Reckless Abandon Ch. 01

Alice could hear that familiar clock ticking again and it was getting louder.

Tick, tock, tick, tock.

Every hour, every minute, every second, she could hear it. When she was in the shower, when she was biking to work, when she was trying to eat the dinner she made (meaning heating up some crappy microwave dinner) and it was especially loud when she was staring at the ceiling in her bed, trying to sleep. She didn't know there were spots, one hundred sixty-eight of them, that were of the medium size variety.

It was the beating not of the hideous heart, hidden beneath the floorboards that betrayed her crimes, but of the clock nestled deep inside her body, that hideous biological clock that betrayed her womanly instincts and needs.

Apparently, her body and mind had had a meeting without her one night and together, they had diabolically (if not mutinously) deemed that it was time to start procreating, leaving her with an aching inexplicable need to have a baby. Of course, at the fresh dewy age of twenty-nine and having no husband with that traditional white picket fence in the background waiting back home, or even a wedding ring from a non-existent boyfriend in sight, the chances of her having said baby were close to nil.

Who was she kidding?

She didn't even stand the slight chance.

She sighed and dragged a hand through her blonde hair, glaring with blurry eyes at her computer monitor, as if that was that was the reason she didn't have any pictures posted up around her workspace or in her wallet, ready and waiting to be bragged with. But then again, it just might be why.

For the past five years, she had been steadily climbing up the cooperate ladder at the insurance agency she worked at, ignoring the ticking of her biological clock in favor of the clicking against a keyboard and the musical beeps of the copy machine. To her back then, that had been music to her ears, knowing that work was getting done and she was just one tinier step closer to reaching the top, gaining more control of the business and in the end, securing her future.

Of course, she hadn't counted on her biological clock finding the volume and cranking it up. What had caused this sudden urge?

"Alice?"

She jerked up and nearly fell from her chair out of shock, straightening after a small gasp and looked up at her friend Heather.

"O-Oh, hey! What's up?" she laughed apprehensively, seeking to dispel her previous and unpleasant thoughts.

Heather tilted her head to the side with a curious look, her curly red hair falling in a cascade as she crossed her arms over her chest with a slow knowing look.

"Are you okay? I e-mailed you three times now and you haven't replied to one. I really need that report on the Sullivan case, or I'm stuck here."

"Oh yeah, I'm sorry. I haven't had any time to check," she moved her chair away from the cubicle opening and slammed her palms against the keyboard out of habit before typing away for several moments and pausing. With a sudden victorious smile, she hit "print" and slid her chair with a push of her heels and hands to the printer and handed it to Heather.

She took the pages limply, staring at Alice with a peculiar look for several minutes.

"Are you okay?" she repeated, this time sounding more worried than perturbed.

Alice frowned. "Yes. Why?"

Heather sighed and sat the edge of one of the attached desks in the cubicle, crossing her legs over each other to match her arms, the habit of vanity too hard to erase in the presence of a friend as her gray silk skirt hiked up a couple inches on her nylon-encased thighs.

Alice had met Heather on her second day of work in a similar situation. Unable to keep up yet with the speed of the workplace, mostly because she had been busy fixing the god-awful grammar she had found in a report by some dumbass, a busty redhead had burst in like a bull in a Chinashop and had demanded hotly that she quit wasting her time and hand over the report already. Alice had cooly replied that whoever had written it needed to go back to third grade spelling and she would get the report when she got it and not before.

They became instant friends.

However odd their pairing, their friendship extended outside the workplace into the, lately rare, nightlife. Heather, with all her fiery passion and looks, had scored a husband three years ago however after dating him for four years and had since then, been trying to set up her single friend. Most of her attempts went abysmally, but she was trying, which in her book, was all that mattered.

"You only hold up the line on reports when you're either tired, frustrated or you have something on your mind. Since we haven't had a girl's night out in ages," she cast her an accusing glare for a moment. "It can't be sleep and you have your own little friend in the nightstand to take care of the second. So what's wrong?"

Alice smiled helplessly. How she envied her sometimes besides her bluntness. Three years of wedded bliss and she was still in love and glowing almost every morning. And as if that didn't put salt into the proverbial wound, then her fabulous good looks, excellent fashion sense or gorgeous husband would.

Take your pick.

So, perhaps the reason she had been skipping out lately on those nightly outings in favor of pajamas, a tub of Ben and Jerry's and a sappy love comedy, was because she truthfully felt insignificant standing next to Heather.

Her own coloring was, in a word, drab.

Pale blonde hair as opposed to golden, gray eyes to blue, pale skin when tan was better - yep.

She honestly felt like a ghost sometimes in this Technicolor society.

The only thing even close to acceptable was her lean form that she was secretly most proud of, even if her bust size was a little less than she might want. Such was the price of working out every day though.

She looked up at Heather and heaved a sigh.

"I want a baby," she blurted out.

There was a pregnant pause in the air until she tilted her head to the side, regarding her with a quizzical, even a "well, duh" look.

"Seriously now? Does this have anything to do with your youngest brother having those twins?" she nodded her head to the few pictures at her work space, including a recent picture of a redheaded man and a sweaty, but content brunette holding a bundle of joy in each arm. The twins, Sarah and Rachel, would make kids #3 and #4 and yet, her younger brother Adam and his wife Georgia agreed they wanted at least two more kids. Talk about a disregard for world overpopulation.

Alice smiled at the picture, remembering her last visit to the house when she brought the customary pan of lasagna to relive them of some household duties, like making dinner that night. The house had been full of kids running around, toys skewed and abandoned in pursuit of a new game and the carpets obviously had seen better days, like before apple juice, grape juice, crayons, Play Doh, markers and the kids themselves were brought in.

Why did she get that aching need then whenever she visited her other siblings' houses, with similar disarray?

"It has been pretty obvious lately," Heather brought her back to earth. "Why else do you think I've been setting you up with men huh? Shits and giggles?"

Alice rolled her eyes and moved in her chair to return to her computer, since this wasn't going anywhere seriously.

"Aw, wait, wait. I got it. Fine," Heather chuckled and settled herself down more comfortably before checking her watch. "So your biological clock is ticking too, huh? Feel like someone turned it up to eleven volume yet?"

"For the past six months, yeah," Alice groaned, burying her hands into her hair again as she shrank her head down to the desktop. She gave a dramatic head bang three times before regarding Heather with a frown. It was hard to do with the side of her head on the table, but she managed.

"Wait - you're older than me. Why aren't you complaining?"

"Simple. I froze those little suckers a year after I got married. But anyway - how you're acting is perfectly normal. The big three-oh approaching and you're getting anxious. The expiration date on those room temperature eggs are running out and you're looking for a studly sperm donor that will heat you up and give you that healthy baby that could win contests in cuteness while you plan for his or her college tuition, right?" She cast her a sly grin.

Alice nodded, frankly astonished. Was she that transparent?

She laughed at her look. "How many siblings?"

"Three. All younger."

"There you go! That actually does explain a lot - you had to play the mom and now you want to play it again, only this time, with your own little spawn. Plus, you're afraid you're going to turn into the weird spinster aunt everyone is creeped by who has a million cats," she grinned. "Tick tock, tick tock."

"Har har." Alice grumbled moodily, crouching over her keyboards.

Heather sat up and smoothed her skirt down before winking audaciously. "Just remember, thanks to my being the baby and having two older brothers, I got to meet a lot of eligible men before I settled on Tristan," Alice snorted. Tristan was hardly settling - a doctor, rich family, gorgeous face and who knows what else? She wanted to see was the ultimate godly goal was if that was settling. "So give me a call and we'll go out on the hunt for the ideal sperm bank, okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sullivan report?" Alice reminded with a wry smile. Heather laughed as she left her cubicle and moved down the hallway.

Long after the muffled clicks of her heels faded, she stared at her computer screen. It seemed impersonal, to call a man a sperm bank, but in the end, she didn't see a husband in her future picture, cooing over their baby, coming home from work to an excited toddler or even someone to grow old with in her future. Perhaps, in her desperate and lonely mind, a baby was a way to ensure she wouldn't die alone, nor live the rest of her life alone. Morbid, but true.

Besides, she loved children and they loved her.

She stared for several moments before she pushed away at her desk, capturing the phone and quickly dialing in the number she had used over and over.

"7 o'clock tonight okay?"

The other end howled with laughter before hanging up.

The club was too loud, too smoky and everyone was dressed like a slut. Of course, so was Alice, so she had no right to complain. She inched her hand back to the hem of her skirt, only to have Heather smack her hand away again for the umpteenth time.

"No! Damnit, you have nice legs, so show them off!" she scolded with a scowl.

Alice cast her a murderous look. "This was your skirt, if you can call it that. Not to mention, you're about three inches shorter than me, making this skirt - dun, dun! Three inches shorter on me! It's practically a belt! If I walk too hard or too long, everyone will see exactly what color underwear I'm wearing."

Her friend grinned, dancing slightly to the beat of the techno overhead, watching the swaying sweating bodies with envy over in the center of the club. "That's why I told you not to wear underwear but nooo - 'I'm not comfortable without underwear. What if someone gropes me and finds out?' Honey, at this rate, you'll be lucky to even get groped standing back here in the wallflower section. Then again, you could always shuck those panties and walk long so that everyone can see if you have a shaved pus-"

"If you want to dance, go ahead," Alice rolled her eyes and fidgeted with her skirt again with a glare. "I'm getting another drink."

With a mischievous smile, she disappeared into the mass of dancing people, leaving her alone.

Why was she doing this, she asked herself. Artificial insemination was so much less embarrassing and frankly, the less she knew about her sperm donor, the better her life would be in the end. No custody battles, no face to associate with her child - her mother had told her two things to be careful with in life, because both were permanent. Her career, and who she had kids with. Doing artificial insemination, however, seemed so impersonal. So cold. Every kid deserved some male influence and she didn't want to deny that to her child.

I could always adopt too, she thought to herself, dragging a hand through her hair before pausing, feeling as if someone was watching her.

Green.

That was her first thought as she stared across the very large club room at the man staring at her so frankly. He had brilliant green eyes that seemed to absorb the light all around him, making them glow with an exaggerated intensity. It took her several long minutes to drag her eyes away from his to notice his dark, almost black hair and the rest of him. Everything, much like his eyes, seemed to be exaggerated to something a little extra, especially his body.

She blinked and rubbed at her eyes, almost disbelieving the sight of the handsome man and frowned when her vision cleared. He must have been an apparition to represent her misguided thoughts, because he was gone. She began to debate over her ability to even adopt if she was seeing things, turning to walk the few short steps to the bar and ordering an overpriced water bottle. She moved back to her wallflower spot an instant later and took a deep drink before feeling the weight of someone's stare once more on her.

It was him again damnit!

She glared at him and took another drink, as if daring him to ruin her already "fabulous" night. He disappeared into the throng of people again when a crowd of clubbers passed by in front of her, laughing.

Alice sighed and looked behind her to the wall, hoping for a chair to sit at and finding that all the tall chairs and tables were taken by couples and groups of friends, talking excitedly and drinking. She took another sip and paused, regarding the empty bottle that had cost her almost three dollars for three drinks with a disappointed shake. She grumbled and placed it on a nearby table where two men were making out and deigned herself to maybe just one little dance before she grabbed Heather and reacquainted herself with the chocolate fudge brownie ice cream sitting in the freezer back home, granting her the ability to forget about stalker green eyes.

As she moved to blend herself into the quivering bodies and sweating dancers, she felt it again and looked back before gasping, the sound fading into the music overhead and the excited chatter all around.

Yep. Everything was definitely exaggerated about him. Standing there, surrounded by all the people around, he was half a head to a full head taller. Of course, his body had to make up for that height by also beefing him up to a size that could easily be a lumberjack in those old cartoons she used to watch every Saturday morning. Then again, she was kind of short and everyone looked big to her. From what little skin she could see past his shirt, jeans and jacket, it hinted that it would be a toasty golden brown in the light that wasn't the product of the local tanning salon, but rather, many trips to the sunny beaches around the world. So, from simply looking at him, she deduced jadedly that he goes to the gym a lot, probably is rich enough to go to all those beaches, and judging by the cut and fashionable wear of his jeans, he also can afford to look good.

So why was she so damn attracted right now?

He smiled suddenly at her, a gleam of straight white teeth that stood out brighter against his tan face and approached with a purposeful stride before dragging her close to dance. Her protests died on her lips as she felt his hard body against hers. And when Nine Inch Nails "Closer" began, she knew that if she didn't get the big O right on the dance floor at the mercy of him, something was definitely wrong with her.

You let me violate you...You let me desecrate you...

He held her close, shifting her legs a little wider apart and slipped his hard thigh in-between, lifting his other hand to marvel, to worship her hair as he began to grind his hips to hers with the beat.

He was demanding.

You let me penetrate you... You let me complicate you...

His hand began to massage her back, the backs of her arms as his other moved to the curve of her back, guiding her hips in an erotic sway she didn't know she could do. He shifted slightly and she could feel his hot arousal against her skirt and suddenly, she felt like she was wearing too many clothes, even in her corset and super-mini skirt.

He had to be a player.

I wanna fuck you like an animal...I wanna feel you from the inside...

His hand dipped in-between their bodies and lifted her skirt just a little, not to go straight to her panties, but to feel the inside of her thighs. The back of his hand brushed across the smooth, silky skin and she shivered violently as they continued to dance. He lifted her chin up, stopping her from moving and lowered his head, taking her mouth with his, at first gently tasting her lips before he brushed them open in silent demand, tasting her with his tongue.

He probably slept around a lot.

I wanna fuck you like an animal...My whole existence is flawed...

He hitched up her skirt higher and brushed his nails against where her hips met her thighs, the thin skin feeling every movement as he tasted her deeply, nipping at her lips and inviting her to taste him as well. Too far gone now to care about kissing an absolute stranger, she wrapping her arms around his broad shoulders, if only to help her gain better access to his lips and kissed him passionately, licking his lips and tasting the inside of his mouth, fighting his tongue to better explore his devilish mouth as she rubbed against him, needful and hungry for more.

He was full of himself.

I drink the honey, inside your hive...You are the reason I stay alive...

Finally, he slipped a hand inside her panties and touched her, right there and brushed against it idly as they completely stopped dancing in the middle of the dance floor, groping mindlessly at each other in an attempt to gain dominance. He broke from her lips to kiss her jaw, nip at her ears and blow his hot breath against her feverish skin.

"I live down the block."

He dipped his finger inside her.

She couldn't say no.

Not to the demands, not to being a player, not to him sleeping around a lot, not even to the arrogance.

She couldn't say no.

"Okay."

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