Fated Desire Read online

  Fated

  Desire

  By

  Eliza Quinn

  Copyright © 2020 Eliza Quinn All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The following story contains mature themes, strong language and sexual situations. It is intended for mature readers.

  All characters are 18+ years of age and all sexual acts are consensual.

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  Table of Contents

  JOIN ME!

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  About the Author

  Other Books by Eliza

  Review the Book

  Chapter One

  Delia Dresden applied for the job at Van Der Meer Library without much hope of actually getting it. Not that her friend, Marion, or Mari for short, had taken her reluctance to apply for the job as a discouraging sign. Delia had stopped expecting Mari to make sense a long time ago. Maybe some of her enthusiasm could rub off on Delia.

  She walked into the Van Der Meer Library and immediately felt at home. The floor to ceiling bookshelves, the huge windows that let in natural light, the smell of books both old and new mingling with the smell of coffee and cleaner—they all added to the intimate ambiance of the place. Instead of formal tables and chairs, the library had little reading nooks where one could snuggle with books, and by the counter stood a beautiful woman with a smile on her face.

  “Hi, I’m Celine Drummond. Welcome to the library,” the woman said.

  Delia waved an awkward greeting and smoothed the silky black skirt she’d chosen for the interview. She wondered if it was a bit wild for an establishment that oozed wealth.

  “I’m Delia Dresden. I’m here for the job interview?” Delia said hesitantly.

  “Oh hi! We spoke over the phone and wow, you look amazing. Let’s go talk in the kitchen.” Celine looped her hands around Delia and dragged her off into the kitchen. Something about how easy-going she was made Delia relax.

  “Sit. I’m sure the other girls are occupied at the moment so we have the room to ourselves. Do you have any experience handling food? People?” Celine asked.

  “My friend Mari and I used to bake and cook most of our college years. I worked at a hotel front desk before. So yes to both questions,” Delia said smoothly.

  “I did read your resume. Kay is going off on a book tour in a few weeks. We’re planning a book reading that’s a pretty huge deal, and we’re adding a bookstore-slash-café too. I know that’s a lot of work for one person, so we’ll take on another hire as soon as we’re able. To be honest, I got all the pertinent information I needed from the short background research we did, so this meeting was really just a formality.” Celine smiled. “You got the job. Welcome to the Van Der Meer Library.”

  “You got the job!” Mari screamed, her ringlets bouncing as she jumped up and down.

  “Yes. Stop squealing before you get fired,” Delia said with a laugh. She couldn’t believe it herself; that had been way easier than she’d thought. All that worry for nothing. Mari worked the café literally next door to the Library, and it was Mari who’d insisted she send in an application. Already Mari’s boss was shooting her annoyed looks over the counter.

  Mari rolled her eyes at her. “Ignore her. She won’t fire me. First, my cakes are delicious and second, she just lost Nora Alcott to the Library. She’s the one in charge of running their food section, and my boss is not too happy with the promise of some competition. Nora worked here so we know how damn good her pastries are.”

  “However good they are, they aren’t better than yours,” Delia said, ever the staunch supporter of her friend.

  “This is why I love you Lia. Tell you what? Ric just got a huge promotion at Bread and Bone. He invited me in for some of the finest cuisine in New York City. Why don’t we celebrate? Posh job deserves posh dinner. I have to close later but since your house is closer to the upper east side than mine, why don’t we meet at the restaurant? Say 9 p.m.? I’ll call him—he’ll reserve something for us.” Mari smiled.

  “Oh c’mon. Don’t be silly. I don’t need a huge celebration. I’m fine with pizza and hanging out with you,” Delia insisted.

  “I’m not gonna take no for an answer. Got it? Stop arguing and let us have fun. I’ll see you by nine.” Mari nudged her slightly and grinned.

  “Okay, okay. At least let me have some of your amazing coffee and some of those fudgy brownies that are just oozing chocolate,” Delia said. She knew there was no point arguing. Once Mari got an idea, she went with it.

  “Of course. Not too much though.” She laughed and went back behind the counter.

  Delia navigated through traffic and made her way home with enough time to properly pamper herself. She knew it was Mari and not a hot date, but she felt like she really needed to give herself something, a pat on the back for not falling apart when her life had been over. She’d worked at a prestigious hotel before she’d applied at Van Der Meer Library, and it had ended very badly. She sighed. After that it had been difficult to get a job anywhere else. She was trained in hospitality; it was what she did. Yet after the fallout at her old job for something that she was a victim of and yet got punished for, the hospitality world had deemed her blacklisted. Something her boss made sure of. She didn’t like to dwell on it but sometimes, like today, it stung.

  Delia sighed and prepared a warm bath for herself. She walked to her wardrobe and frowned at the contents. The odd jeans, some serious dresses, and corporate wear she’d gotten for all her ill-fated interviews. She sighed to herself. Delia threw clothes out until she found something she’d forgotten she had. It was a dark blue bandage dress with bands that crisscrossed, leaving her back bare. The front of the dress had a semi-deep v with an elastic band dipping low in a way that mimicked a bralette. It showed skin, but in a way that was sexy yet tasteful. The deep, jewel blue matched the color of her recently dyed hair. Mari had gifted it to her over Christmas and she’d shoved it to the back of her closet because she had nowhere to wear it to. Delia took the dress to the mirror and studied it. Life was too short to wait anyway.

  “What the hell, might as well,” she told her reflection.

  Chapter Two

  Delia was at Bread and Bone at exactly 9 p.m. Mari wasn’t there yet. That wasn’t unusual. Mari was a Law unto herself. The last time the woman had been on time for anything was probably when she was a full-term baby. Ha! Probably not even then. Delia bit her lip and considered her options. She’d paired the deep blue dress with a pair of strappy dark blue sandals with heels in inches she refused to believe she had any problem walking in. They were so high they might as well have been ladders. She couldn’t stand by a busy New York City road in a dress that looked like sin and fuck me shoes. She sighed and walked into the restaurant, hoping they at least had a bar she could sit at. As she made her way into the restaurant, she decided to check in with the hostess. It was highly unlikely Mari had a reservati
on, but her flighty friend could shock her just this one time.

  “Hi, would you happen to have a reservation for a Marion Anderson?” she asked a woman who wore a pin that said “hostess”.

  “Uh…” The woman scanned her laptop screen. “Sure. Reserved for 9 p.m. Right this way,” she said.

  Delia sighed in relief. She could just order water and wait until Mari showed up. She followed the hostess to a table for two far off to the side. The area she sat in was mostly empty, with the only other patrons being a group of men seemingly having a meeting of some sort. All the men were older, dignified looking but forgettable. All except one. He stood out like an eagle in an ordinary flock of birds. Piercing eyes of molten gold, cold and calculating. He must have been tall because even seated he was head and shoulders above the rest. Something about him immediately commanded her attention. It could have been his piercing gaze, or the fact that he was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen. His face was lean, with chiseled sharp planes and kissable lips. His hair was cut short at the sides and longer in front, pushed back so brutally that not a strand was out of place. Delia ordered herself to look away. She was waiting for Mari, not checking out rich men far above her pay grade. He seemed to have heard her thoughts because he looked up and their gazes clashed.

  Lightning. Delia finally knew what it was like to be hit by lightning. It sizzled along her nerve endings, rudely slapping awake all these urges she’d spent a long time pretending were dead. She wanted to climb him, and her pussy clenched eagerly at the thought. He stared at her well, not stared, exactly. He fixated. His pale gold eyes pierced through her, setting her on fire from within. Delia couldn't look away. How could she, when she knew he was the only one she could see. Even the men next to him seemed like ghosts next to his vibrancy. She always thought that if she could have a dream man, he would be tall, dark and handsome. Emphasis on dark, but this man, with his hard edges and skin so pale he looked like a vampire, would haunt her fantasies. The man next to him touched him lightly on his arm to grab his attention. Her man pulled his mesmeric gaze away from her long enough to shoot the man a look so cool it could refreeze all the melted ice caps. The toucher shrank away and muttered what Delia assumed were embarrassed apologies. Her man did not look her way again. Delia dragged her gaze away and tried to call Mari.

  “Hey! I’ve been waiting for you,” Delia said. Was that her voice? High pitched and breathless? One look from him and she was quivering. It had to be his lips. All the color, the stuff that made people look human like the flush on their cheeks, none of that was there. Instead, it was in his lips, full and red yet uniquely manly. How did a woman look at that mouth and not want to sink her teeth into him? She licked her lips at the thought.

  “… so I’m not going to be able to make it. You’re there already so you just have fun,” Mari was saying.

  Delia shook her head and tried to clear the cloud of lust that was making it impossible for her to think. What had Mari said?

  “My mom swears she has to see me tonight and I hate to disappoint her. I called Ric already. He knows you’re there. I’ll talk later, okay?” Mari said.

  “What the hell? Mari don’t you dare…” Delia sighed because she knew she was talking to herself. She stared at the phone just as a waiter approached her.

  “Our best red, ma’am,” the waiter said, doing that fancy thing waiters did with expensive bottles where they tilted it like so and showed off the label. She didn’t want to tell him it was a waste of time. It could have been from grapes squashed in a bowl yesterday and packaged today and she wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

  “I didn’t order this. Ric certainly doesn’t need to bother on my account. Mari isn’t here,” Delia said, amused by the ceremony.

  “Ric didn’t order it. I did.” A man pulled up the chair facing her and sat. She gasped. It was him. Fuck if he wasn’t swoon-worthy up close and she wasn’t a woman who used swoon-worthy in a sentence, ever.

  “You…why?” Delia mentally gave herself a kick.

  “Because the wine is the best red they’ve got and since I plan to order the steak, also the best they’ve got, I’d rather have the two complement each other,” he said slowly, with an expression that gave nothing away.

  “Are you fucking with me?” Delia asked, because he didn’t look like he was.

  “Dirty mouth. You don’t look like you have a dirty mouth; those lips look like butter wouldn’t melt in them, Selene.” His gaze settled on her lips and she knew just how hot molten gold burned.

  Selene. Moon goddess.

  He’d called her the moon goddess.

  “Why are you here, sitting next to me, ordering wine and inviting yourself to dinner?” Delia tried again.

  “Because, Selene, when my eyes met your beautiful silver ones, and your lips parted and your pulse raced, I wanted you. I am going to have you and you’re going to like it, and after tonight, I’m going to spoil you for anyone else,” he said.

  Delia gulped because weirdly enough, she believed him.

  Chapter Three

  When she got into his blacked-out Maserati Levante, Delia told herself any minute now she’d give herself a good reason to tell him to fuck her and that would be it. She knew she would. She just had to remember how to stop being a quivering mess of needy desire. That was the quandary; she had never been a quivering mess of desire.

  “Stop fidgeting.” He sounded halfway between blatantly amused and blatantly bored. He started the car and began to drive. The landscape blurred into the darkness but from the tree-lined roads, they were no longer in the heart of New York.

  “Wouldn’t you be fidgeting if you got into a car with a man you didn’t know? A man who looks like a freaking vampire?” Delia huffed, though she was really more annoyed with herself. Annoyed and hopelessly wet. Her nipples were so hard she was going to chip them off into a shot of whiskey as ice. During dinner he’d skillfully avoided any attempts she tried at getting to know him. Delia didn’t know why she hadn’t pushed harder. Perhaps it was the sneaking suspicion that he would never see her again. For one night, she wanted to be adventurous.

  He shot her a look that said what he thought of her question. Of course he didn’t get into the car with strange men. He was the “strange men”.

  “I’m not a vampire, I assure you. And if I hurt you, you’re going to like it.” He flashed his teeth in what must have been his version of a grin but his white teeth put in mind a wolf stalking its prey. She shivered, but it was with a fresh wave of lust that pebbled her skin and had her clit paying attention. She didn’t think she was a danger junkie, though it seemed he’d managed to change her mind about that.

  “What are you? What is your name? I’m…” she tried to introduce herself.

  “Selene,” he finished firmly.

  “I…” she started.

  “Bain,” he said through gritted teeth.

  Delia frowned.

  “What?” she asked. He was confusing. So forthright one moment and so secretive the next. He could tell her he wanted to fuck her, but his name was a huge secret.

  “My name is Bain,” he repeated, enunciating each word deliberately as he slowed the car to a stop.

  “Like the Batman villain?” she blurted. He shot her an incredulous look and surprised himself and her by laughing loudly. The sound of his laughter echoed in the confines of the car and rested somewhere in her ribs. She felt a glow and refused to acknowledge it.

  “Not a fan of the masked crusader,” Delia observed. He didn’t look like someone who even knew comics existed, much less read them. She chanced a glance at him and saw his face had settled into that blank look he’d been wearing at the meeting.

  “Where did your business associates go?” she asked.

  “You ask entirely too many questions Selene,” he whispered roughly. His hand shot out into the space between them, clasped her neck and moved her toward him until their lips touched.

  Bain didn’t ease her into the kiss;
he kissed just as rudely and hungrily as he’d awoken her need. He fisted his hands in her hair and pulled her mouth to his, growling against her lips and probing with his tongue until she gave him her sweet-tasting surrender. Delia moaned into his mouth and clashed with him, tongue and teeth, desire burning her alive. In her head she screamed, but the sounds that escaped were helpless little moans. Moans that he caught between his hungry lips. He pulled her onto his lap and set her just so she was straddling the thick length of his cock. Delia moaned at the contact, and his hard thighs against her softness. She arched her back and drove her pussy down onto his clothed dick. The sensation was sublime as heat arched through her. She hissed in pleasure.

  “You need to tell me you want this,” Bain demanded.

  “I want you. I want you to fuck me,” she moaned.

  Bain greedily swallowed her surrender. He lifted her hands and twisted until her wrists were clasped tightly in one hand, pressed against the windshield. With the other, he pulled up her dress until her bare pussy glistened in the scant moonlight shining into the car. He smirked. Delia growled.