on the plane back to Egypt.”
Josef’s eyes grew serious. “I
She put her hand over his. “I know. I’m not asking for anything, Josef.”
“I’ll be gone for another three months before returning to the university for a semester of teaching.”
Carla just nodded, unsure where he was going with this and not wanting to make a fool of herself.
“When I return, will you… I mean, would you be interested in…” His voice trailed off.
Carla smiled and squeezed his hand. “I think Dr. DiPaolo would be very unhappy with us if we didn’t.”
This time Carla’s stomach gurgled and they both burst out laughing. “I skipped lunch as well,” she admitted.
“Well then, in this city that never sleeps, let’s go find us some food, woman.”
“Agreed.” She stood and picked up her panties and skirt, still bunched in the corner where he’d thrown them. But his arms were around her before she could untangle them. Turning toward that incredible chest, she reached up and slid a lock of his blond behind his back. He bent to kiss her and she held on to his muscled shoulder, surprised that she could possibly want more after all he’d given her this evening.
And when the kiss ended, he bussed her on the nose and informed her, “After we’ve eaten, I know a good fetish shop that has a magnificent flogger in the window. And I just happen to know the back that I need to try it out on.”
“You do, do you?”
“I do.” He kissed her again and Carla felt her pussy clench at the thought of being at his mercy again.
“Then let’s eat quickly and go shopping,” she murmured against his lips. “I wouldn’t want to disappoint Angie by not taking advantage of every moment of this blind date she set up.”
“Nor would I, little one, nor would I.”
Quickly dressing, Carla marveled at what the day had wrought.
And she still didn’t have that damn report.
Grinning, she followed him into the hallway and waited as he closed the door. Maybe she’d pick it up—next time.
FATMAN & ROBYN
by Jaid Black
Prologue
“Fetishes of any sort are a direct result of the Oedipus complex,” the doctor sniffed. “Was your mother fat?”
“No.”
“Aha! Then your mother was thin and you subconsciously reject your innate attraction to her by fantasizing about plus-sized women.”
Jake Chamberlin rolled his eyes and sighed. Fully reclined on Dr. Jordan’s couch, he wasn’t sure if the Freudian psychiatrist could see his frustration or not. “My mother wasn’t thin either,” Jake growled, running a hand over the line of his jaw. “She was average. Dead-ass average.”
“And your rejection of average has resulted in your current fascination with chubby women. It’s so blatantly obvious.”
“Blatantly obvious?”
“Yes. A blind man could see it.”
The pompous doctor had an answer for everything. He reminded Jake of those TV psychics who changed their interpretations of events based on the answers their audience members gave. The shrink had missed his calling. He should have been on some obscure cable channel wearing a swami’s turban and looking into a crystal ball as he dispensed advice from the nether regions of time and space. Lord knows he might have been more effective.
Closing his eyes, he tuned out Dr. Snake-Oil-Salesman and took a deep breath. The only blatantly obvious thing happening in this room was the realization that this psychoanalyst wouldn’t be any more help to Jake than had the other five shrinks who’d preceded him. Six psychiatrists, two faith healers and a weird back-alley voodoo priestess later, fucking a stick-thin model was no more appealing now than it had ever been.
Jake needed to get over this unnatural attraction to what society labeled “chubby chicks”, and he needed to do it quickly. The star quarterback of the New York Bloods should have a trophy wife—a young, blonde, stick-thin Barbie doll with fake tits and a sprayed-on tan. That’s what all men in his position coveted and he should be no exception to the rule. He didn’t like being different. He wanted to be the man society expected him to be.
“…because your mother’s average weight was so arousing, you subconsciously began fantasizing about…”
Jake sat up, frowning. He didn’t have time for this bullshit. The Bloods had their work cut out for them. One more win and they’d be Super Bowl bound. At age thirty-seven, he knew this was his last shot at the ring. He should have retired two years ago after sustaining his third knee injury, but Jake had wanted to retire as a winner.
He’d deal with his problems after he had that ring on his finger. And, he thought with a grunt, after he found someone who could actually help him.
“This is stupid!” Jake snapped, standing up. At six-foot-five-inches and weighing in the vicinity of two hundred-sixty pounds, he knew he was an intimidating figure to most people. He supposed by the wary look on Dr. Quack’s face that the shrink was no exception. He didn’t care. The fucker had wasted enough of his time. “I don’t want to fuck my mother. Not consciously, subconsciously or unconsciously!”
“Well, of course I do on a subconscious level,” Dr. Jordan whined. “All men do.”
Jake grimaced. He would need counseling to get over this counseling. His brown eyes narrowed. “Thank God I’m not like all men.” He picked up his leather coat and shrugged into it. “Get some help, dude,” he advised as he stalked toward the door. “Seriously.”
Chapter One
Robyn DiMarco decided that if today wasn’t the most aggravating day of her thirty-four years of life, it certainly rated right up there. She had woken this morning to hair that wouldn’t be tamed, broken plumbing, loud garbage trucks and a coffeepot on the fritz. To top it all off, the elevator in the co-op she lived and worked in had apparently joined a union and opted to go on strike. The clock hadn’t even chimed noon and already she was tired, hungry, caffeine-deprived and, six flights of stairs later, rather surly.
“Yo! You gonna fix this elevator in my lifetime or what?”
“I could crawl to Jersey faster than this!”
“What about the water? My kids’ laundry doesn’t clean itself, ya know!”
Exiting the stairwell, Robyn walked through the lobby and headed toward the front door. Completely in agreement with the other co-op owners who were bickering back and forth with the building’s maintenance manager, she harrumphed her solidarity before opening the heavy door standing between herself and Mulberry
