Chapter 1
As I sit on the living room floor in my father's penthouse apartment I look out to the city and back to my mother's urn placed above the modern fireplace. Everything in this room was so barren and cold. A perfect set up to show your investors the kind of person you are, but not the perfect place for my mother's ashes to be at.
It seems lonely to be in this barren apartment for the rest of your life. Where there's no spirit, no laughter, no love. After I lost my mother at age nine my father never dated or remarried again. It's been eleven years since then, and now I'm twenty, he still hasn't met anyone since. Did he love her then?
My Father is a handsome man, he's wealthy and an owns a million dollar jewelry company made in my mother's name—Layla's Inc.
But then again it would be rather odd for my cold Father to be seen affectionate with another women. My mother died of cancer, she was fighting it for years when I was little. The thing I admired about her the most was that she was brave, truly kind to others and loving to my Father and I. She always wanted us to go for our dreams. When I was four and I told her I wanted to be a ballerina after we'd seen the Nutcracker for the first time she was the one to buy my first ballet flats.
When my Father said he wanted to go after something big and to stop working in an office, she told him to give it his life and pursue it with hard work and most importantly, love.
This woman, my mother—she never gave up on you when times were tough. She was the rock to our hearts. So when she passed away us was devastating. My father's business had gone up so we moved from Idaho to New York City. The place where all dreams could be made reality.. Well look where we are now.
My father gone every hour only to see me when he requests my presence for a formal party where everyone's greedy and chasing for the highest bidder. And me, grieving my mother all alone in this barren house on the anniversary of her death.
I wish today was a good day. Knowing her she would've wanted it to be a day where we went to our favorite local restaurant and gotten burgers and fries and just talked about her and laughed.
But all we did on this day was cry. And I was sure I wouldn't see my Father for the next few days on the week of the anniversary of her death.
I cough in order to collect myself and get up and walk closer to her urn. "I miss you and I love you."
An unknowing tear falls down from my eye and I brush it away, then lightly smile. I'll smile for her today and try not to cry.
.....
With my dancers bag in one arm and my other arm to the sky I try and get a taxi. Each time they keep passing me because they can't see me in this crowded street. "Damn it!" I grunt in frustration.
A lot of people come to the city during the holidays but I never knew if would be this hectic on a Monday in early December. My hair falls out of my bun from a sudden gush of wind as I see my light brown locks and Bobby pins are now all over the street. "Fuck!"
I can't collect them now that their dirty and on the street. Today is definitely not a good day, but I have to keep smiling. At least for her. So I just gently smile and try to laugh at the situation. It's almost ten in the morning, I'm late for my dance class, my Bobby pins are long gone now and I can't get a taxi for my life.
So I just burst out laughing, a kind of laugh where tears come out of the corner of your eyes.
That's when I feel someone place there hand on my waist, and feel a rough silhouette place themselves directly behind my back and as he does so he leans in to the nape of my neck and says, "Mine." He breathes in my scent and I stop laughing, "Mate."
I start feeling pricks of electricity wherever his hand is placed on my waist, and the other he begins to place on my thigh. I feel more bolts of that electricity, and it feels..pleasurable. Like the kind of pleasurable where I could start moaning at any second just by his touch. And I've never in my life have felt that before.
I move my head slowly to see who is this man who is making my head spin and making me feel so..good. As I come into eye contact with him I see how handsome he is—devastatingly so. His eyes are dark brown, almost somehow turning blacker by the second.. strange.
But his face, I roam it with my eyes from his insane symmetry to how built his body is, to his pitch black hair. He's wearing a dark black suit that matches his entire demeanor. Dark, black, and a sin to humanity itself. He is the only thing I could ever dream of come to life.
He noticed me checking him out and started to growl a little, he placed himself in the nape of my neck and I gasped. He inhaled deeply and licked me. I moaned and he growled more.
As he roamed around my neck and smelled me I allowed him more access and moved my neck to the side. He gave a pleasurable grunt as if he was pleased with my reaction. I bit softly in a place right between my neck and my shoulder raising fireworks to shoot through me and my entire body to go limp to the point that I actually fall onto him. But with his unusually large frame he catches me and then wraps his arms around me and breathes into my ear in a sensually deep voice, "My mate loves that I see, and you have so much more coming for you darling." He kisses the part he just bit on and that causes me to moan lightly again.
When I hear the honks of horns from incoming traffic I'm snapped back into reality and the situation I'm in. I'm doing this all with a stranger, I don't even know his name! My brain snaps in line with my heart and my body and I snap up from his embrace. He notices and immediately takes offense by growling.
"I-I need to go." I say as he tightens his grip.
"You're not getting away from me so soon darling mate."
He brings one of his long bulky arms up to the air to hail a taxi as the other one stays firmly place on and around my waist keeping me locked to his back. And I feel a little thing poking out behind me.. wait, scratch that not little at all. In fact something abnormally big is poking at my back and I think I know what it is. "I need to go." I say to him breathlessly.
"We are going love."
"No, not we!" I say as I struggle to be released from his hellish grip.
"Yes we." He says and releases a growl as he pulls me back to him with much more force. I feel the fireworks again and lean my head back to look back up at him. His eyes are almost completely black now.. it's scary.
"Y-your eyes.." I say with a hint of a shake in my voice.
He notices this and says, "Fuck."
He finally hails in a taxi and opens a door with the hand not gripping me to him and once the door opens he puts me in first and he follows suit taking a seat.
"Where to?" The taxi driver says.
"Mountain View Hotel." He responds thickly in an aggravated tone.
The driver starts to drive to the hotel and I gasp in Horror. The mystery man notices and moves closer the me as I move further away from him. It's as if a large wolf moving to capture it's prey— the bunny. And I sure as hell don't like feeling like a bunny.
"Come here darling." He says in a deep voice, and I come back to notice his dark eyes and the way they pull me in.
In my dazed moment he pulls me in and I gasp as he places me on his lap and wraps both his arms around me. Once in place on his lap he goes back to my neck and starts kissing along it. I gasp in a quiet moan.
I push him a little and he growls in warning and bites my neck again lightly and I moan louder. The taxi driver looks back at us and mystery man growls at him, the taxi driver shockingly looks away just as quickly.
In embarrassment I hide my face in his neck and he places one of his hands on my head stroking my hair and the other on my lower back, almost going lower to stroke somewhere else.. I gasp when he does and he cups my ass in the palm of his hand and groans in satisfaction. I moan agonizingly again.
"Mate." He says deeply in my ear with a hint of breathlessness.
I get up from the crook of his shoulder and say, "What's your name?"
He starts to smile and then laughs the kind of laugh that goes through your whole body—the kind of laugh you could feel through your bones. One that's was very deep and sensual that I could feel is everywhere.. everywhere.
I cough to get his attention, and more to get myself to snap out of it. He stopped laughing shortly after and looked at me deeply in my eyes. He brought one of his hands up to move a piece of hair out of my face and under my ear. I shivered at the contact and the bolts of lightning that went to my ear. He placed his hand back down to my waist, and smiled at me lightly.
"Elijah." He said.
And somehow that simple word alone made music sound to my ears. As if it was only my melody to ever hear, to ever say.
"Elijah." I repeated very slowly in a hushed voice.
One that was obvious he could still hear because he growled a bit and pushed me in closer to him, bringing us face to face.
"And you?" He said to me breathlessly, "What is your name mate?"
And as if in a trance or a lucid dream I responded with, "Mia. My name is Mia."
"Mia." He repeated, "My Darling Mia."
We were both breathing very deeply and heavily, me on his lap my hands placed on his chest. One of his hands gripped my ass the other placed on my waist tightly to keep me close to him. And our foreheads locked together feeling little tingling sensations from the direct physical contact.
But then he closed in the gap, nose to nose, eye to eye and lips to lips. He leaned forward, more closer. And then he kissed me. And it was the best kiss of a life, because that's when I really felt the fireworks.
