One Thousand and One Dark Nights
Once upon a time, in the future…
I was a student fascinated with stories and learning.
I studied philosophy, poetry, history, the occult, and
the art and science of love and magic. I had a vast
library at my father’s home and collected thousands
of volumes of fantastic tales.
I learned all about ancient races and bygone
times. About myths and legends and dreams of all
people through the millennium. And the more I read
the stronger my imagination grew until I discovered
that I was able to travel into the stories... to actually
become part of them.
I wish I could say that I listened to my teacher
and respected my gift, as I ought to have. If I had, I
would not be telling you this tale now.
But I was foolhardy and confused, showing off
with bravery.
One afternoon, curious about the myth of the
Arabian Nights, I traveled back to ancient Persia to
see for myself if it was true that every day Shahryar
(Persian: شهريار, “king”) married a new virgin, and then
sent yesterday's wife to be beheaded. It was written
and I had read that by the time he met Scheherazade,
the vizier's daughter, he’d killed one thousand
women.
Something went wrong with my efforts. I arrived
in the midst of the story and somehow exchanged
places with Scheherazade – a phenomena that had
never occurred before and that still to this day, I
cannot explain.
Now I am trapped in that ancient past. I have
taken on Scheherazade’s life and the only way I can
protect myself and stay alive is to do what she did to
protect herself and stay alive.
Every night the King calls for me and listens as I spin tales.
And when the evening ends and dawn breaks, I stop at a
point that leaves him breathless and yearning for more.
And so the King spares my life for one more day, so that
he might hear the rest of my dark tale.
As soon as I finish a story... I begin a new
one... like the one that you, dear reader, have before
you now.
Chapter One
Starting an evening with an orgasm should have been a sign of more good things to come. Literally.
Of course, most orgasms aren’t given out of pity, and this one definitely was. Even if Scott hadn’t so much as said that directly, it was a big clue when he dismissed me just when it was his turn for the hand job.
His cutting remark echoed in my head: “Only reason I got you off was so that you’d leave me alone.”
I refused to cry as I stomped away from him.
Well, stomped until I got to the edge of the roof. There, my departure became more awkward as I attempted to descend the steel ladder to the main rooftop level with as much poise as a woman dressed in a cocktail dress could muster. Which is to say, not any poise at all. Mostly, I tried to keep my knees together so that no one below could see that my panties had gone the way of my dignity—stuffed into Scott Sebastian’s pocket.
Not my cocktail dress, I should add—borrowed from my older sister, as all my formal attire was—which meant that the snag that I got halfway down the damn thing would have to be repaired before I returned it. There went next week’s Café A Lot money.
Fuck everything.
Rather, fuck everything but Scott Sebastian, the only thing I actually wanted to be fucking at the moment.
At the bottom of the ladder, I sent one more angry glare toward the upper roof, hoping that my sometimes lover would be standing there to see it.
Alas, the glare went unreceived.
And I, in a dramatic flare that no one was there to witness, lifted my chin and stormed over to the bar.
“Everything going well?” I asked the bartender as I slipped behind the counter. His name was Denim.
Denim.
I’d be appalled at his parents for giving him such a ridiculous name if I wasn’t so sure that it was a name change he’d taken for himself.
Actors.
Correction: Millennial actors. The other actors weren’t quite so eccentric.
The city was full of them moonlighting as waitstaff, and since my job description as receptionist somehow included every random task not otherwise assigned in the PR department, I was frequently the point person for the service staff at parties such as this.
Obviously, I wasn’t the best at this part of my job, since I’d been getting busy with my boss instead of remaining in sight and available. But honestly, I would have been overjoyed to have this particular task doled out to someone else. I’d frequently asked for just that over the last few years, only to have my request put off time and time again. So now this was just another thing in my life that could fuck right off.
“Peachy,” Denim said flatly, and charming as he wasn’t, I didn’t take it upon myself to manage him the way some others in my position might have.
I hadn’t really come by to check up on him.
He eyed me as I rooted around in his wine fridge. “Anything I can get for you, Ms. Waters?”
“Nah. I got it.” I pulled out an already opened, mostly full Moet & Chandon and made sure the Nectar Imperial flavor was a demi-sec—it was—and then shut the fridge door with my hip. I held up the bottle for Denim to see. “A guest requested this.”
Never mind that the guest was me and that I wasn’t really a guest.
“Do you need some flutes?”
“Nope! I’m good.”
“Ah, so that’s the kind of evening this is going to be,” said another familiar voice as I slipped back to the other side of the bar.
I turned to see the only other face I wanted to see at the moment—really, the only other face I wanted to see at most moments.
“That’s the kind of evening this already is, Brett,” I whined, the way a girl does when she’s having a bad time and she sees the person who knows her better than anyone else in the world.
He frowned as he used his thumb to clean up my smudged mascara. “Want me to beat him up?”
I forced myself not to shiver at his touch. “Yes, please.”
“On it.”
He smiled, and the bright white of his teeth somehow managed to accentuate the green of his eyes. It was hard to know where to look, which was often the case. Every part of his face was attractive, from his dimpled chin to his chiseled cheekbones to his thick eyebrows to the scruff covering his angled jawline.
Hands down, he was the hottest man I knew. Even after years of knowing him, I wasn’t immune to his looks. The only reason I hadn’t chased after him was because he wasn’t running. If I wanted him in my bed, I had a feeling he’d follow me like a lost puppy. That was his only problem—which wasn’t really a problem in general, just where my libido was concerned—he adored me, and f’d up broken girl that I was, I required a certain degree of assholery to turn me on.
Scott Sebastian, case in point.
Of course Brett wouldn’t really beat Scott up because A) he wouldn’t hurt a fly, B) Scott was his boss as well as mine, and C) Scott was his cousin—relevance in that order—but it was a nice sentiment all the same.