Mrs. Valentine: A Cupid's Arrow, Inc. Novella Read online

  Mrs. Valentine

  C.M. Steele

  Copyrighted © 2016

  Cupid’s Arrow HQ

  Chapter 1—Ella on a Mission

  Chapter 2—Sebastian’s Frustration

  Chapter 3—Kaylee’s Surprise

  Chapter 4—Love at First Sight

  Chapter—5 On the Hunt

  Chapter 6—A Revealing Ride

  Chapter 7—Innocence is Lost (with pleasure)

  Chapter 8— Four weeks of Bliss

  Chapter 9—Becoming Mrs. Valentine

  Epilogue

  Six Years Later…

  All rights reserved. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cupid’s Arrow HQ

  I giggled like a schoolgirl when I looked at the file on my desk. I was so right about him. He deserved happiness, and Aaron and I would make sure it happened. I was grinning like a Cheshire cat when my darling knocked.

  “Come in,” I chimed with a lilt of excitement in my voice.

  “Ella, love. I know you’re up to no good this morning. Where are we headed this week?” Aaron said as he walked into my office, giving me that knowing look.

  Flashing him a smirk and trying to look as innocent as possible, I sweetly replied, “Oh, Aaron, please. It’s always good. Have I ever been wrong?”

  “No, my beloved, but you know you can’t force couples to love each other, and the last one took longer than you hoped. We stayed in Texas in the summer heat for a whole month. Their misunderstandings almost destroying your perfect record.”

  “Yes, but love trumps everything, dearest. Now, if you insist on knowing, I’ll tell you.” I paused dramatically because I knew how it riled him up. He acted like he didn’t want to know, but he had as much of a hand in this business as I did.

  “Well, my dear. Don’t keep me in suspense. What poor soul are we going to bring happiness and delicious sex to?” His eyes revealed his desire. Making matches made my lover so horny. I could smell the scent of need pouring off his body. I guessed that was what happened when you married the Cupid. Three hundred years and still going strong. I pressed my thighs together thinking about him with his face planted on my heat.

  “Oh, my sweet Aaron, must you say sex? It has been hours since we last united,” I pouted.

  “My poor decadent morsel, later. I promise. But where in the world will I be loving you next?”

  I bit my lip because I knew he enjoyed our little trips as much as I did. “Very well. We’re off to Chicago.”

  “It’s a decent time of year there. It will be cold so we’ll need to bundle up near a fire.” He crossed his legs, and I could read the dirty look in his eyes. I was going to be in pleasurable trouble soon. “And who is the poor man?”

  “Mr. Sebastian Valentine, and I have our plan completely laid out.” I excitedly hopped out of my chair and climbed into his lap, handing him the file, which he promptly ignored by tossing it on the floor.

  “Ella, so about that need you have…is there anything you’d like in particular, my love?” He gave me a wicked grin, and my body shivered with desire. I wanted to taste his strong jaw, which was perfectly smooth. I licked down his cheek, nipping at him before attacking his mouth.

  “Mmm…” he hummed as I worked my way down his neck. It always had the same effect on him. His cock pressed into my thigh and ass, and his control crumbled. I knew what would come next. The moment I nipped at his vain on his pulse point, I found myself on my back, sprawled out on my desk. With a snap of his fingers, we were both naked, and he was thrusting into me.

  “Too impatient to take off my clothes like a human.”

  He grunted an affirmative before he latched onto my nipple, making me cry out. My Neanderthal was in the mood for hard and fast, and so was I. With each push, I felt my six-hundred-pound oak desk rock, while my body welcomed my lover repeatedly.

  “Aaron!” I cried, coming intensely on his cock.

  “Yes. Ella,” he grunted, coming with me. He rested his forehead on mine, catching his breath. With a pant, he said, “Three hundred years and it still makes me come.”

  “That’s because we’re perfectly matched, my lover. Mmm…” He moved slowly in and out of me, still very hard.

  “Again?” he asked.

  “Please…”

  Chapter 1—Ella on a Mission

  I walked into a high-end shoe store. My plan in motion. I scoped out the area, looking for my target, and there she was, moving a selection of shoes to one wall.

  Walking up behind her, I coughed. “Excuse me, miss.”

  The exotic-looking brunette turned and with a nervous smile said, “Hello, ma’am. How may I assist you?”

  She twiddled her thumbs as she showed me around. I couldn’t decide what I was looking for, needing her personal opinion. Now, she could try to hide who she was to everyone else, but that wouldn’t work for me. I knew who she’d been and her real name, and her taste in shoes told me one thing. She hadn’t forgotten how to accessorize.

  As I took my time browsing, I started to ask her questions.

  “So, Kaylee. Do you work here full time?”

  “No, I’m finishing up my degree in Bio-Chem this semester.”

  “Wow, so smart and beautiful.”

  “I wouldn’t say all that, but thank you.”

  By the time we were done with our chat, and I had spent some of my darling’s hard-earned money, I knew everything there was to know about her. Not that I didn’t know most of it anyway, but I wanted to be able to say she had told me.

  Now I was on to my next stop. This one wasn’t going to be as easy because it required playing on a son’s love for his mother.

  Sauntering into a beauty salon, I sat down and waited for my turn. Next to me was a lovely looking older woman—my next target.

  My look stood out, and she noticed. “Forgive me, my dear, but you look absolutely perfect. I can’t imagine what you need done.”

  “Thank you, but I need my hair washed, layered, and styled. I have to meet with some clients today, and a matchmaker must look her best,” I fibbed with a saccharine smile.

  “A professional matchmaker?”

  “Yes, I know it’s a dreadful concept for many, but sometimes love needs a push. My husband and I have been at this a while.” I still looked only thirty, so my story had to be tweaked.

  She probably assumed I didn’t know what a long time was. “How long have you been married?”

  “We fell in love when we were really young. We married when we were eighteen. So we’ve been together for a long time, but I love every day of it.”

  “Do you have any children?”

  “Yes, several. We love our children and want to add more. Do you have any?” We had over three hundred years of trying to get me pregnant. I loved all our six children. We wanted more, but that seemed to be the max for us.

  “That’s so nice. I only have my son. A bad marriage from the start, so no other kids.”

  “I’m sorry. There’s still time to meet the man of your dreams.”

  “Thanks, but I’m not looking. I just want my son to give me some grandbabies already.”

  “You’re not too old to find someone. What are you, forty?”

  “Actually, I’m forty-five. My son just turned twenty-seven and refuses to find someone special. I think it’s my failed marriage and his fear that keeps him that way.”

&nb
sp; “I’m certain he’ll find someone in time. In fact, my company is hosting a Valentine’s Day gala next Friday. He should come. It’s a charity function, and there’ll be at least twenty single women there. In fact, let me give you an invite.” I paused and pulled an invite from my purse. Handing it to her, I added, with a bit of my suggestive talents, “You’re more than welcome to come as well. Maybe you’ll meet your happily ever after.” She looked down at the invite that was absolutely gorgeous, and caressed the gold leaf lettering. I did everything in style. Some days I amazed myself.

  “Oh, so it’s some sort of singles get-together?” She looked nervous about it, but I could sense she was more than intrigued by the possibility. Gosh, I could feel the desire to be loved all over her.

  “Yes, and if he’s reluctant, tell him it’s for charity.” With a touch of my hand on her wrist, I could feel her becoming more receptive to the idea by the moment.

  The stylist called her up next, and I did my little fake emergency call. “Sorry, I guess I’ll just have to manage as I am. My client is arriving at my office as we speak. It was a pleasure to meet you…I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name.”

  “Daphne Reynolds and…” she trailed off, looking down at the invite before she asked, “You’re Ella Cupid?”

  “Yes. Perfect name for the job. That’s what makes us strive for perfection. After all, we have a famous legacy to live up to,” I teased and glided away. Before making my exit, I added, “Can’t wait to see you and your son there.” That was easy.

  Chapter 2—Sebastian’s Frustration

  I’d stormed back to my office after getting news that our clinical trials failed. I was frustrated, but I knew we just needed to carry on and keep on trying. I didn’t make it to my desk before my desk phone rang. I let my assistant pick it up for me. She knew that I wasn’t in the mood to deal with anyone at the moment. I didn’t handle failure very well, especially when it came to something so close to my heart.

  “Mr. Valentine. Your mother is on the line,” Amanda said as she peeked her head into my office. She’d worked for me for the past three years and had been so efficient that I gave her a promotion because I didn’t want to lose her.

  “Can you tell her I’ll call her back?” I knew that wasn’t going to happen this time. I wasn’t that lucky. I’d been hiding from that woman for the past two weeks. I thought a woman’s biological clock stopped ticking a long time ago. Now, that baby fever turned into grandbaby fever. Six of her friends had them, so she must be next.

  “She already told me that you’ve been saying that for two days, and she isn’t planning to hang up until you take her call.”

  “Damn it, the woman won’t take no for an answer.” I rubbed my face over and over. I didn’t need another nagging woman when I already had my mother. I loved her, but she didn’t know when to leave it alone.

  “Is she trying to set you up again?”

  “Isn’t that always the case with my mother? She’s been hounding me to go to a Valentine’s Day gala tonight,” I admitted. Amanda knew how much I hated mingling and shit. I wanted to stick to my lab work and not deal with people. Why couldn’t she understand that?

  “Doesn’t she know you better than that? I never met a man who hated Valentine’s Day as much as you.” I despised the fake holiday.

  “Put her through. I might as well get this over with,” I grumbled. I hit the red flashing light on line one. “Hello, Mother.”

  “Don’t ‘hello, Mother’ me, boy. I don’t appreciate you refusing to return my calls.” Uh-oh, I was going to get an earful, but my mood wasn’t conducive to that shit.

  “I don’t appreciate you harassing me about going on a date for the hundredth time.”

  She gasped in shock because I’d never given her an attitude before, much less talked back. She didn’t say a word for a few seconds, and I thought I’d gone too far. “I’m sorry, Mom. That was extremely rude of me. I just don’t want to meet any women.”

  She paused again, and I thought she was going to cry, but instead she asked something I didn’t see coming. “Son…are you…I mean. What I mean to ask is…are you gay?”

  “What? Hell no! Why would you think that?” I couldn’t believe she asked that. Gay? What the hell! So I wasn’t a playboy. She acted like that was a bad thing.

  “I’m sorry. I asked because you don’t date.” I could hear the regret in her voice, but I wasn’t really mad, more like shocked.

  I hated explaining why I didn’t date and just stuck with my usual. “I’m busy and dedicated to my career.”

  “Son, I know you like saving lives, but you’re wasting yours. Living in your lab isn’t really living. Please just do this one last time. I won’t ask you to go to any more events or meet any more women.” I knew she was right, but I couldn’t get past the heartache and loss when I was in College.

  Evan Greenberg had been my dorm buddy and best friend. One day he collapsed in his chemistry class and that was the start of the end. He learned two weeks later that he had an advanced stage of leukemia. His hopes and dreams of becoming a great doctor and caring for the sick turned to hopes of making it another day. When he died two months later, I decided to change majors and find a cure. Good people like him didn’t deserve to go out that way. It became my mission, and I hadn’t deviated from that course since.

  “I hate Valentine’s Day,” I grumbled. She knew that, but she didn’t give a shit.

  “I know, but it’s for charity, Sebastian,” she whined. My mother knew my passion for helping those who had too little because I had so much

  “Fine. One last time.” I had to get her off the phone because I had work that I needed to focus on before I had to leave.

  “Good. Everything will be waiting for you at your condo in about ten minutes.” I knew that sneaky broad assumed she’d get me.

  I didn’t have any idea what the hell what I was doing in here. Charity, damn it. My mother didn’t know how dreadful this was. Dinner, dancing, and tons of eligible, money-hungry women. It wasn’t something I was up for. I’d just failed at the trial run of a cancer drug, and it wasn’t time for me to be fucking celebrating. It was time to get back in the lab and find a cure.

  A Valentine Ball, hosted by Cupid’s Arrow, a company that supposed to be a matchmaking service owned by Ella and Aaron Cupid. It was the worst holiday for me. Technically, I didn’t consider Valentine’s Day a holiday. It was just a way for women to get men to buy them shit and maybe give up a little pussy for it. Companies like this make a boatload of dough selling dreams to suckers. My mother was lucky the Cupids give their profits to charities or I wouldn’t be here, no matter how much she pleaded.

  Personally, it had been the worst day for me every effing year. With a last name like Valentine, it wasn’t hard for women to play on the name. It was after seventh grade that it became past unbearable. Every girl craved and plotted to be Mrs. Valentine. The line was long and growing, despite my refusals. They could try all they wanted, but there was no one worthy of the title. I snarled every time someone made a joke about the holiday and my name. Are you my Valentine? I want to be Mrs. Valentine. Will you be my Valentine? It was never ending. It got old really fast, and it was the reason my mother thought I was gay. It was the weirdest conversation I’d ever had with her. Never had I even considered that she had that crazy idea in her head. Not that it was crazy assumption, in all honesty.

  I grew up with the distaste for the life I was given. I started off with a middle-class existence, but it was torn apart when I was seven and my parents divorced. My life had been in an uproar for years. I was shuffled between houses for four years until my father was killed by his then wife. She’d caught him in bed with another woman and killed them both. It seemed that she didn’t like being in the same position she put my mother in. She got off easy on a plea of temporary insanity and only received twenty years.

  He’d left me all his wealth, which had been substantial, and made me an eleven-year-old billionaire. It wa
s a huge change for my mother and me because he’d been hiding his assets in an offshore account. We lived a middle-class life, and I attended Chicago public schools. Before his death, I was considered a geeky, thin, and lanky boy and a total nerd. I loved science, and I was teased daily for my intelligence and my need to be at the library. Once it became known that I was wealthy, I was a king. The constant insults thrown my way turned to bullshit flattery. It was one of those things that stuck with me as I got older. I tried dating in high school, but those broads acted the same way. They hungered to get in my jeans, to make little Valentines and get a chunk of the Valentine fortune. The truth was, I’d never had sex. Ever.

  For a man of almost thirty, there had to be something wrong with me that I had no interest in sex. Yes, I woke up with a hard-on, and when I was a teen, I did get hard looking at the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition, but the actual desire to have sex with a woman wasn’t there. There were times in my years in college when I just wanted to get rid of the stinking V-card hanging over my head. Every time one of my classmates talked about doing some broad, I’d get jealous. Not because I cared to fuck them, but because I didn’t.

  For my thesis, I studied male hormones in relation to sexual desire. The results didn’t help me understand myself. It was clear that the greater desire for sex, the higher the level of testosterone in the body. The only outlier had been my own testosterone and sexual interest. My levels had been extremely elevated. For a while in college, I wondered the same thing as my mother. Could I be gay? But that theory was debunked when a gay guy hit on me at a frat party. In a moment, I knew I had no interest in them either. So what the fuck was wrong with me?

  I pulled up and tossed my keys to the valet before hustling up the stairs in a hurry to get the night over with. I handed the private invitation to the door boy, who was wearing a Cupid costume, with golden locks and all. Already I could tell that it was going to be cheesy as fuck.

  After fixing my cuffs, I entered the ballroom. Looking around, I hoped to find my mother. She was helping with the event, so she needed to be here early and couldn’t ride with me. My entry was noted by all the thirsty females in the room. I paused, wanting to turn around, when my name was called by an elegant-looking woman who was on the arm of a curly-haired blonde man. Now, he looked like he could have played Cupid, although his features looked more suited to Adonis.