The Alexandra Series by Lizbeth Dusseau

it! I didn’t want to be alone.
    I couldn’t cry anymore. There was nothing more to ponder. It seemed silly to stay in that forlorn stairwell, but I simply couldn’t move. I didn’t expect any answers, but I just couldn’t move. My mind was off in my fantasy again – if my imaginings could conjure up The Tropics and the Red Rose , perhaps it could conjure up a champion. Maybe fate or some mysterious force was conspiring to bring me my deepest longings, and this mysterious force, realizing my need for companionship, was at that moment bringing me someone who could help me through the next hours. Oh, if only I were so lucky! And yet, strangely, in the heavy shadows of those apartment stairs, as I was at last prepared to pull myself away and return to my apartment, a voice spoke. For just an instant it sounded like an angel, its existence so utterly unexpected. I wasn’t sure it was even real.
    “Is it one of the benefits of having an apartment in this building, that I find you crying your eyes out on the stairs?”
    I turned around, half expecting to find no one at all. But looking up, there quite human, I gazed at a man…flesh and blood, with slender legs and a tight waist and muscles bulging from underneath a t-shirt. Magnificent was the first word that entered my mind. His hair was brown and just slightly graying. His soft eyes were filled with energy, with light, with joy and lust and youth.
    I must have looked like a clown with my bloodshot eyes and puffed up nose. Damn! What a fool I was, weeping on the stairs like a baby. How long had he been there? What had he heard? Why could he not have been a sweet little old man, or the bespectacled woman next door, or even one of the silly buffoons of men that I managed to attract to me? I could have handled that kind of angel.
    But he was not an angel; the eyes that stared at me so intently, with no less compassion than anyone’s, were eyes that belonged to a body that assaulted my sexual desires. He only reminded me that I was alone and guys like him were not the kind that were attracted to a naïve, uptight, slightly damaged woman like me.

Chapter Six
    He wasn’t quite like any guy I’d ever met – artist, musician, actor, that sort of vibe. Although he could have sold securities for all I knew. He was simply dressed in baggy black trousers, open sandals and an armless red t-shirt. A tiny gold earring gleamed in the light from the overhead bulb. He was magnetic, far beyond the calculated sexuality of most men I knew. In fact, he reminded me of Jane, the way he was so physically well proportioned, so sensually confident, his body the male version, melting into the atmosphere around him, one with everything, displaying a fluid fire that caused an immediate response in my body.
    “You caught me at a bad time,” I said.
    “I guess so,” he answered with just a hint of amusement.
    “I’ve had a bad day,” I added. “And now I’ve jammed my knee against this rotten step.” I realized then how much my knee was throbbing with a dull ache that went throughout my entire leg. “Frankly, if I died right here, right now, I wouldn’t mind.”
    “So let me see,” he said, moving down the half flight of stairs to where I was still humbly crouched. “You’ve certainly broken the skin,” he said, then he bent down and using what looked like a clean bandana from his pocket, he mopped the slow trickle of blood that was already beginning to dry on my leg. I was only mildly concerned with the denim skirt riding up my thigh.
    “How about coming with me and I’ll clean it for you?”
    “Oh, I can take care of it. I live just one flight up.”
    “No,” he insisted. “Anyone who’s had your kind of day needs a little kindness. I’m not always so sensitive, so you had better take advantage of my good mood.”
    He grabbed my hand and drew me to my feet, not allowing any further protest. Leading me into his apartment just a few feet from the stairs, he pulled out a