Cellar Door Read Free

her lips and scowling indignantly. My cock surged to rock-hard life as she glared up at me. Such a spunky little thing.
    “It’s Tuesday. I’m reading to patients. I come here and read to patients on Tuesdays.” She repeated herself, as if doing so would summon the bravado she needed to stand up to the pompous, confrontational man who had so unceremoniously knocked her books – and her – to the floor.
    “Wouldn’t it be easier to just roll them around on one of the hospital carts the gift shop provides? Or to perhaps just use a tote of some kind, rather than carry them?” I arched a brow derisively as I continued, “Especially since you obviously pay no attention to where you’re going.”
    Her indignant gasp was even more adorable when she narrowed her eyes at me. “Wouldn’t it be easier for you to watch where you’re going?” she replied haughtily.
    The brief conversation was enough to make that hollow place inside me stir, to fan the flicker of heat to a full flame. I knew in that moment that it was because of her. If I thought I desired her before, seeing her face to face like this and experiencing such a visceral reaction only solidified my fascination.
    I knew, in that singular moment, that I would have her. Something passed between us that day, something very much beyond my control. Before that moment, I had merely been watching her from a distance, my initial curiosity having blossomed into a mild fascination because of Lance’s avowed interest in her. No more – from that moment on, I became driven by a force I immediately recognized as obsession – and it had nothing to do with anyone but the two of us.
    With her books safely tucked back into her arms, she huffed away, clearly irritated with the unpleasant, abrasive man she had encountered in the stark white hallway of the hospital. My attention was captured by her dark ponytail as it bounced in time with her hurried, agitated steps. I leaned my shoulder against the wall, smiling while I shamelessly savored the staccato swing of her delectable backside as she scurried away.
    When she rounded the corner and I could no longer see her, I picked up the check-out card from the local library, which had fallen onto the floor. The name scribbled at the bottom of the card rolled off of my tongue as naturally as my own, the name that would forever change my destiny: Madonna Marie Mathews.
    Perhaps this innocent bookworm -- my dark angel, my Madonna – would prove to be the kindred spirit upon whom I could unleash all my darkest fantasies.
     
     





Chapter Two
    Madonna
    I hurry down the hospital corridor with happy anticipation. What I’m about to do may seem unimportant when compared to the life and death concerns of so many of the patients here—but, to me, it is anything but.
    “Mr. Williams, good to see you,” I say in a cheery voice as I set my books on a table by the door. I give him my best smile and cross the room to open the blinds and let some light in.
    “I thought you weren’t going to make it, sweetheart. So tell me, did you find it?” he asks expectantly, unable to hide his pleasure at the prospect of me reading his favorite poetry to him today.
    The power of words is truly humbling, how they can even soothe a soul that is facing death. Mr. Williams shares my love of literature. The time we’ve spent reading and discussing books has bonded us as friends. We’ve established our own private book club of sorts. The dimming of his eyesight has made it impossible for him to read on his own. He says he enjoys the more personal experience of being read to now far more than listening to audio books. It’s the least I can do to make his last days enjoyable.
    Without preamble, I pull up a chair and begin reading ‘Stopping by woods on a snowy evening’, by Robert Frost.
    He speaks when I’m finished. “I do so love that last passage. You know, he wrote that after he’d been up all night writing ‘New Hampshire’. It’s amazing, the