The Gorgeous Naked Man in my Storm Shelter (Erotic Suspense) (2 page)

I’m debating whether or not to descend the
stairs. How much can I trust an intruder in my own house anyway?
OK, technically he’s an intruder in my storm shelter. But still
–

“You can come down here,” he says. “I won’t
hurt you.”

“What are you doing here?” My voice wears a
betraying crack.

“I came to seek shelter. Is this your home?
If so, I’m sorry. I just needed a place to stay.”

“Who the hell are you?”

He eyes me blankly for a moment. Then he
says, “I don’t know. I don’t remember who I am.”

“What do you mean?”

“The last thing I remember is waking up in
the woods. I don’t remember who I am or where I came from.”

“Don’t you have any identity on yourself?
Like a social security card or a wallet?”

He hesitates. “No.”

Curiouser and curiouser.

Something about his stance and his helpless
story (if it’s true, which I have my doubts) makes me relax my
guard a little. Straightening my legs, I make to come down the
stairs crablike. I’m aware of how I must look in the glow of the
averted flashlight – wet, with my hair plastered on my forehead and
around my neck, and all shiny in my Shrinkwrap of a raincoat. Bulky
as well, I suppose, with the jumper on top of my long T-shirt.

Too late, I realize I’m only wearing a pair
of shorts.

He makes no attempt to move aside. As I get
closer, I almost stumble upon the steps in shock.

He’s completely naked.

My trembling hand reaches for the shelf on
the wall where another flashlight sits. It’s a larger one than the
one he has appropriated. I turn its full glare on him and he
winces.

I can’t help but stare.

He is singularly the most gorgeous man I
have ever seen.

His face is as sculptured as a god’s – with
his slim, perfect nose that would have been a die-cast for any
plastic surgeon’s model, his lush full lips, his large blue-green
eyes and his high cheekbones. His features meld together in such a
perfect and yet exotic ensemble that I’m led to believe that he is
not fully Caucasian. OK, his skin is pale, but that hardly accounts
for anything. His short dark hair – shaped in a widow’s peak –
falls appealingly across his wide forehead.

His body . . . hot damn, where do I even
begin? He’s a tall man, well over 6’ 2” – with pectorals and abs to
die for. Every limb of his is spectacularly muscled at all the
right places without appearing bodybuilder bulky. And oh, those six
perfectly delineated squares on his stomach – they are washboard
hard and amazingly sexy.

My eyes dip down to his penis.

It’s huge.

Even though it’s not erect, it’s sizeable. I
would never usually describe a penis as beautiful, but I swear it’s
the most beautiful penis I have ever seen. Its head is perfectly
shaped and nicely uncircumcised, with a juicy bulbous protrusion
ringed by a corona of firm skin. The glans gives off a shining
reflection in the flashlight. The shaft wears a proud branched vein
that snakes all the way to its root, where a tidy bush of dark hair
nestles. The intruder’s balls are firm and nicely tucked behind his
rod.

Intruder or not, an actual spasm of
long-forgotten desire runs through my groin. It’s fleeting, but I
recognize it for what it is.

Oh God.

Unbelievable. I’m actually having the hots
for a total stranger who can turn on me in my own storm shelter and
rob me at any time.

He’s staring at me staring at his cock. He
does not seem to be overtly shy. He licks his lower lip and says in
a halting tone, “What is a soce . . . societal security card?”

My cheeks are flaming. I’m staring and he
knows I’m staring. I raise my eyes to his face again, which is
glorious to behold.

“Wh-what did you say?”

He’s uncertain. “What is a social card?” he
repeats.

Is he for real? I’m not sure what they have
in Canada or wherever he came from, but I’m sure they have some
sort of social security. Then again, he’s an amnesiac and he’s
foreign. He’s probably forgotten we have a society and cards to go
with it.

“You don’t remember anything at all about
yourself?”

“No.”

“Not even any images? Flashes from your
childhood?”

He pauses for a long time as though to
search his memories. He finally says, “No.”

The look on his wonderful features is one of
blank confusion.

I’m beginning to think he may not be so
dangerous after all. Still, it pays to be cautious. He can still be
pretending to be an amnesiac and be after everything in my paltry
wallet. Or something else. Though I can’t imagine why a man who
looks the way he does would want that
something else
from
someone like me.

Slowly, without making any overtly sudden
movements, I strip off my wet raincoat. My wet hair sticks in
straggly patches to my scalp. I’m aware I must look a fright. My
shoes are soaked through. The temperature in the shelter is a lot
lower than outside. Maybe it’s all that cold steel surrounding us.
I find myself shivering.

“You should take off your shoes,” the man
observes.

He does not seem to be affected by the cold.
I ease off my sneakers, watching him all the way. He has incredibly
long eyelashes that frame irises that are startling in their
brightness. He has backed away from me quite a bit, though not from
alarm (thank goodness). He seems to have let down his guard as
well. The room is small, so there’s nowhere for him to go but with
his back towards the wall.

He sits down on the cold steel floor,
placing the flashlight carefully beside him. I do the same. We are
at opposing ends, like wary prisoners who have just met in a prison
cell.

I say casually, “So which part of the woods
did you wake up in?”

He gestures to a direction. “Somewhere over
there. I woke up, and there was a storm all around me. Tree
branches lashing out and barks being upended. I was afraid, so I
ran and ran. And I came here. I don’t know why I’m here. I don’t
remember a single thing about this area or ever being here
before.”

I fold my legs against my chest. I’m feeling
the chill.

“Don’t worry. When the storm passes, there
will be people to help you with this kind of stuff,” I say
soothingly.

He nods. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

There is nothing for us to do but stare at
each other. We hear the scream of the wind outside, although it’s
muted by all that steel around us. He sits cross-legged with his
genitals well displayed. He has no iota of embarrassment, which is
unusual in my experience. His beauty is extreme and self-contained,
but he wears it like a doe in the woods – unconsciously and without
swagger.

I reach for the fallen quilt at the bottom
of the stairs. I like looking at him, but it’s like staring too
long at the sun. His nakedness is making me uncomfortable.

“Would you like this?” I hand it to him. I
gesture to his legs. “To cover yourself.”

“Yes, of course,” he says, relieved.

He arranges the quilt over his thighs and
groin so that I’m spared the agony of having to be bedazzled by his
sexuality.

“Are you hungry?” I say.

He seems embarrassed. “Yes. Very.”

I move to the shelves. It’s surprising he
hasn’t attempted to open any of the cans. I take up the can opener
– it’s one of those more complicated ones where you are required to
lock the cutter onto the side of the can and turn the mechanism. He
watches with rapt attention as I open a tin of corned beef. I’ve
stacked a few plates and cutlery on the shelves as well, and I pile
the beef onto a flat dish. I hand this to him together with a
fork.

“Thank you.” He gratefully digs into it. I
pass him a bottle of water and he gulps it down thirstily.

When he has finished his corned beef, he
gestures to the can opener. “May I try using that device?”

I’m so stunned that I almost drop the can
opener. He takes it from me eagerly anyway and clumsily uses it to
open a can of sardines, which he upends on his clean plate.

“You’ve forgotten how to use a can opener?”
I say slowly as I watch him devour the sardines as well.

He swallows and takes a gulp from his
bottle. “A can opener?”

“Yes.”

He frowns. “I don’t know. Maybe. But I don’t
recall ever seeing that device before.”

My tongue goes ever so slightly dry. Just
from where the hell did he come?

I’ve got to call him something. ‘Adonis’
would be appropriate, and it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if
it was revealed later that he had dropped down from Mt. Olympus in
a cross-continental thunderstorm. Though I would expect Adonis to
speak only Greek, I suppose. I’m not sure if Adonis was a Greek god
or if he was just one of those mere mortals that were coveted by
the female gods and had gotten slain in a fit of savagery, tragedy
and myth.

Anyway, he’s been reincarnated here in the
naked flesh. The implications of this are dizzying, even though
there’s probably a simple and very logical explanation for it
all.

I clear my throat. “Since you don’t remember
your name, would it be OK if I call you Don?”

It’s short for ‘Adonis’ of course. Though I
can’t technically tell the police that.

He ponders this for a while and then nods.
“Sure.”

When he has polished off the sardines, he
asks, “Do you live alone?”

Ah, the story of my life.

Since he seems interested and there is
nothing else to do, I tell him – in bits and pieces – about myself.
I’m barely what you would consider interesting, other than my bad
marriage to Kenneth. This I relay sparingly. And of course, I tell
him my name.

“Jean Mansfield.”

“Jean,” he says, savoring it.

“It’s my mother’s name.”

“It’s a lovely name.” He falls into silence.
No doubt he is thinking about his mother . . . and the fact he
doesn’t remember her.

“Are you worried about not knowing who you
are?” I say.

He leans his head back against the wall.
“Yes.”

I nod. “I’m sure it will be all cleared up
in the morning when the storm is over.”

“I hope you’re right.”

The hour is late, I’m certain, although I
don’t have a watch. Beyond these walls of steel, the oppressive
weather rages on, the eerie shrieks of the wind carrying
through.

“We should sleep,” I say.

He agrees. He kills his flashlight and lies
down on the cold stone floor. He tucks the quilt over his body up
to his chest.

I’m shivering as I huddle myself into a
corner. I make to switch off my flashlight as well. I glance at his
beautiful face, still turned towards me.

“Goodnight, Don.”

“You are cold.” He lifts the edge of the
quilt. “This rightly is yours. But do you want to share?”

The expression in his eyes is simultaneously
uncertain and hopeful.

My pulse quickens ever so slightly. Do I
want to share? I hardly know this man, this amnesiac who doesn’t
know a social security number from a can opener. He can be
dangerous for all I know.

But every instinct in every fiber within me
– if I can still trust them – tells me that I will be safe with
him.

I only hesitate for a second before I take
the plunge.

“OK,” I say.

I scramble over to him and the warmth of the
quilt. Feeling bulky, I take off my pullover and place it on the
floor beside him as a makeshift pillow. My hair has dried some. I
snuggle under the quilt, feeling the hard floor against my elbows
and hips. It’s going to be one long uncomfortable night.

The flashlight flickers. Shit. A waning
battery.

“Oh, I forgot to turn it off.”

“Let me,” he says.

In the golden glow, I watch him rise from
beside me. His back view is equally as mesmerizing as his front.
His back is corded with muscles and his buttocks are firm – without
an ounce of spare fat – as he walks and kneels down to turn off the
flashlight on the floor. The last startling image I have of him
that night is of his spectacular body silhouetted against his own
shadow on the wall.

The light winks out. We are left in the
darkness. Our breathing is harsh against the perpetual moan of the
elements outside.

I hear him creep back to my side. The quilt
rises and he gets in beside me. His arm brushes against mine.

“Sorry,” he says.

“It’s all right.”

He lies down, keeping a little distance
between us so that our bodies are not touching. I can feel his
warmth through the thin fabric of my T-shirt. The quilt envelops us
in homespun comfort.

How am I going to sleep like this, knowing
that the most beautiful man I have ever laid eyes upon is prone
beside me in our makeshift bed, as naked as the day he was born?
His very presence ignites every atom of the darkness, filling the
little storm shelter with sparks of electricity.

“Goodnight, Jean Mansfield.”

“Goodnight, Don.”

I haven’t been this tense in a long, long
while. My ears are pricked for the sound of his breathing. It is
only after it settles into a rhythmic inhale and exhale that I
allow myself to relax.

I fall asleep, dreaming of naked Greek gods
in pleasure gardens filled with honey and nectar and wine.

3

I wake up to find myself entangled . . . of
sorts.

At first, I am totally disorientated.
Darkness surrounds me, and for one panicked moment, I think that I
have been buried alive. Then I remember where I am and who I am
with. My left leg is draped casually over his (I must have
unconsciously tossed and turned last night) and my hand is resting
upon his bicep.

Oh shit.

It’s not as if I find him abhorrent. Quite
the opposite, in fact. I’m actually afraid he might find
me
abhorrent. After all, I’m not even a notch on the scale of his
beauty thermometer. The thought of him thinking that
I
may
have been trying to take advantage of him while he was asleep fills
me with dread.