Chapter 1

With drapes pulled, the muffled, stormy beat of rain pelting against bedroom windows was becoming hypnotic. Stretched out on her bed in a short, silky red nightie, Belinda Chalmers had been trying to focus, to shift her mind into an erotic fantasy. Unfortunately, her thoughts kept wandering. Despite nearing the peak of her estrous cycle, along with feeling needy, attempts at bringing herself to an orgasm seemed defeated by fatigue, an increased work load adding to her stresses. A leading medical lab technologist, she had risen to the position of supervisor despite the strains of a crappy marriage.

Seven years divorced from a constantly cheating, often impotent, usually drunk husband, Belinda didn’t want to indulge in simple flings, and the thought of another marriage left her cold. She wasn’t about to make the mistake of putting herself or her son through another fractious relationship. Belinda was afraid that any clandestine affair might damage her reputation, and she wasn’t about to risk another accidental pregnancy; or, much worse, an STD.

As her mind wandered from the descriptive weave of intrigue and explicit sex in a steamy historical romance, Belinda found her eyes drifting, mind distracted by thoughts of her son Brian. Now, a month past his fourteenth birthday, the boy was gorgeous, at least as good looking as his biological father. Along with having a precocious intellect, He was starting to develop a masculine, athletic build. The boy was already a young man, his superior intellect making her proud. She knew he would be skipping grade nine, heading right into grade eleven. Though his birth was the result of an accident, Brian was dear to her, and a blessing, the result of a fling with a high school football jock, and a batch of defective birth control pills. Those had been shipped before a quality control issue was discovered.

Unlike her devoutly Baptist, widowed mother, Belinda was far from religious, but still refused an abortion. As for the jock who knocked her up, his wealthy, socially prominent parents thwarted any notion of marriage to a girl they considered beneath them, adding insult to injury by accusing her of being ‘white trash’, deliberately attempting to snare their ‘boy’ with sexual wiles.

Gifted with an unusually high IQ, Belinda completed high school through a GED, worked her way through college on scholarships, raising Brian with the help of her paternal grandparents, her mom and two doting aunts, all while holding down a part-time job. Brains and hard work paid off with a bachelors in science with honors. An intense year of extra courses and excellent marks soon got her full-time employment at a lab, working as a technologist. Soon, she was second only to lab pathologists.

Even intelligent people can make stupid choices, and Belinda was no exception. She was romanced by a man who seemed to have promise, and at twenty-two she married Carl.

All through college, her baby had been an inspiration, and now, Brian was the one pleasant constant in her life. Always helpful, Brian was devoted to his mom, always helping out with household chores. Like Belinda, the boy seemed to have inherited a superior intellect, along with precious sensitivity, showing an understanding of his mother’s situation, ever eager to help out with housework.