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Daring and seductive, with similar themes to Fifty Shades, all twelve stories promise not only scorching hot reads, but emotionally powerful romances that will stay with you long after the happy ending!
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Cuffing Kate
âI canât fucking believe it!â
A debate is a game. There is always a winner and a loser. This is why I donât debate. Sonia sees things differently. She never loses.
âWhatâs up?â
My roommate slammed into my bedroom so hard that the door hit the wall. Another ding in the plaster. I shoved the dirty book I was reading under my pillow, but Sonia didnât even look my way. She was already pacing. I kept quiet about the fact that sheâd entered my room without knocking. Sonia loves to make an entrance, which means that she rarely ever knocks.
âThe fucking bastard.â
I stared at her, curious. Iâd never seen her like this before. Well, thatâs not entirely true. Soniaâs hot-tempered. She gets all riled up during debates about war in the Middle East or why tofurkey is the wonder food. But this was different. Her cheeks were flushed a bright fuchsia and her dark espresso-hued eyes looked huge and wild.
âDid you have a fight?â I asked tentatively.
âA fight? No, not a fight.â She bit off each word as if chewing on a piece of that nasty papaya fruit leather she buys at the local health food store. I watched her stomp out of my room, heard her clomping toward the kitchen in her vegan no-cows-were-killed boots. Silently I trailed behind her, dumbfounded as she pulled a Guinness from the fridgeâone of my beers. Iâd never seen Sonia drink an alcoholic beverage.
âThen what happened?â
âThe bastard. He actually tried toâ¦â
She swallowed a huge gulp of the brew and leaned against our fridge. The Well-behaved Women Rarely Make History magnet was poised over her head on the freezer. It read like a caption. I waited, but she didnât continue.
âTried toâ¦â I prompted.
âHe really thought I would let himâ¦â
âLet himâ¦â I echoed, faux helpfully.
âNever mind. Chalk the experience up to a bad fucking date.â
âWhat did he try to do?â And why did I care so much?
Sonia strode into the living room, threw herself onto our thrift-store sofa and grabbed the ugly comforter her great-aunt had crocheted. She was calming down. I could tell. Maybe she wouldnât tell me the rest. Sometimes she kept things from me. This is why I read her diary on a daily basis.
âHe was kinky,â she said with finality.
Sonia was decidedly not kinky. Thatâs mostly what Iâd discovered by reading the tightly cramped handwritten pages in her recycled-paper journal. She wasnât kinky, and she wasnât that into sex, and she wasnât that into men. But she didnât seem to realize this last fact yet. Maybe when she discovered the latter the former would change.
âWhat do you mean, âkinkyâ?â
She shrugged and turned on Bill Maher, dismissing me by not responding. I thought of pushing the issue, of trying to take our roommate status to a higher level. Sonia considered us good friends, but we werenât. She never shared her feelings with me, and she didnât seem to care about my own. Mostly she preached her beliefs in my general directionâtrying to guilt me into giving up things that she thought I shouldnât do, or eat, or drink, or think.
I went to my room, consumed by visions of the man sheâd been out with. Jules Rodriguez. I knew him from school. Senior. Handsome. Of course, I understood perfectly why heâd asked Sonia on a date. She looked as if sheâd be hellfire in bed. Anyone with an ounce of imagination could envision her in the heat of the momentâlong twists of black curls spiraling as she moved, huge eyes glazed with lust. Aside from that, she dressed like sex on wheels: tight clothes in electric colors, earrings that jangled when she walked. Men were drawn to her. She baited them, and then dismissed them. Over and over and over.
I thought again about the recent one. Jules. What naughty thing had he suggested to Sonia? And why did I so desperately want him to try that same thing out on me, whatever the trick might have been?
My mind made an instant laundry list of deviant possibilities: Spanking? Anal? Sex toys?
For a moment, I considered returning to the living room. Sonia was drinking her first beer, after all. Maybe she would have looser lips than usual. But I didnât feel up to listening to a full-on rant. Hopefully she would write about the situation in her diary. Tomorrow when she went to class, I could sneak in and read every filthy little detail.