the worst luck in the world. As a teen, my first attempt at going 'all the way' in the backseat of a car had backfired humiliatingly. I'd no sooner bared all than a damned cop had stuck his flashlight to the rear window, illuminating me in all my imperfect splendor! I didn't think I would've felt nearly as badly about it if I'd had the body of a temptress, but back then I'd looked like a stick with bumps--two front and two back!

I'd certainly made up for it, I thought wryly! It was a damned shame voluptuous wasn't in style any damned more!

Actually, I thought with a healthy dose of honesty, volumptuous was probably closer to the mark, but I firmly pushed that from my mind! I wasn't going to feel sexy if I let my fantasy image of myself as a modern day Marilyn Monroe slip.

Of course, my hair was more brown than blond, I didn't have quite as much cleavage, and I had a good bit more trunk space ....

Bad thought! Bad Chloe! Bad, bad, bad! And that wasn't the way I wanted to be bad, damn it!

I discovered the front door of the department store looming before me. Indecision hit me. As if I hadn't been wavering almost from the time I'd climbed out of the cab that had deposited me in the downtown area!

Maybe I should just turn around, grab a cab, and scurry back to my apartment? I could always tell my best friend, who'd arranged the rendezvous for me, that I'd done it and had a fabulous time.

I certainly couldn't tell her I'd chickened out! She would be very put out with me after all she'd gone through to make the arrangements for my birthday surprise! She'd be disappointed in me.

I didn't think I could live that down any time soon.

Squaring my shoulders, I marched up the steps and grabbed the door handle. As I pulled the door open, I caught a glimpse of the British Don Juan that had been ordered up just for my private fantasy in the reflection on the glass! My heart skipped several beats. My stomach went weightless. I felt faint and dizzy and hot and cold, all at the same time. I was going to pass out and roll down the steps to the sidewalk!

Reminding myself to breathe, I completed the action I'd frozen in the middle of. I pulled the door wide enough to enter and staggered inside on the spiked heels I wasn't used to wearing.

It couldn't be him, I told myself! He was just too, too gorgeous! No way was he in to the kinky/weird Pandora's Box crowd!

Ok, so I supposed that was a little insulting to my dear friend, Rebecca, but, truthfully, I just couldn't see a male that looked that yummy needing to resort to the cloak and danger kink of the club! I'd imagined most of the members must be desperate or they wouldn't have to join a club like Pandora's Box just to get laid!

I was mistaken, I told myself, commanding my heart to stop trying to beat its way up my throat. Even if I'd misjudged the members of the club, the hunk of burning love I'd spotted on the sidewalk was still too far up the food chain to consider joining such a group.