Page 1 of Devil's Dilemma

Chapter One

Melissa

It’s Friday evening. I’m sitting giggling, or at least making a show of pretending to understand what’s so funny, with my group of fellow co-workers at a bar. They’re all younger than me and it shows. They seem to be more in tune with life while I, at thirty-four, seem old among the group of early twenty-somethings.

Even the music they talk about I’ve never heard of, though they’re not exactly a different generation. Some even live at home, while I’ve managed to get to the place where I can support myself and have a small house I managed to buy, with an eye-watering mortgage of course. That’s the reason I’ve been sipping my one drink all evening, while others seem to throw cash around without a care.

“Didn’t you watch it?” one of the younger office workers asks. When I shake my head, she continues, “I can’t believe you don’t watch that talent show. I find it hilarious.”

I prefer spending my free time cooking, producing meals for the week that I can freeze and just heat up when I’m tired, or the confectionary concoctions I love conjuring up. It’s my form of relaxation. Along with reading, those two hobbies take up most of my time. The TV in the corner of my living room is rarely turned on.

Beth, my exceptionally tall and model slim friend, is animatedly telling the others about her preparation for a marathon, something else I tune out. Me and exercise long parted company. I like to relax when I get home. I’m perfectly happy with myself and my life and don’t feel the need to have an exercise regime or try the latest fad diet to influence how I appear in anyone else’s eyes. Not that I didn’t spend my late teens and a few of the following years trying to become what nature never intended me to be, but I could never match the image of the ideal woman who I saw in magazines. I’ve always stood back and watched men home in on my slender and ideally endowed friends while the years have passed, and I’ve ended up alone. I don’t resent it. When I look in the mirror I know what a man sees, and that’s not a future with a curvy woman like me.

I’d been fourteen when I first became aware I was different, and because of it was subjected to the cruelty common in kids of that age. I was the fat girl, the girl never chosen to be on a sports’ team, the girl no one wanted to be friends with, as though my size might have been infectious. Fat, the boys called me, baby fat reassured my mom, and that I’d grow out of it. But neither more years nor diet had worked and I remained as I am today, stout and rounded, but luckily, no longer bullied because of it.

While the conversation about running leaves me once again out in the cold, I amuse myself, looking around, people watching. The bar we’ve come to is one I haven’t been to before. It’s pleasant enough, with the strong enticing aroma of food that’s making my stomach rumble. Good choice of drinks and cocktails too, I muse, watching the bartender expertly mix one, shaking a shaker vigorously then twisting it behind his back and tossing it into the air. As I look on, amused and entranced while he goes through his routine for a couple of giggling girls who can’t take their gaze off him, I suddenly notice eyes staring at me.

I look away fast, already feeling my face burning, but not before I’ve seen enough to be able to recreate his image in my mind’s eye.

He’s younger than me, much younger. There’s a cocky tilt to his head, dark hair flopping around his face in no particular style, and a worn leather cut that warns me to stay far away from him.He’s a biker, from one of those biker clubs that articles in the news often warn us about.But my eyes had remained on him long enough for me to wonder what I’d have done had I been a few years younger. My brief glimpse had shown me he was handsome and muscular, tall but not overly so, shorter than Beth but still much taller than me. About five foot nine or ten I’d estimate. I’m just five foot three.

Why the hell am I estimating our height difference?

Of course he wasn’t looking at me, or only critically. I’ve been a victim of his sort before.

“Yeah, Beth. This weekend.” I force myself to concentrate on the conversation going on around me. “What do you want me to make? Cupcakes? Muffins? Both?”

Beth’s tongue actually licks her lips in anticipation. “Both? Of course, you’re coming, aren’t you, Melissa?”

I shake my head. “You don’t want me around.”

They do try to include me in their activities, but the thing is, I’m not comfortable mixing with them outside of work. It’s not that I don’t get on with them, I do. We’re just interested in different things. Clothes, fashion and young men are not my scene. I’m sure one day they’ll realise I’m boring.

“Have you got anything better to do?” Her eyes narrow.

“Oh, don’t worry about me.” I wave my hand dismissively. “I’ll be busy.” I decide to keep quiet that I’ll be trying out a new recipe and looking at getting some wool for a knitting pattern I found online.

Used to me turning down any and all invitations, Beth just shakes her head, then grins. “One of these days we’ll drag you out into the land of the living, Melissa.”

I smile back, offering only a tentative, “Maybe.”

I may have only had one drink, but my bladder signals it needs emptying. Pushing back my chair, I stand, and make my way to the restrooms which are over in the direction of the bar. As I enter the small hallway, the door to the Men’s opens, and the biker I’d been admiring earlier steps out. Up close, he looks even younger than the age I had first pegged him.

We do that sort of awkward dance, him stepping to his left and me to the right at the same time, then laugh in embarrassment, and repeat it to the other side. He quickly tires of the game, putting his strong calloused hands against my biceps, and moving me to one side so he can get around me.

A zing of electricity goes through me at the touch of his warm hands, but it’s all too fast, and job done, he moves them away. Then, with a wink, he walks off.

I stay, for a moment needing the wall to support me, and my hand covers my heart which seems to be fluttering. Half of me wishes I was ten years younger, the other half acknowledges he wouldn’t have looked twice at me then, either. But, the demon sitting on my shoulder whispers into my ear, no one will know if I use him to fuel some fantasies when I’m using my vibrator later, and in my dreams, I can be any age, and any shape or size that I want. I could even be a woman who’d tempt a handsome biker.

I only take a few seconds to recover my equilibrium, then step into the Ladies and do what I came here for. After washing my hands and drying them, I prepare to reverse my steps through the crowded bar and return to my friends once again.

“Hey,” a voice interrupts as I exit the hallway. “After dancing together, I think we should at least exchange names.”

For the second time this evening, my face turns bright red, and I’m tempted to check behind me that there’s no one else there.

“I’m Skull.” His mouth turns up either side, and I’m subjected to the full force of his attractiveness, noticing the gleam of sin and temptation in his eyes.

“I’m too old to play games.” I come straight out with it. I’m not easy, and so far away from the type of person this man should hook up with, it’s too much of a joke to even consider. If he’s got mommy issues or fantasies, he can keep them.

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