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Hunt Her

ISBN # 978-1-78651-039-6

©Copyright Elle Q. Sabine 2016

Interior text design by Claire Siemaszkiewicz

Totally Bound Publishing

This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.

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Published in 2016 by Totally Bound Publishing, Newland House, The Point, Weaver Road, Lincoln, LN6 3QN, United Kingdom.

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Prologue

Vamp [vamp]: n. a seductive woman who uses her sensuality to exploit men; vb. to use feminine charms upon; seduce.

“Since you weren’t active sexually prior to starting the antidepressant, you may notice increased ease in sexual arousal and achieving orgasm now that you’re discontinuing sertraline. I wouldn’t want you to be concerned or worried. Orgasm dysfunction and sexual arousal disorder are known side effects of the drug, and you have been taking it since you were a teenager.”

“I’m not a virgin, Dr. Freud,” Meghan returned dryly, studying the literature in front of her. Discontinuing the antidepressant was a major step for her, and she needed time to adjust to it before tackling the more worrisome problem of the sleeping medication she’d relied on for more than a decade. It was time she took control of her life again, while her reliable psychiatrist was still practicing.

He’d begun to make noises about retiring to a warm climate, and the thought of making the transition to a strange doctor worried her more than life without antidepressants and sleeping pills. Meghan wasn’t afraid of changes or challenges, but she freely admitted she was rather dependent on the older man she alternately called Freud and Miracle Man in her mind. She felt as if she were important to him, and that was an intimacy she didn’t share with anyone else. Certainly she wouldn’t have the same familiarity with a new psychiatrist.

He snorted at the moniker. “No, but you reported a rather lukewarm interest in those pursuits, which is uncommon in healthy young women but not necessarily abnormal. I trust that even then you were being honest about your sexual activity. I believe we even discussed the medical side effects of the pharmaceuticals as a possible cause of your lackluster response, as well as the theoretical possibilities of your inadequate lover, the difficulties of time and place as a college student and the possibility of a naturally low sexual function. It’s been several years since you’ve made any effort at sexual activity, perhaps driven by your similar lack of interest in a committed relationship. Since there’s no history of sexual trauma in your past, I just want you to keep in mind that things might be different now that you’ve discontinued this particular medication.”

“I’ll remember, Doctor.” Meghan glanced at the clock then stood. “And that’s my cue. You must have dinner plans, and I’d like to walk home before dark.”

“Of course.” Freud pinched his nose beneath his glasses in a familiar gesture and stood as well, reaching out to shake Meghan’s hand. “And, Meghan, please call if you have any concerns at all about the process for discontinuing the prazosin. Your transition off the antidepressant went well, but I’m concerned you may not adjust to life without the sleeping medication nearly so easily. Don’t jump ahead of the process I’ve outlined, and that means keep taking it for another week at least, while the sertraline finishes exiting your body. If you begin to have nightmares again and we don’t address them correctly, you could start an unhealthy downward spiral of insomnia and depression that trigger your anxiety and panic attacks associated with the post-traumatic stress syndrome. It’s important that we keep a close eye on any possible changes before they become problematic.”

Meghan accepted the handshake and smiled naturally as Freud’s lecture concluded. Perhaps his age was why she’d always felt comfortable with him, when so many men felt overbearing and overtly sexual. Or perhaps it was because he was simply an excellent physician, who was honestly concerned about her.

“Thank you for seeing me today.” She walked away easily with a friendly smile to the receptionist, who was already packing up her belongings for the day.

Meghan slipped into the street, still thinking of the doctor’s final warnings. There was a way to find out, of course. She walked directly home to her small apartment. When she arrived, she locked and chained the door behind her then left her purse in the closet with her jacket and walking boots. She still had the heels in her arm bag she’d worn at the office, and she carried those into the bedroom with her, before dumping the bag on the floor with her gym clothes, running shoes and the dirty laundry that she always left piled in the closet. Meghan rustled in the top drawer of her bureau for several minutes before unearthing the silicone beauty that she’d invested in prior to convincing herself she was more asexual than not, and she gave a disgusted snort when she pushed the buttons for nothing more than a faint wiggle.

“Damn it,” Meghan grumbled, feeling around in the drawer a second time as she searched for the charging station. It took only a minute to plug in the stand and set the burgundy-shaped vibrator in place.

“Now what?” she asked herself, glancing around the room, then down at herself. With a grimace, she stripped off her clothes. On her way to the shower, she turned off the overhead light and switched on the nightstand lamp, wondering what on earth she would think about when she finally turned on the vibrator in the secluded room.

Her college housemates had once advised her that a visual aid helped, but Meghan wasn’t convinced. Josh Hutcherson always looked too young. Heath Ledger was dead. Once upon a time, she’d thought maybe David Beckham might have done it for her, but then there had been that photo of him in his tattoos and underwear, and whenever she saw an image of him now, she just wanted to laugh. Her first attempt eight years earlier, with a poster of Brad Pitt on the wall opposite the bed, had gone horribly wrong, and she’d burned the grinning image two days later. She’d always liked Orlando Bloom best as an elf, but the pointy ears were a distraction. Ian Somerhalder was probably her favorite eye candy at the moment, but she still couldn’t imagine staring at him while touching herself.

Meghan paused while washing herself and she shuddered. “There must be a better way,” she muttered, as the water coursed down her back. She closed her eyes, letting the steam soak into her skin. She washed mechanically with gel and a washcloth, wondering why she couldn’t lust after distant celebrities or her work colleagues with the same narrow, eager focus other women her age exhibited. It wasn’t that she found men—or women—unattractive. It was simply that they didn’t incite any level of desire, whether dressed in a power suit and silk tie, a tuxedo or nothing at all. Was it truly a side effect of medication, or could it be something more fundamental to her personhood?

She hadn’t always been dependent on a psychiatrist for a primary relationship. Like other girls her age, she’d yearned for a boyfriend, though she’d never actually found a boy she liked enough to bother to try to attract. She had a brother. Her parents had loved her, and if—

No. She couldn’t think of that, or she’d spend the night on the floor of the closet crying, instead of experimenting with her long-lost, battery-operated friend.

The dreams hadn’t all been nightmares. Once upon a time, they’d featured a hero instead of a villain. In her earliest dreams, he’d been something conjured from the legends of films—dark and striking, his beard scruffy, his eyes always a vibrant sky-blue. As time passed, he’d taken on the costume or hairstyle of her favorite movie character of the moment. He’d worn the black combat gear of elven archers and carried a sword that gleamed as brightly as a lost prince’s blade or dragon slayer’s shining harpoon. Fearsome power had rolled from his hands as he’d fought beside wizards. He’d walked beside her as a man and again as a wolf, her guard and her guide through an adventurous, fantastical landscape of ice, water, mountains, majestic castles, lush forests and wide, golden grazing lands. He’d stood on the deck of a ship, the wind whipping around him as he’d shouted orders to the crew, his cape flying majestically. He’d urged a horse across the plains, chasing her as she laughed gleefully, tailed by dimmer apparitions that had tried to emulate him but simply couldn’t, because they weren’t him.

The same hands that were so fierce in battle had also cradled an injured eagle with infinite patience and had brushed her cheek and chin ever so gently. In her dreams, it had been a fleeting sensation, one that had sent a tingle through her nervous system. Then, she’d been too innocent to spin out those fantasies into explicit detail, but now she was twenty-eight years old, and her hands were already stroking down her sides, over her hips and onto the silky skin at the front of her thighs.

They were alone when he finally trapped her steed near the corner of a paddock fence. How and why they’d left the others behind didn’t matter, but he dragged her from the horse and onto the saddle of the giant horse in front of him, wrapping her inside of the great cape that hung around him. He grumbled something against her cheek, but Meghan only smiled and slid her hands up and under his shirt, rubbing her palms over the hard muscles and hair until she found his nipples and pressed each of her palms to one.

He tightened his hold on her, rubbing her through the cotton garments she wore, even as Meghan dried herself off with a soft, thick towel. When she wrapped herself in the comfort of the old quilt on her bed, she grasped the contoured silicone device and imagined him taking them both to the grassy paddock while their horses moved obediently aside. Beside her, he brushed his hand over her pubis, pressing firmly and rubbing in a circle against the sensitive upper edges of her labia, as the blunt, flat-tipped vibrator eased against her wet skin.

Meghan shuddered. When had she ever been so wet? Her fingers ran over the buttons on the control pad, and the device buzzed pleasantly in her fist. Obligingly, his finger slipped between those same wet labia lips and pressed against her clitoral hood, even as he murmured to her about how she would always belong to him, how she could always rely on him, how she could always trust him.

She didn’t know if it was him, her imagination or the vibrator, but in the end, it didn’t matter who or what was responsible. The low vibrations spread from her clitoris to her lower back, thrummed through her vagina and finally sped up her spine into her mind.

When the bliss faded, she was alone with a silicone massager in her hands, naked, wrapped in an old quilt. He was gone, just as he’d been gone since the day she’d needed a hero. But she’d done it herself. If she could do this for herself, what else could she accomplish on her own?

Everything, she told herself. She’d start by finding Red.