HOOKED: An Erotic Romance Read Online Free

undies, with a small, white trim. No lace or bows. Why couldn’t I at least have left my French knickers out to dry?
    I guess the answer was this: because I never went on any dates any more, and I never had any reason to wear fancy knickers. White cotton panties were all I ever needed.
    Thinking about my underwear made me aware of how little I was wearing now. That I was standing in my living room with a guy I’d only met for the first time that evening, a guy who’d been ordering around forty well-built people in a rough old garage, shouting at us to throw punches this way and that, telling us we weren’t punching hard enough, that we didn’t have enough intention behind our shots.
    Here he was now, in my living room, and I was half-naked. At least I had his jacket over my shoulders, wearing it like some kind of cape.
    And he - why was he so quiet?
    ‘Michaela,’ he said suddenly. Hearing my name said out loud like that, with that foreign accent of his, made me weak at the knees.
    ‘Yes, Raoul?’ Two could play that game. I’d say his name back to him. Pronouncing those vowels just how he liked it. See if that had any effect on him. Imagine if I could make a guy like him weak at the knees!
    He looked down at me, then lay his hands on my shoulders. He opened his mouth, ran his tongue slowly across his lips, as if he was about to say something, then paused. He whipped the shirt off my back, and said: ‘I’ve got to go.’
    Without another word, he turned around and walked out of my apartment. The door slammed moodily behind him.
    That man really wasn’t one for goodbyes.

 
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER SIX
    Rah-ool
     
    After exercising in a sweaty gym, and then being pushed into the mud by thugs, it’s hardly an understatement to say that it was a relief to get in the shower. There was something oddly reassuring about seeing all my shower cremes, nearly lined up. The expensive, rosewater one, for my face. The sandalwood shower gel, and zingy grapefruit and salt scrub for my body. The ylang-ylang shampoo and conditioner. All the smells I associated with being clean, refreshed, ready to face the world again.
    I washed the mud off my face first, relieved to rid myself of the marks of the assault, wondering whether I should’ve been to the police about it tonight. I’d been so wrapped up in the fact Raoul had rescued me, I hadn’t thought about it. I’d call them in the morning. Guys like that never deserved to get away with it, although I knew they wouldn’t be doing anything like that again for a while - not if those thwacks I’d heard were anything to go by. They’d be limping for days.
    The shower gel next, a delicate sandalwood creme, which I took time to rub all over my body, making sure I paid attention to my armpits, where I’d been sweating the most, but also the back of my neck, my shoulders, my breasts.
    I couldn’t stop thinking about the sound of Raoul’s fist thwacking those guys. So forceful, like he didn’t even think about what he was doing, he just acted entirely upon instinct, on impulse. There was something so strangely passionate in that, the confidence of a man who knew when to punch and when to hold back.
    I massaged the cream into my breasts for a little longer, enjoying the feeling of my nipples hardening under the stream of hot water.
    Rah-ool.
    It was such an exotic name. Where did he come from?
    I watched the foam drip in rivulets down my stomach, feeling a new tightness in my muscles that I’d never felt after thirty minutes on the running machine at the gym. My whole body felt like it had been tuned up a notch, sensitive and strong, ready for action.
    I moved my hands down to my flat stomach, rubbed the cream over my taut skin, then moved my hands down, further still. I opened my mouth under the jet of water and let a hot stream of it run into my mouth.
    ‘Rah-ool,’ I said, my mouth full of hot liquid. ‘Rah-ool.’
    I moved my hands further down still, onto the mound of