Page 1 of Craving Red

Part One

Alexandra Morgan

Once upon a time, I was the woman who made the rules…

Happy anniversary, gorgeous!

Isn’t it wild how much can change in a year? You walked into that Halloween party, a temptation in red, and completely upended my world. And God, do I love you for it.

You are the woman who taught me that some things are worth chasing.

So, today, we’re going to play a game.

Step by step, clue by clue, I want you to track me down with the same impatient, relentless obsession I had for you. I want you to hunt me… and catch me.

Your first clue is waiting next to the other stubborn, demanding beast you took your sweet time taming.

Hurry, Little Red. This Wolf is hungry.

Chapter One

I sit propped against the headboard, naked beneath the sheets, tracing the confident slope of Jo’s handwriting.

Hurry, Little Red. This Wolf is hungry.

A shiver ghosts down my spine. “Absolutely not.”

My fiancée had roused me after dawn with a meticulous exploration of my body. I had reasonably assumed our anniversary festivities were already well underway, and that this was my gift. An indulgent Sunday morning where the only decision I had to make was how loud I was willing to moan. She had taken her time, her hand dragging over my spine and ass, coaxing me awake. When her palm slipped between my thighs, I was already aching. Already wet. The pressure was feather-light, barely there at times, and when she slid two fingers inside me, it was with the same languid care. She kept me there for what felt like forever, balanced on the edge, until an orgasm rolled through me in molten, endless waves.

Then she’d kissed me, tucked the duvet around my shoulders, and told me to sleep. So I had.

I woke up expecting to find her lounging next to me, waiting to pull me into her lap for another round. Instead, my hand had grazed cool, empty sheets. For one breathless second, my chest had seized. It is an irrational, lingering anxiety I haven’t quite managed to evict: the gripping fear that this beautiful reality will snap into its old, lonely shape.

Of course, my panic was unfounded. The woman hadn’t abandoned me. She just fled the apartment while I was unconscious, and left homework on her pillow.

Jo, true to form, is incapable of doing anything by the book. Why, exactly, did I think one spectacularly lazy Sunday-morning orgasm would satisfy her ambitions for our anniversary? I should have known. Josephine Blake does nothing by halves.

I look back at the note.

Isn’t it wild how much can change in a year?

That is the understatement of the century. One year ago, I was a tightly wound executive whose idea of a wild night was drinking whiskey instead of wine. I lived for control. Giving that up—surrendering enough control that I can be brought to my knees just by finding her side of the bed empty—is the most dangerous thing I have ever done.

When Jo and I collided, literally and professionally, it felt like stepping off a cliff without a parachute. For months, I thought of what happened between us as something Jo did to my life. It took me an embarrassingly long time to understand that I had done the same thing to hers. Maybe worse.

You are the woman who taught me that some things are worth chasing.

“Cheap shot,” I mutter.

A year of loving Josephine Blake changes a person. It sands down the rigid edges and replaces them with something sharper, far more fun. Underneath the tailored pencil skirts and the tight grip I keep on my life, there has always been a stubborn competitive streak that thrives on being challenged. And, as of this summer, it evolved into a deeply satisfying brand of defiance.

The instinct had always been there, simmering under our early clashes, but it fully took shape a few months ago. Jo had used her gravelly tone to tell me to put my work away for the night. Instead of complying, I looked her dead in the eye, pulled another file toward me, and smiled. All her easy, teasing charm evaporated as she dragged me out of the chair herself. Realizing how much feral hunger I could pull out of her with one quiet act of rebellion was a revelation. Now, I delight in pushing her to the limit before letting her take the reins.

The most terrifying part isn’t that I let her take the reins—it’s how desperately I crave it. She plucks a pen from my hand when I’m working too late, or presses me into the mattress with her quiet intensity, and I surrender.

The note crinkles under my fingers.

Step by step, clue by clue, I want you to track me down with the same impatient, relentless obsession I had for you.