Nico's Cruse

Jennifer
Kacey

Domenico was cursed six long years
ago by a witch determined to teach him a lesson. A lesson in life, loss, and
understanding that to love is to put someone first…always.

His only escape from his beautiful
prison is a dating site called
Crossroads
. He can choose only one woman
a year to contact. One woman to convince, in nothing more than a week, that
he’s worthy of her love. But there’s a catch. She must fall asleep during a
video chat so he can crawl through his laptop into her world. Then all bets are
off.

His curse becomes his salvation
when his beautiful submissive Rose is nothing but a dream away.

A
Romantica®
BDSM erotic romance
from Ellora’s Cave

Dedication

PP—Skype with you will never be the same.

Acknowledgements

To Nina—My Omazing Mocha Goddess…oh how I <3 you!

Rose hovered her finger above the Enter key, trying to
convince her stomach to stop the flip-flop gymnastics before she got sick. She
nibbled her bottom lip, anxiety making a statement loud and proud between her
temples.

Online dating, good or bad she didn’t know yet, but
chickening out sounded better and better the longer she sat there.

After filling out her online profile for the dating site,
Crossroads
,
all she had to do was send it. One little Enter key stood in her way of finding
Mr. Right, or at least Mr. Right Now which sounded fine to her.

Jumping into the dating pool at the ripe old age of
thirty-four couldn’t have been more pathetic. Well—other than the fact she’d
never actually been in the dating pool to begin with.

Yep, she found something worse.

She’d been busy managing, then selling her family’s company.
It wasn’t a great excuse but she decided to stick with it. She shook her head,
trying to focus on the problem currently staring her in the face. No, not the
problem, the solution.

Doubt kept creeping in, threatening to strangle her attempt
to meet somebody.

Do I really want to do this?

Possibly.

Will I just come across as desperate?

Probably.

And having conversations with herself? Totally healthy. Not.

Her new white kitty, Miss Priss, rubbed on her legs and
purred loudly, drawing her attention away from the screen for a moment. “Need
some love, pretty kitty?” Rose smiled, reaching down to pet her with the other
hand, but the cat jumped into her lap, startling her, making her jump. She
nearly dumped her ice tea over on the living room table, pushing the Enter key
in her haste to save her papers from a tea-soaked shower.

“No, no, no,” she chanted, pushing esc several times, along
with the back button to cancel her submission. Ctrl, Alt, Delete didn’t even
help.

“Your profile has been submitted,” popped up on the screen
with little smiley faces and confetti.

She blew out a resigned breath, petting the cat
absentmindedly. “Oh lord…”

Priss rubbed her forehead against Rose’s chin, looking her
in the face and meowing, purring some more, blinking her mismatched blue and
green eyes.

Love filled Rose’s chest, and some of her worry eased away.
She’d always been an animal lover, but hadn’t had a cat in years. Not since a
few years before her parents had passed away. She’d found the beautiful white
cat at the pound, dirty, matted fur, but something told her she was supposed to
take her.

She hadn’t even meant to go by the animal shelter that day.
Getting a pet hadn’t even been on her radar, though it made perfect sense when
she found her. Staring in her blue and green eyes each time made her think of
the future and possibilities.

She shook her head, “I really need to get out more, huh?”

Priss meowed again, guiding Rose to scratch behind her ears.
She went a bit limp when Rose found the right spot and Rose smiled. She
continued to the other ear and then moved below her collar so she could scratch
beneath it.

Strangely enough the collar had come on the cat when she
picked her up at the pound. It had been locked on her with a strange metal
clasp. Neither she nor anyone at the shelter could remove it. Talk about the
strangest thing.

Plus, instead of a charm with a name on it or a phone number
so they could find out who she belonged to, the collar had a small silver key
dangling from it with a number on it. Like a house number but no street name,
no city. Nothing helpful. Neither Rose nor anyone else had been able to find out
anything about it.

No one had come forward to claim the beautiful cat. One bath
and daily brushings made her pristine coat shine. She looked like a show cat,
if such a thing existed.

Rose petted her some more and asked, “Want some food?”

Priss meowed, standing up on Rose’s lap, acting like she
knew exactly what she said even though she’d only been there for a couple
weeks. She nibbled softly on the fleshy part of Rose’s palm. Then rubbed
against her chest with a purr.

Rose scooped her up, carrying her into the small apartment
kitchen. She set her on the island counter where her food and water bowls sat
on a pretty pink mat that read, “Dogs have owners, Cats have staff.”

She grabbed the bag of dry cat food from underneath the
counter, scooped out Priss’ daily portion and sprinkled it into her little
metal bowl. She rolled the bag down, put a clip on it and slid it onto the
shelf, closing the door behind it.

Priss hunkered close to the bowl, purring while she ate.

“Good gracious, kitty,” Rose brushed the front of her tank
top and pajama pants. “You’re gorgeous but you sure shed a lot.” She grabbed a
lint roller under the counter and cleaned herself off.

“I’m still in my pajamas and it’s nearly noon. I wonder if
that means I’m behind schedule, since I haven’t changed yet, or ahead of
schedule because I’m all ready for tonight.” Rose petted Priss again while she
ate.

“I should really commit to finding a house, huh?” She glared
at her small apartment kitchen. Standard pale wood cabinets stared back, along
with inexpensive door pulls, laminate flooring, and no-frills appliances. “I’ve
got more money than I could spend in a lifetime. Yet I’m still here, in the
same apartment, like I’m waiting for something to fall in my lap.”

The cat watched her from the corner of her eye, meowed, and
continued eating.

“You stare at me like you understand what I’m saying.” Rose
shook her head and grabbed a glass from the cabinet, filling it with orange
juice from the fridge. “And I talk to you like you’re a person. Hence the
reason I needed to sign up on a dating site.”

She rolled her eyes, taking a drink of juice. “It’s like I’m
at a crossroads, Miss Priss. Standing in the middle of something great but not
knowing which way to go, which direction to take.” She scratched between the
cat’s ears and the cat stopped eating for a minute to enjoy the attention.
“Makes sense why I chose
that
dating site, huh?
Crossroads
.
Seemed appropriate.”

It had been months since she’d successfully sold her
family’s steel business. Latica Steel had been a household name around Miami,
Florida for her entire life. Her parents had been courted by another steel
manufacturer for years. They’d groomed her to take over for them as soon as she
had graduated college at twenty-one.

Then they’d both died within months of each other.

Her mom had died from breast cancer and she still thought
her dad had gone from a broken heart. She’d been the only child and heiress to
a steel fortune by the time she’d turned thirty.

So she had sold the company like her parents had instructed
her to do in their wills. It had been their passion, their focus, but they knew
it hadn’t been hers. Not to mention it was way too hard for one person to
tackle by herself. The staff couldn’t have been any better and she’d managed to
keep all of her employees’ jobs as part of the sale stipulations.

That had been nearly six months before, when the sale had
finally gone through after months of negotiating. Ever since she’d been waiting
for something. Something big—

A strange chime rang from the dining room and her heart
kicked into high gear. It reminded her of the “you’ve got mail” notification
and she figured it came from the dating site, since she’d left it up. She took
her glass of juice and walked back in, leaving the kitty on the island in the
kitchen.

She slid into her chair at the dining room table where she’d
set up her laptop and her makeshift office. A new laptop, with a big
twenty-inch screen, was the only purchase she’d made since the sale. The huge
monitor on it made her feel like she worked at NASA.

She wiggled the wireless mouse and her screensaver
disappeared, revealing the
Crossroads
website again and her profile
page.

In the upper right hand corner there sat a new message from
someone on the dating site. She clicked on the icon, expecting a generic
welcome message from someone to show up, but instead another screen popped up
with a man’s profile information.

Good God. “Gorgeous” wasn’t even an apt description of him.

Domenico Manata
, it read at the top.

His profile picture portrayed a dark-skinned man with
beautiful rich blue eyes, a panty-dampening half-smile, and completely white
hair.

His information was pretty generic, which she thought a bit
odd but she didn’t have a clue about the norm.

He was forty-one, single, worked as a graphic designer, and
was obviously from some kind of Latin descent—which made her squirm in her
chair. Then her stomach sunk. “Too good to be true” popped into her head like a
jack-in-the-box with a sad face painted on it. He was either not anything like
the person he portrayed himself to be or married and just trying to get laid.

The thought made her pussy wet and she slapped her palm
against her forehead, shaking her head. Being so hard-up for sex meant she
couldn’t help herself. Toys could only take a girl so far. Apparently she’d
reached her limit before a real man would be needed to finish the job.

A message popped up on her screen,
“Hi. Rose?”

Miss Priss hopped up on her lap again and curled into a
ball, purring softly. “Life would be easier being a cat.” She petted her
absentmindedly, staring at the empty box with the blinking cursor in it, below
his message.

She’d never know if she didn’t take the plunge at some
point, so she typed back,
“Yes, that’s me. Hi. How are you, Domenico?”

After just a few seconds she got a reply.

“Please, call me Nico. My mother and grandmother were the
only people on the planet who called me Domenico. It forever makes me feel like
I’m in trouble.
J
”

She grinned at his smiley face. It seemed charming and she
rolled her eyes since her heart fluttered at the use of a simple emoticon.

“I get that. My Croatian parents were pragmatic to a
fault, except when they named me. Our last name means ‘petal’…”

She tapped her fingers, waiting to see if he’d get the joke.

“
Rose Petal
, very cute. At least you can’t say
they didn’t have a sense of humor.”

A smile tugged up the corners of her lips and she typed,
“No,
they were both wicked smart. It’s one of the things I miss the most about
them.”
She hit the Enter key and took a sip of juice, petting the cat while
she waited for his reply.

“Both of your parents are gone?”

“Yes.”

“Mine too. Been a while but it seems like yesterday.”

“Same here…”

While she tried and failed to think of something witty to
say, another message from him came through.

“You’re cute and young, why in the world are you on an
internet dating site?”

“I could say the same things about you.”
She hit the
Enter key then made a face at no one.
“I mean you’re not as young as I am
but you’re cute.”
She meant to hit Backspace but she hit Enter by mistake.

“Ugh, I thought this would be easier since we’re not in
person but I still feel like I’m all thumbs. Literally.”

“LOL. You’re definitely cute and I like that you’re kind
of nervous. It’s enchanting. Not something you do all the time, huh?”

“Try never. You’re the first person I’ve talked to on
here.”
Or at all in almost five years but she thankfully kept the last
little jewel of knowledge to herself.

“I’m glad I was on and happened to see your profile come
through my feed. We already have a little in common. That’s something to start
with if nothing else.”

“Yes it is.”
A reminder popped up on the corner of
her screen, notifying her she had approximately fifteen minutes to get ready
and be out the door for a spa appointment she’d booked weeks ago.

Oh crap.
“Hey, I’ve got to go. I’ve got an appointment I
almost forgot about.”

“No worries. Are you going to be on later? I’d really
like to talk to you some more.”

“Yes. I’d like that, too. Around ten-ish?”

“Perfect. I’ll be here.
Adiós, niña bonita
.”

“Bye.”

She shut down her browser and closed the laptop lid, smiling
from ear to ear. He could be a gigantic slob from Pittsburgh, living in his
parents’ basement but for once she decided to live in the moment and not think
it to death.

Instead, she threw on a T-shirt and jeans, shoved her feet
into flip-flops, and decided to think of Nico.