Private Desire - Games of Seduction E-Book

Laura Fioretti

• Herausgeber: Bastei Lübbe
• Kategorie: Erotik
• Serie: International Passion Series
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 124

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

After a painful breakup, Elena is living a life of seclusion. But that changes when she receives a series of mysterious phone calls from a man with a very sexy voice. Thinking that it’s time she started looking for adventure, she agrees to a blind date, dressing up to the nines to impress her wannabe seducer. Massimo, the owner of the café at Elena’s workplace, barely recognizes her but when he does, he instantly regrets that he’s been persuaded to play this cruel joke on her and ends up falling in love with her. Elena, however, can’t forgive him. She wants payback and plans to make him fall head over heels for her. Her instrument of revenge: Hot, passionate sex.

Sizzling love stories packed with erotic suspense - this e-book series features self-contained erotic love stories in picturesque settings.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

About the Series

About the Book

About the Author

Private Desire — Games of Seduction

Copyright

Games of Seduction

Next episode

About the Series

Sizzling love stories packed with erotic suspense — this e-book series features self-contained erotic love stories in picturesque settings.

About the Book

After a painful breakup, Elena is living a life of seclusion. But that changes when she receives a series of mysterious phone calls from a man with a very sexy voice. Thinking that it’s time she started looking for adventure, she agrees to a blind date, dressing up to the nines to impress her wannabe seducer. Massimo barely recognizes her but when he does, he instantly regrets that he’s been persuaded to play this cruel joke on her and ends up falling in love with her. Elena, however, can’t forgive him. She wants payback and plans to make him fall head over heels for her. Her instrument of revenge: Hot, passionate sex.

About the Author

Laura Fioretti is the pseudonym of the winner of the first “Entra anche tu in Sperling Privé” competition. A writer by passion, she works in public administration.

Laura Fioretti

Games of Seduction

Translated by Monica Bay

BASTEI ENTERTAINMENT

Bastei Entertainment is an imprint of Bastei Lübbe AG

Copyright © 2014 by Sperling & Kupfer Editori S.p.A.

Title of the original Italian edition: “Uno strano scherzo del destino”

Copyright © 2016 by Bastei Lübbe AG, Schanzenstraße 6-20, 51063 Cologne, Germany

Written by Laura Fioretti

Translated by Monica Bay

Edited by Sasha Lovejoy

Project management: Sarah Pelekies

Cover design: Christin Wilhelm, www.grafic4u.de

Cover illustration: © shutterstock/Svetlana Prikhnenko | shutterstock/elisekurenbina | shutterstock/Mayer George

eBook production: Urban SatzKonzept, Düsseldorf

ISBN 978-3-7325-1560-8

www.bastei-entertainment.com

“What a predictable name for a dog! Thousands of dogs are called Billy!” she’d objected on the day the four-legged friend had stepped into her life. That strange being, whose eyes where always hidden by shaggy hair, had licked her hand with affection, as if to prove that he agreed on the unoriginality of the name he’d been given.

“Billy is the perfect name for our dog,” Gianni had replied, as if he hadn’t even heard. Since that day, Billy had been Billy, period. A few days later she had added “the killer” as a surname, but Gianni hadn’t found that funny. In fact, he hadn’t laughed at all. Nor even smiled. Gianni had no sense of humour.

In any case, he’d done her a huge favor by leaving. This, though, had only become clear to her after spending a year in complete solitude.

The first few days, she’d been desperate and hadn’t been able to find any peace. Gianni was untraceable. She had only found out that he had asked for a sabbatical and that, perhaps, he had moved away from the city. At the registrar, however, they wouldn’t give any information. It was a matter of privacy. Always that damn privacy.

After ten days in which she had no news about him, she was ready to report him as missing to the police. But the morning when she was planning to do that, she received a letter from her now officially ex-boyfriend. He was leaving her for another woman he’d met six months before during a business trip.

After that first year — full of pain, humiliation, anger, and frustration — Elena had eventually managed to live again, appreciating her newfound singleness. After years of living with someone, she had forgotten what it meant to organize her life according to her own interests, without having to answer to anyone.

And Billy, at that time, had proven to be an affectionate companion, tolerant and patient, sitting through all of her outbursts without ever leaving her. Day after day, the dog had become the actual owner of the house they were sharing. Elena would take him out every morning and go for a run — yet another activity that Gianni had never found apt for her. Billy liked to sleep, though, and could manage to leave the house before eight in the morning, forcing Elletra to arrive ever later at work. Every time she stepped through the door of the office, Mr. Marini looked at her with silent reproach, tapping his very expensive wrist watch, a gift from his wife for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.

Every morning she lowered her head contritely, quickly reached her office and … waited for the lawyer to close the door. Then she joined her friend Antonella, the other secretary, in the small kitchen to drink the first coffee of the day.

But this morning, the lawyer would not merely tap his watch. He would probably rant at her like crazy and punish her severely, forcing her to do unpaid overtime. But he would never fire her, no sir. Elena knew that she had become indispensable. Her work was always excellent, and without her they would all be lost. Everyone, including the two hideous legal assistants, had always praised her efficiency and professionality.

She ran across the road, being almost run over by two cars coming from opposite directions and, short of breath, stopped in front of the heavy mahogany door of the elegant building in which the law firm Marini was housed. She found the key in the outside pocket of her handbag and entered the dark lobby. As she closed the door behind her, she heard the phone ringing. It was her work phone ringtone. Surely, it was the lawyer calling to find out where the hell she was. She looked for her phone in the outside pocket, but the search was unsuccessful. With a snort she stuffed her hands into her coat pockets and her bag slipped from her shoulder, falling to the ground and spilling its full content on the floor. Elena snorted again, exasperated. The phone was in the midst of various things scattered untidily on the floor. She quickly gathered all the items up and looked at the display, but she had already missed the call.

It was a private number. Without thinking, she dropped the phone in her coat’s right pocket and slipped into the old lift, pulling hard on the wrought-iron gate to shut it. On the first floor, she felt the phone vibrating and then ringing. Between the second and third floor she decided to accept the call. She usually never answered unknown callers, but that morning she did, without giving it too much thought.

“I can pretend no longer. I must confess, or I’ll go crazy. I’ve lost my head over you.” The sentence was unmistakably uttered by a male voice. It was a man, and his voice was unbelievably sexy. Elena pulled the phone away from her ear and stared at the display in shock.

“I think you have dialed the wrong number. Indeed, I am absolutely sure you have,” she said, half amused and half annoyed. Then she hung up, as the lift had reached her floor. She stepped out and stopped in the hallway. She ran her hands through her hair, pulled out the mirror from the bag and looked at the state of her very light eye makeup. The lawyer could not stand sloppiness, and she did not want to provide him with further excuses to tell her off.

The phone rang again. “I haven’t dialed the wrong number. I know exactly who you are. I have really lost my head over you, and just had to tell you. I dream of you every night, you have no idea what kind of dreams I have. You’re my torment, my ecstasy, I have to see you, please come to me. I must have you.”

Again: that hoarse sensual voice that made her shiver.

“Who the hell are you? Who is this?” She asked, alarmed, trying to keep her voice low. She had to immediately get to the office, and that call was causing her to become agitated. “I need to see you, I need you to quench my thirst,” he whispered before interrupting the conversation abruptly.

Yeah, right, she thought. It had to be a stupid joke devised by one of her stupid friends, and yet she didn’t know that voice, she was sure. None of her silly drinking buddies had a similar voice. Sexy, husky, low, perfectly modulated.

It’s got to be a tasteless joke, she repeated to herself, if only to appease the state of disquiet she was in. She felt wobbly and her stomach was doing somersaults, but she opened the door anyway, sticking her head into the glimmer of light coming from the corridor. She waited and held her breath. After a few seconds she exhaled heavily. There was perfect silence. Maybe she could get to her room unnoticed. She quickly took off her coat and scarf and sped down the corridor on tiptoe. The thick Persian rug helped her remain unheard. She turned on the computer and listened. Not one of the usual morning noises.

No printer at work, no phone ringing. All was calm. Too calm. Something was not right. She decided to investigate. She picked up the internal phone and called Antonella, who answered after only two rings.

“Relax, I heard you arrive on tiptoe. The lawyer has not arrived yet, and Genevieve and Gertrude went directly to court. This morning they have not honored us with their presence yet. For once you got away with it — but from Monday try to be on time. Now come to my office, we’ll have coffee.”

Elena smiled, amused, as she always did when Antonella referred to the lawyer’s assistants as Cinderella’s stepsisters. Giorgia and Simonetta Serafini: very attractive, but also (mostly) very obnoxious and pretentious twins. They had been working there for almost three years without ever being kind to her or Antonella. She got up immediately, leaving behind the various folders that the lawyer and the assistants had left with indecipherable notes on the desk. She joined Antonella in the room they used as a kitchen and helped her friend make coffee. Shortly after, with a steaming cup in hand, they sat on two stools, next to the bench they used as a coffee table.

“This morning you have broken all records. You are almost an hour late. What the hell happened to you?”

Elena shrugged, as she sipped her coffee, still warm. “Billy the killer. His fault.”

“Can’t you wake him up earlier? You must not spoil him like you do. It’s just a dog.”

“He’s not just a dog. He’s the boss at home, you know that. There’s no point in trying to impose some rules. Also, as I was on my way to the office, a really weird thing happened to me. I received two calls, one more absurd than the other.” Thinking back to that voice gave her the shivers. She closed her eyes and savored, once again, the feeling of excitement she’d had. Then she opened them and shook her head, as if to push that memory away. Two years of solitude were hard to ignore, but she could not react like that just by thinking of a voice.

“What calls?” asked Antonella, curious.

“Private number. It was a man and I’m sure I don’t know him. Maybe it was a joke, I don’t know, but I’m very curious now. Actually, I must confess I’m truly shocked.”

The girl looked at her with concern: “Shocked? Why?”

“Basically he said he’s crazy about me, he’s got to see me, he wants me, he must have me.” As she spoke the last word she blushed and was caught by a sudden burst of heat.

Antonella opened her mouth, closed it and opened it again. Then she threw the empty plastic cup into the bin and finally devoted her attention back to Elena.

“Haven’t you thought that you might be dealing with a psycho, a freak, a depraved maniac?”

“Not at all. His voice was not that of a madman.”

“You cannot be sure. What do you know? Have you seen him, do you know who he is? Do you know his phone number?”

“Well, no, but it’s pointless to talk about it, he’s not going to call again. But let me tell you, Anto, you’ve become more suspicious than your new boyfriend. Apparently being with a policeman has powerful effects.”

“Yeah, yeah, joke about it, but you shouldn’t trust a random voice. You deal everyday with cases involving stalkers. Be careful. I mean it.”

Elena poured the leftover coffee into the thermos and proceeded to wash the moka pot, while Antonella put away the sugar and the napkins. When they were done, they both returned to their respective offices. Elena checked, as usual, if anyone had called her in the meantime.

The phone display was flashing a red and white envelope. A message. She had received a text message. She opened it without delay, but had to re-read it twice. Blood pounded in her head, making it impossible for her to think calmly and clearly.

I need to see you and to explain. Do not be afraid of me, I’m not crazy nor dangerous. I’m just madly in love with you. I have to have you close, I have to touch you, kiss you and make you feel the things I feel for you. Let’s meet tonight at Mario’s. I know you know the place, you go there often. I’ll be waiting for you at 9 pm. Don’t let me down.

Just like before, the sender was unknown. Her heart was beating furiously when she entered into Antonella’s office, with a smile on her face. She felt euphoric: she hadn’t felt that way for a long time.

“Look! Look at this!” she shouted, showing her the phone.

Antonella read the text with extenuating calmness. But, when she finally spoke, what she said was not exactly what Elena was hoping for. “You’re not thinking about going, are you? He could really be dangerous. This guy is mental, I’m sure of it.”

She sank down in the chair. “Mario’s is always full of people. I’m sure nothing will happen if I go. I’m excited and curious. A thing like this doesn’t happen every day, does it?”

“You’re so naïve. You still believe in fairy tales, but real life is another thing. Please don’t go. Think about it. You’ll realize that it’s absurd and truly dangerous. Don’t be silly.” Antonella gave back the phone, shaking her head. When it came to certain things, Elena behaved like an irresponsible child.

“It can’t be dangerous. I won’t leave the bar and I’ll make sure I’m never alone with him. I promise. But I have to find out who that wonderful voice belongs to.”

“So you’re going?”

“I think so.”

Elena got ready with great care. After a long bath she rubbed crème all over her body and thoroughly brushed her long, honey-colored hair. Lately she’d always been wearing it tied back, locked in a tight bun which gave her a severe and sometimes even grim look. But this was a special occasion, and she wanted to look like her true self. A twenty-eight-year-old girl, young and willing to live on Easy Street. She wanted to fall in love again, to feel the touch of male hands, to awaken the feelings that were dormant but ready to explode again. She finally felt excited. Ready to go.