Read Online Missionary Position (Masters of the Prairie Winds Club Book 7) by Avery Gale - Free Book Online Page B

their radar, because even as inexperienced as she’d been, their leering looks hadn’t been difficult to interpret. But it had been their sudden in-the-middle-of-the-night moves that had been the most suspicious. Her family had never kept many personal possessions—she hadn’t been allowed to keep any more than she could pack in an hour. Her parents had insisted it was to avoid the heat of the day, which in most of the countries they’d lived in was a reasonable excuse—but their explanation had started to seem less and less reasonable as time wore on.
    Leaning forward to press her forehead against the cool tile, Lara’s mind drifted back to the night her one and only boyfriend had walked away from her. She’d dated Simon Ericson for several weeks before joining Dark Desires, and he’d seemed more interested in her background than her future. She’d met him late one afternoon after stopping at an outdoor café for a cup of coffee. While she’d been walking home from class, Lara had been almost overwhelmed with the strange feeling she was being watched as she’d made her way down the tree-lined street. She’d stepped into the small shop to place her order and then moved out to sit on the patio hoping she could figure out what was going on.
    She’d almost finished her coffee when a young man sat down next to her and smiled as he pushed another cup of her favorite latte in front of her. At her questioning look he’d simply said, “I asked the barista” and shrugged as if that was all the answer needed. Lara looked at the barista who grinned and gave her a thumb’s up. They’d started talking and before long she realized time had gotten away from her and it was getting late. When he’d seen her nervously glancing at her watch, Simon offered to give her a ride home. She’d hesitated—all those safety seminars her freshman year in college had evidently made at least a small impression, and he’d praised her for being cautious. He’d shown her his college identification card and a driver’s license with an address not far from where she lived and for whatever reason that had seemed like enough reason to trust him. Later she’d wondered why it had made her feel safer—something she still didn’t understand.
    Lara had been dating Simon for several weeks when he suddenly announced he was moving to Washington D.C. and essentially disappeared from her life. He hadn’t called or even emailed her after moving. It was if he’d simply ceased to exist, vanishing into thin air. The entire time they’d dated they had rarely gone out in public together, Simon always insisted he enjoyed her company and didn’t see any reason to share their time together with anyone else. He had never wanted his picture taken, but she had managed to snap one candid shot with her phone, which had mysteriously vanished from her phone not long after he’d moved. Their “dates” had almost always been walks along the beach or at small hole-in-the-wall places that rarely had more than a few other customers.
    Since she’d never had a boyfriend, Lara hadn’t realized how strange the whole thing had been until after it had ended. When she’d mentioned it casually to a few of her friends one evening during a study session, they instantly expressed their concern. None of her friends had ever heard of him, and when she’d described him, they’d all sworn they’d never seen anyone matching his description on campus either.
    One of her study partners worked in the Registrar’s Office and had offered to check on him, as it turned out Simon Ericson had never been a student at any of the University of Houston campuses. Lara hadn’t understood why he’d bothered with fake identification, but her friends hadn’t been shy about expressing their opinions—and none of them were particularly comforting.
    Simon had never pressed her for sex and there had been times when she’d practically begged him for it. After several rejections she had