All That She Desires: The Stranger
Read All That She Desires: The Stranger Online
Authors: Melissa Morgan
All That She Desires: The Stranger
Melissa
Morgan
PUBLISHED BY:
Melissa Morgan
Copyright © 2013
Melissa Morgan’s other
books:
Fiona woke up under an avalanche of pillows. She
felt horrible. Without moving or opening her eyes, she thought she could
actually feel her brain; it felt gritty and dry and slightly shriveled, like it
had been left out in the desert sun, and then roughly grabbed and slapped back
inside her skull. Without putting too fine a point on it, she felt like shit.
The bed wasn't her own. She could sense that. But
she barely spent any time in her own bed anyway. In the past twelve months,
she'd spend two hundred and fifty days on the road. In the twelve months before
that, it had been two hundred and ten road days. She'd been a busy girl.
Sometimes when she woke up in her own bed, she thought she was still on the
road.
It was daytime. The light was seeping in through the
pillows, and Fiona became aware of the rest of her body. She had to pee. And
her stomach felt wretched. It felt twisted and empty, but she still felt
nauseous. Judging by the taste in her mouth, she'd thrown up the night before.
She struggled to get her head up. The fluffy pillows
felt like concrete blocks, and the weight of them made her head feel like it
would crack. She managed to get into an upright position and looked around. She
was in a bedroom. The walls were painted a light powder blue, and the bed was
covered in a warm, red and blue quilt. There was an old-fashioned dresser and
some amateurish landscape paintings on the walls, one of a mountain and one of
a lake. It was all very homey.
Then she remembered: she was at a lake. She was in a
cottage that her manager had arranged for her. It belonged to one of his
friends or something.
She had to pee. Badly.
Fiona got to her feet and lurched toward the bedroom
door. She made her way through the living room, with its fireplace, couch, and
wall of windows hidden behind thick curtains. She passed through the kitchen,
which looked like it had been decorated in 1940, and into the bathroom. The
motion of walking through the little cottage almost made her puke, but peeing
was the critical thing at the moment. She pulled down her lime green thong, sat
down on the toilet and finally relieved herself.
When she was done in the bathroom, Fiona wandered
back into the living room, and pieces of the night before came to her. The
coffee table in front of the couch told the whole story. There was an empty
vodka bottle, a drinking glass, a small plate serving as an ashtray with
cigarette butts and joint roaches, and an empty chip bag. She arrived late last
night, brought in some of her stuff, and then sat down and got completely
destroyed before throwing up and going to bed. She hadn't even looked around
the property. She just sat down and got miserably wrecked.
In the kitchen was her water. Ken, her manager,
didn't have a lot of details on the place, except for some very detailed
directions of how to get out there. But she didn't know what the drinking water
would be like, so she brought along two flats of her favorite bottled water,
which she'd lugged inside in the dark the night before. Also in the kitchen was
the case of vodka. One bottle down, eleven to go.
She pulled out a bottle of water and drank half of
it down. She was very dehydrated. She looked out the kitchen window. There was
her rented Lexus in the gravel driveway, and trees all around. There were other
cottages around too, but the place was half-decently sheltered. There was
supposed to be a lake here somewhere, but she couldn't see it. Ken said the
cottage looked out on the lake, so the big view must be behind the curtains in
the living room.
Taking gulps of water, she wandered into the living
room and over to the curtains. They were made from a heavy brown material. This
place was so out-of-date. It was unbelievable that Ken thought she would be
able to relax out here.
The last thing her brain needed at the moment was a
whole bunch of daylight, but she wanted to see the lake view. Setting the
bottle down on the coffee table, Fiona took hold of the curtains with both
hands and swung them open, revealing a bright, beautiful, blue-skyed day with a
view of a tree-covered hill-side leading down to a gorgeous blue lake, and a
man on her patio.
A man on her patio. Staring right at her with
shocked eyes and an open mouth.
Fiona was still only wearing her lime-green thong.
She screamed and yanked the curtains shut again and
dropped to her knees in fright. Her head was exploding with pain and her
stomach felt like it was going to crawl out of her mouth, but adrenaline made
her jump back up and run to the bedroom to find some clothes.
Shit, who was that guy? She barely got a look at
him. It looked like he was doing some kind of work on the deck, but she
panicked so badly that she didn't even notice. She looked around and found her
clothes under the blankets of the bed. She must have crawled into the bed in
her clothes, and then struggled out of them. How messed up was she last night?
She could barely remember anything after arriving at the cottage.
Fiona pulled on her jeans. They were expensive,
body-hugging things that rode low on her hips. Her top was a black tank top
with a skull pattern stitched on in silver sequins. She pulled it on over her
head and looked down at herself. This was too sexy to confront a weirdo hanging
around outside the cottage. She looked around the bedroom for her suitcase,
then checked the living room and kitchen, but only found her big handbag. The
suitcase, which had all of her other clothes, must still be in the trunk of the
rental car. "Fuck," she muttered.
She figured there was nothing she could do but go on
the attack. But first: strength and courage. The vodka bottle on the table was
empty, so she went to the kitchen and pulled another bottle out of the box. She
checked the refrigerator’s freezing compartment. The only thing in it was a
tray of ice cubes. It was half-full, and she shook a few out into a clean glass
from the cupboard.
Everything here seemed so old. The cupboards needed
to be repainted. The glasses, as well as the dishware, were an odd mix-match of
sizes and styles. They weren't even a set. Why had Ken put her in this dump?
She would have to give him shit later.
She peeled the plastic off the top of the vodka
bottle and poured, then swirled the glass to let the vodka and the ice mix. She
walked back into the living room and stared at the curtain. Just out there, she
thought, some creep was probably jerking off, hoping to get another look at her
tits. Well, she was going to go out there and kick his ass.
The vodka didn't go down well. Her stomach was raw,
and the booze went straight to her head. She felt nauseas and dizzy, and she
sat down on the couch and cradled her head in her hands.
There was a knock.
Bap-bap-bap
.
Fiona looked up. There was a door across the living
room from her that led out to the side of the cottage. It was painted green,
and it had a window in the top half that was covered by a green pull-down
blind. "Fuck," she muttered again. The creep wanted to come inside.
She grimaced and took another sip of the vodka, then
got up and approached the door.
Bap-bap
. She stepped softly toward it
and stopped. She slid one finger in along the edge of the blind and pulled it
back, allowing her to see out just a crack. Trees. Then a head popped into
view. It was the man.
"Hello," he said through the door.
"I'm Mike. I'm sorry for surprising you. I'm here to paint the cottage.
I'm working on the front deck right now. I hope I gave you enough time to get
dressed."
She gave him the look that she liked to give to
extremely stupid people. "Why are you painting the cottage?"
He smiled. "Because," he said, "the
owner of the cottage employed me to paint the cottage."
"Hang on." She went back to the coffee
table and grabbed her pack of cigarettes, lighter, and the glass of vodka. Then
she went back to the door, opened it, and stepped out into the mid-morning
light.
The guy, Mike, stepped back to let her out. They
were partly shaded by the trees. The walkway around the side of the cottage was
only about three feet wide, and there was an embankment of earth next to it.
She turned and looked out toward the deck, and then she saw the lake.
Fiona stepped past the strange painter-man and
finally took in the view properly. It was beautiful. There were trees to the
left and right, and directly in front of the cottage was a steep, treed hill, a
brief expanse of beach, and then the lake. It was dark blue and covered in
white-peaked waves. Across the lake was forest. She couldn't see any houses or
cottages on that side. It was a sight she was not used to seeing. It was such a
simple beauty.
"Watch the paint," the man said. She
turned and looked. He was pointing to the area of the deck to her left. There
was a clear line where the bright new red paint began covering over the old,
faded red. She looked at this side of the cottages exterior. It was all red,
with yellow trim around the windows.
"Red and yellow?" she said. "What is
this thing? A fucking fire truck?" She took a sip of vodka.
"I kinda like it," he said, crossing his
arms and smiling. "It's old fashioned. It gives the place a real vintage
style, I think."
"This place is a dump." She took out a
cigarette and lit it.
"Okay," Mike said. "We've established
why I'm here. Do you mind telling me why you're here?"
Fiona took a drag. It made her stomach turn. She
took a sip to settle her tummy, and leaned against the rail that ran around the
edge of the deck. "Don't ask me any questions," she said. She felt
like shit.
"Are you okay?" he said. "You don't
look so well."
"Kiss my ass," she managed to say, before
turning and throwing up over the rail into the bushes below. She dropped the
glass and the cigarette and held back her blonde hair while she puked, spilling
out clear liquid and gasping for air.
"Oh, wow," Mike said. "This is...
unexpected."
Fiona heaved a few times, but since she had nothing
in her stomach except water and vodka, it didn't last long. She retched, spit,
and then sank down to her knees, still holding her hair back with one hand, and
holding onto the rail with the other.
"Um, maybe let's get you back inside where you
can sit down," Mike said, stepping toward her and putting a hand on her
shoulder.
She swatted away his hand. "Don't fucking touch
me," she said.
"Okay, I'm sorry. Help yourself."
"I think my head is going to explode," she
said.
"Can I get you anything?"
Fiona struggled to her feet and after bracing
herself for a moment against the rail, she turned and stumbled back toward the
door. She went back inside the cottage and closed the door behind her. She
locked it, and then managed to make it to the couch. She lay down and then
struggled and shifted with discomfort until she finally managed to fall sleep.
Mike waited and listened, and then decided to go
back to painting the deck. He grinned as he got down to it. She was beautiful,
but what a bitch. She sounded like a spoiled rich city-girl. He'd dealt with
plenty of them at college. And what a mess! Was she drunk this early, or was
she still messed up from last night?
Maybe it would be best to cut her some slack, he
figured. Maybe she was so bitchy because he'd surprised her and seen her naked.
That was liable to make a young woman defensive.
She was beautiful, though. Very beautiful. He
thought for a moment and tried to think if he'd ever seen a girl with a better
body naked. She was so sleek and fit. Maybe he had. He couldn't think of
anyone. Some were close, but not quite as sexy. She also looked very familiar,
but he couldn't quite place where he knew her from. Maybe later he would catch
her name and it would click.
It didn't matter. He just had to paint. It would
probably take three days to do the whole cottage, front to back. He only had to
do the exterior and the decks. That was for the best. It meant he probably
wouldn't have to deal with her very much. She was a mess.