Page 1 of Overpowered
Prologue
Becks
I’m an orphan, a woman without family and with no friends to speak of, and most days, I’m okay with that. I like my little house and the safety it represents and I love that I have time alone to just breathe. I need that. I’m sort of shy and I tend to be a little anxious around large groups of people.
But I’m lonely, as strange as that sounds, and I envy other people when I see them strolling hand-in-hand, smiling and laughing together. I want that. I want to meet a man who’ll look at me like I hang the moon and stars and it’d be really nice if that man could make me feel all the things I know a lot of people feel. Emotionally. Sexually.
I won’t lie and say I don’t want sex. I’ve never had it and the thought of being pinned down and taken does scare me but I wonder if I could love someone enough to…let him control me. Sighing, I roll over onto my side and try to get back into the movie on the screen, the only thing I have to keep me occupied after Grammy died.
“I’d at least like a friend,” I whisper to myself, smiling when the actress on screen shoves the knife back into her partner’s leg because the bad guy is returning and he can’t know they’re not still restrained.
Feeling restless, I roll onto my back again and sigh, the movie losing its appeal. I’ve been watching it nearly every night because I love comedies but it just isn’t doing much for me tonight and I know even if I change the movie to another, I’ll still feel this restlessness. I feel…trapped. Smothered by my own loneliness and boring life and as I roll to my feet and walk toward the window to stare out, I feel as if something out there is waiting, watching, calling to me.
If I knew what it was, I could consider, possibly, shaking off the shackles of my safe little existence and rushing towards it. But then again…no. Probably not. With the nightmares that plague me, of ghostly memories I’d rather forget, I don’t know that I’ll ever be ready to embrace something or someone.
“But I don’t want to be alone anymore,” I say, my eyes going outside to the storm that’s been threatening all day.
It finally broke a little while ago and while I usually love the sound of rain on the roof, tonight it’s making me restless. I feel hot all over; my nerve endings feel like they’re tingling and the longer I stand at the window, feeling that…eerie sense of impending something, the more I want to rush out there.
I don’t know what it is tonight but I know I need something to change soon, even as I shy away from it and try to settle myself. Maybe I should…try online dating? I mean I could talk to other people, get to know them? But no. There are a million sickos out there, just waiting for a girl like me to find them and open myself to the dangers they pose.
A flash of lightning illuminates the world outside and for a split second I think I see someone out there; a dark, big figure looking around the big oak tree in the side yard. I startle at the sight, my hand going to my throat but another flash shows there’s nothing there and I sigh, slumping back against the window frame.
Disappointed.
I think I’m disappointed that there’s no one there and that’s just a little insane. Isn’t it?
“Get a grip, Becks,” I mutter, turning away from the window to turn the TV off and make my way to my bedroom.
Once I’m there, I stretch out on my bed, in the dark, and roll to my side to watch the storm out the window.It’s wild, untamed, and as free as I long to be.The problem is,I don’t want to be in the storm like a lot of people enjoy. I want to be the storm.I want the control and the power that the storm brings and the sad truth is, I won’t ever be. Men don’t want to be with a woman who needs to control everything that happens and I know enough from romance books that men like the thought of being alpha males and calling the shots.
I have a small flash of memory from the fair a few weeks ago and I sigh, thinking about the stranger I met there briefly. I was there to help out and sell treats to people but I was so preoccupied and anxious, I hardly let myself think that whole day.
It was only later, much later, after I got home and thought about everything that I remembered briefly serving a stranger. He was big, really big and while I didn’t directly look at him, I remember the way he smelled. Like wood shavings, something spicy and clean sweat. I liked it. I liked it so much that I spent a good few hours wondering what he looked like and I regretted like hell that I never bothered looking.
I should have. Maybe meeting a new person in town, a man who doesn’t think of me as meek little Rebecca Post, would have helped. Maybe he’d have talked to me and not thought about how pathetic I’ve always been and I could actually have had a guy like me.
“Stop dreaming, Becks,” I sigh, squeezing my eyes shut to still tears. “It’s just a phase. You’ll get over it.”
But I know I won’t. I’m lonely and alone and I want someone to talk to. Someone who will look at me and see me, not the shy girl Grammy hid away for most of her life.I need someone to hold me, to comfort me, and to share my days withbecause as things stand, there’s nothing that makes me happy anymore. Not my job at the salon, not…anything.
“Let me have someone,” I whisper, sending the prayer wherever it needs to go and hoping like hell it’s answered.
***—***
“Becks. You’re up!”
Martha yells form the front of the salon and I groan, checking the time to see that it’s exactly noon and I just happen to be on lunch right now. Which means no lunch for me because Martha’s probably leaving right now to have her own lunch at the diner.
“Dammit,” I grumble, making my way out of the back where I’ve been washing and drying towels most of the morning. “I’ll be right there!” I call out as I shuffle into the front, giving the new customer a cursory glance that is too brief to really take note of his or her face. I have a hard time meeting people’s eyes but Martha doesn’t seem to mind much as long as I do my job well.
“Please have a seat in the chair,” I murmur, gathering a cape, comb, scissors, and a water bottle because I don’t cut straight from dry hair.
“Here?” a deep voice growls, walking right to my station.
“Perfect,” I murmur, throwing out a stiff smile and approaching from behind.
Spinning the chair, so that my back is to the mirror, I finally look down at a head of wild brown hair that looks so silky I’m almost envious of it.
