#there are like five different colors called electric blue on wikipedia :') | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

there-willbeblood · 8 years ago

Text

Chapter 7: Shades of Blue

NATALIA'S POV

I Google searched again and again.

Never in my life had I seen such a gorgeous shade of blue but I just had to find it. I barely knew his name but as soon as I got home from Plasma last night, my mind wouldn't shut down. I felt like some drug crazed, groupie.

When Wanda pulled me out of the office at Plasma, she was furious and still flailing her rather large taser around for everyone to see that she was tough shit. I was still slightly buzzed from the blood loss mixed with alcohol but nothing compared to the high I got from seeing those eyes for the first time. What the hell was wrong with me?

I looked at him once and already, I was itching to run my hands through his golden hair or run my finger along his chiseled chest that was on full display for me last night. I wasn't an overly sexual person but I was a woman who just saw her first piece of true eye candy and Jesus have mercy, he was fine as hell.

Wanda was less than amused and wouldn't answer my questions as to who my new Mystery Crush was. She was still pissed from having to bring out the big guns so didn't really notice my complete glazed over look as we sat in the back of the cab. She just kept talking and I just kept fantasizing.

It was completely embarrassing but I couldn't help it.

I was so wrapped up in Mystery Crush that I didn't even really feel the throbbing from the back of my leg that was so neatly bandaged, I thought someone had called a doctor. It was entirely ridiculous that I could have this physical attraction to some guy I barely saw for two seconds and then was rushed out of the door but I didn't feel like it had to be explained. If only I could see him one more time, I would be good for the rest of my life.

Does that even make sense?

Last night, I went to bed with dreams of blue going through my head.

Sky. Cobalt. Electric. Sapphire. Navy. Sea. Royal. Indigo. Baby. Midnight. Ice. Wikipedia said that there were an estimated 9,142,857 different shades of blue. I had probably gone through half of them by eight the next morning.

His name was Steve. Such an old-fashioned, strong name but it matched him perfectly. He just stood regally and it only took one second for me to fall for his looks. I bet that's how it always was.

I looked at the clock that now read ten a.m. I hadn't slept since five and I was starting to feel the effects but I wasn't going to rest until I found the right color of his eyes. They were still pulling me in every time I closed mine and thought about the three seconds I saw him standing near the door.

Last night, Steve was high, that was for sure but he still had the sexiest face I had ever seen. It wasn't just that he had a nice face, it was more than that. There was a fire behind him that I could sense and it turned me on immensely although that wasn't anything close to the way he looked at me. Even though he was slightly inebriated, something about him was calling me. It was like I was drawn to him through his blood and that was fucking weird. I was even scaring myself.

"Pull yourself together, Nat." I rubbed my eyes to try and break Steve's spell on me.

I was a fucking junkie with my coffee next to me on the desk and my laptop powered up.

Since I couldn't sleep, I spent my time on the internet trying to find out who Mystery Crush was like a stalker but I wasn't ashamed.

Through a very circuitous route, I found that James "Bucky" Rogers was the owner of Plasma, thus I figured that Steve's last name was the same.

"Come on." I tapped my foot impatiently as Google took its sweet time loading the page after I typed in 'Steve Rogers'. I didn't know anything else so I hoped that was enough to get me some sort of information.

My cell phone brought me out of my lusting and I nearly jumped five feet in the air. I looked around like a cartoon character, with my head shifting from side to side as I searched furiously for my phone that was buried under my un-slept in sheets. I found it near my pillow and picked up just as the ringing stopped. I always left my phone on the charger and never took it anywhere with me. I didn't even know why Nick bought me the thing.

"Hello?" I answer quickly.

"Geez Nat, you sound like you ran a marathon. What's going on?" Wanda asked.

"Nothing." I lied and took several breaths to calm myself, "What's up?"

"I'm bored. Let's do something."

"I can't right now Wanda, and it's ten in the morning. There isn't much to do on a Sunday."

"We should go somewhere outside. It's so pretty and we're not going to have much time once school starts tomorrow."

"Uh...I can't. I have things to do." I stalled.

"Liar. What are you doing?"

"Nothing."

"Well I'm coming over in an hour. Be ready to go to the lake."

"What lake?"

"Lake Michigan, silly. It's really close and it's going to be filled with hot guys."

"I don't want any hot guys." I instinctively looked at the computer screen but couldn't really make out anything.

"Well I want some. Be ready in two hours." She hung up before I had the chance to say anything else but to be honest, I wasn't listening to her.

I threw the phone back down on my bed and practically raced to the computer.

There were several articles on men named Joseph Rogers who was either that big man in the room with us at Plasma or another brother. Maybe the father? There were a couple of postings on a woman named Sarah who owned a successful design firm and of course James had promotional stuff up for his restaurants and clubs.

I scrolled down the page and tapped my foot faster. My bottom lip was nearly bleeding from the amount of pressure I was putting on it with my teeth.

Of course my eyes zoomed in on the title that read 'Chicago's Sexiest Bachelors'.

I clicked on the link and waited for the page to load while I chewed on my finger. There were thumbnail photos of about thirty men, all of whom were sexy in their own way but I wasn't looking at them. He was number four, how he wasn't number one was beyond me and I was seriously debating writing a petition to have him moved up.

I clicked on the image and my panties were flooded with a sudden rush of my physical lust.

"Sweet baby Jesus." I breathed as I looked at my computer screen.

Steve was in the most form fitting, tailored, navy blue suit I had ever seen as it clung to the strong lines of his body. He was standing tall with his arms crossed, against a window that overlooked the city in the background. His hair was more styled than it had been last night but his face and eyes were still the same. I would call him beautiful but that didn't seem to be the right word for a man like him. I would have to do another Google search to find the perfect adjective. Maybe exquisite, superb, godly?

He was almost too stunning to look at and my eyes kind of hurt but I couldn't not stare at him. What I wouldn't give to have him on my bed, tied up and naked.

"What the hell is wrong with me?" I played with the ends of my hair as I read the short biography.

Steve Rogers

Age: 25

Steve Rogers comes from the Rogers business dynasty and has grown up in the upper echelon of Chicago society. His father Joseph and mother Sarah have raised three boys but Steve seems to be the only one making serious rounds in the dating community. As a fresh, up-and-coming real estate mogul, the youngest Rogers brother has already been dubbed a revamped James Dean type with piercing blue eyes that can mesmerize.

"A guy likes confidence in a girl. I love a confident girl who will come up and talk to me," Rogers told us. While Rogers isn't planning on settling down in the near future, that hasn't stopped him from "testing the waters" as he put it.

I didn't even notice that my hand was down my pants until it was almost too late. My index finger ran over my swollen clit and my butt lifted off of the chair, pushing my finger into my soaked entrance. I curled my finger slightly and kept up a constant rhythm as I looked at Steve's picture, his eyes boring into mine, causing my body to react immediately.

It only took two minutes before I was crashing down from the quickest yet most intense orgasm I had ever had. It took me significantly longer to bring myself back to reality as I rested my head on the back of the chair.

I stayed in that position for about half an hour, not moving, not blinking, barely breathing.

I pulled my hand back up when I could think again. I closed my laptop, not even caring to power it down. I stood up and paced the floor with heavy breathing.

Never in my life had I been so attracted to a man. Not even in my short hormonal period that I went through when I turned fifteen. Back then, everything with a penis had the ability to turn my head. Of course I wasn't a slut and didn't do anything with them until Clint came along but that still didn't stop me from having a few late night, hand parties under my sheets. Actually, Clint was the only person I had ever had sex with but that doesn't mean I didn't think about it.

This Steve fellow had the ability to turn me into a puddle just over the computer and that was dangerous.

There was a knock on my door that almost made me fall over. I calmed myself down and made sure that I looked somewhat pulled together, still in my pajama pants and a tank top.

I went to the door to let Wanda in.

"Are you ready?" She held up her hands to show off her hot pink cover up that was hiding what I suspected to be a skimpy bikini underneath.

"Oh...has it been an hour already?" I looked at the clock.

Her face fell. "What is wrong with you? Why do you look so flushed?" She lowered her sunglasses, "Is there a man in that bathroom?"

"No. It's just a little hot in here." I fanned myself.

"Well that's why we're going to the beach. I brought you a bathing suit."

"Oh God. Please have it cover me up." I prayed.

"Yes, I picked out something modest." She pushed her sunglasses up into her hair, "Now move! I want to leave soon."

"I can't go to the beach Wanda." I complained, pointing to the still covered up cut on my leg, "Sand and open wounds don't mix."

"Oh yeah." She pouted, "Sorry about that by the way."

"It wasn't your fault."

"I should have been watching you."

"We can do something else? Show me more of Chicago." I suggested, brightening her up.

"Okay." She jumped up and down, "Go get dressed."

I went into the bathroom to do my normal routine that only took a couple of minutes.

I walked out and went straight to my dresser. I pulled on a pair of short jean shorts that would provide me some kind of coverage but were still breathable in the Chicago heat and a tee shirt.

"Who's this?" Wanda pointed to the computer that I had shut but now stood open.

I quickly closed it before more questions began pouring from her mouth.

"Are you ready to go?" I asked, trying to change the subject.

"No. I want to know who that was. I just saw the picture. I think I've seen him before." She tried to push my hand away but I wasn't budging.

"He's no one. Leave it alone." I snarled.

"Fine." She crossed her arms, "Make sure you bring money for the cab. I didn't bring my wallet."

I looked around the room and my face screwed up.

Where was my purse from last night?

I sent out the search party.

Wanda and I looked for the thing for an hour before we concluded that my purse wasn't there. I know I had it with me last night but who knows what really happened after I passed out. I could have left it on the couches or someone could have stolen it but I didn't think so. I remember having it with me in Edw…in his office. I think I saw it on the desk but I wasn't sure.

"It's not here Nat. What did you do with that purse?" Wanda said from under my bed.

"I don't know. I could have sworn that I had it with me last night."

"You did because I reminded myself when we walked into Plasma that I wanted to borrow the thing. It goes perfect with a blouse I just bought."

"Well you bought the stupid thing. I barely know what it looks like."

"It's a white clutch." She grumbled, going further under the bed.

"I bet I left it at the club when I feel or something." I sat in the chair by the desk, "Damn."

"What did you have in it?" Wanda crawled out from her spot and sat on the bed.

"Some money, not a lot but some and my , those were important."

"But you had your key last night, didn't you?"

"No, you let me in, remember?"

"Oh yeah." She thought for a second, "I guess we could call Plasma and see if what's-his-name picked it up."

My heart started to beat quickly at the thought of going back into that place. Maybe it was from excitement or nervousness but the scene of the crime was never a good place to be.

"Do…do you think James would still have it?" I asked skeptically, trying to cover up my new found enthusiasm. Just the thought of being in the same vicinity as Steve was about to make me combust.

She shrugged, "I don't see why not. We can find the number online."

Before I even had the chance to open up my laptop, the phone on my bed rang. Wanda and I both turned to look at it. Since she was closer, she picked it up like it was hers.

"Hello….oh…yeah….okay…she's right here…." She covered the phone with her hand, "It's an Steve. Do you know a Steve?"

Sudden flashes of green ran through my head like blades of grass being thrown from a lawn mower.

He was calling me?

"Uh…yeah. It was the guy near the door last night in the office." I said and calmly held my hand out for the phone.

"I didn't really see anyone."

"I wouldn't be surprised. You were going all Rambo on their asses to notice. Give me the phone."

She handed it over and I placed it to my ear, "Hello."

"Is this Natalia, from last night?" A cool voice came from the other line and I almost died right there. If Wanda wasn't here, I would have had my second "happy time" of the day.

"Yes, this is she." I replied formally. I don't know why.

"I don't even know if you'll remember me…"

"Of course I do. You bandaged my leg." I spoke a little too loudly and blushed over the phone. Damn it, damn it all to hell!

I heard him darkly chuckled over the phone, "I have your purse. You must have left it here. You had a list of numbers in your wallet and I just called the one that said it was your cell phone."

"Oh…well thank you."

"It's no problem. Would you like to come and get it or would you like me to bring it to you?"

There was a slight tinge in his voice that told me he had a narcissistic view of himself. It was almost as if he could bounce his voice in a way that would make him seem superior. I hoped he was just putting up a front over the phone because it would be a shame if he had all that beauty but a messed up personality.

"Um…well my friend Wanda and I were just about to go out. I guess we could meet you somewhere." I answered.

Wanda wrote something on a piece of paper eagerly and held it up for me to read.

"Sure." He replied.

"I can meet you in Grant Park, at the Buckingham fountain in what…an hour?"

Wanda nodded vigorously.

"That's fine with me. I'll see you then Natalia." He hung up the phone without any kind of goodbye and I was left with a low ringing dial tone.

"Well that was sufficiently awkward." I put the phone down.

"You like him." Wanda had a wicked grin on her face. "I can tell. That was the guy on the computer wasn't it? I remember now."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Liar." She accused. "Don't you try to hide from me Natalia Romanov."

"I don't know what you mean." I was lying through my teeth but I was still hoping that she didn't notice.

"You are in so much denial. You blushed and you had that thing in your voice." She dragged me up.

"Thing?"

"Yeah. I can tell you had dreams about him. You masturbated to him didn't you? I know you did." She jumped off of the bed and did some kind of weird dance.

"I did not. Stop that." I pushed her back down so that she would sit still.

"You are just a hormonal little minx, aren't you? Who knew that Natalia Romanov would relieve herself to the likes of that guy. He was so…" She shuddered instead of speaking, "Although I have to admit that he had a nice body. I just got one glimpse but that was enough."

"Shut up." I grumbled.

She got off of the bed and began pulling me with her.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"To meet your new lover. I want to see him close up and without my taser."

"Oh great. Scare him again." I stuffed my feet in my shoes.

"In my defense, I thought they were raping you. I was trying to help."

"You almost killed them."

"It wouldn't be the first time." She said nonchalantly, "Come on." She pulled me out of the door and my heart started beating faster by the second.

Wanda explained to me that we could get to Grant Park by walking and since it was a nice day, I didn't really have a problem stretching my legs. I was working on less than two hours of sleep and three cups of coffee so I was pretty energetic.

We had an hour to kill so we walked at a leisurely pace while talking about school and life. I was just trying to get her off the subject of Steve, which she didn't bring up again but I could tell that she wanted to. We arrived at the entrance of Grant Park from Columbus Avenue forty-five minutes later.

"So….who is your mystery man?" Wanda nudged me. I could see the spray from the fountain up ahead but I tried not to look too eager.

"I don't know. I only met him for a couple of seconds before you pushed me out of the door."

"Well we had to get out of there. It was weird." She shivered. "Something was going on in that room that I didn't like. The vibes were strange."

"The vibes, what are you now, physic?"

"Duh. I've been trying to convince people of that for years but no one believes me. Call it whatever you want but I've got the gift." She pushed her fingers to her temple.

"You are one strange woman." I said under my breath.

"Whatever. Do you need some moral support? I think he's just using your purse to get to you. What if he likes you too? What if he's like this…super sexy superhero with amazing powers or…"

"Okay, okay. I get it." I calmed her down. "I just hope he didn't go through my stuff."

"He probably just wanted to meet you again."

"Stop being stupid." I said. There was no way in hell Steve Rogers, Chicago's fourth sexiest bachelor, would want to meet me. He probably had tons more things to do than bring me my purse.

"Okay, well I'll be here if you need me." Wanda sat herself on a bench under some shaded trees and I kept walking towards Buckingham Fountain.

The whole place was huge and I had never seen so much water that wasn't in an ocean before. It was one of those Chicago landmarks that was on all of the postcards and had streams of water shooting into the sky. Majestic, bronzed, green horses were climbing out of the fountain and it looked like everything was actually moving. Stone and marble basins stood strongly as they peeked over the water top.

The surrounding area was filled with kids and families who were throwing pennies into the fountain. Large trees were covering the location with grassed places for sitting. Lots of old benches were around for people to sit and I noticed that people were eating lunch in the sun. It was very peaceful.

I just stood there and watched, trying to get my mind off of my masturbatory dream.

"It's a beautiful sight at night." A smooth voice whispered to me.

I jumped and spun around where Steve was holding out my clutch with a crooked grin on his face.

"You scared the crap out of me." I spoke softly, running my hands through my hair, smoothing it out.

"Sorry. I just couldn't help it. I was calling your name for about a minute." He chuckled marvelously.

"Oh…I guess I didn't hear you." I replied awkwardly.

"That's obvious. I brought your purse back and I promise I didn't steal anything."

"How do I know you're not lying?"

"I guess you'll just have to trust me."

"Did you go through my things?" I took the purse from him, acting a little callous towards him but I didn't want to appear like a giddy school girl.

"No, I didn't have to after I found the cell phone list. I didn't want to impede on your privacy."

He crossed his arms behind him and I was glad that he had a pair of Ray Bans on or I might have been thrown to the floor by eyes.

I was worried that he would look at my driver's license and realize that I wasn't really twenty-one but he seemed to be telling the truth about not going through my things.

"Thank you." I said.

"No problem." His grin seemed to be permanent. Something about him was different today than it was last night and I couldn't put my finger on it. He just seemed to have this attitude about him that was very arrogant. He eyed me up and down in a creepy way and even though he was still sexy as hell, I was starting to wise up to his antics.

"Well thank you…for this and for last night." I pointed to the back of my leg.

"It wasn't a problem. It's not every day I get to wipe down a leg as beautiful as yours."

"Uh huh." I replied.

He was dressed in a very smart pair of black slacks and a light blue collar shirt that had its sleeves rolled up, looking old and young at the same time.

"You look very nice today." I said, trying to keep talking and not fantasize about the perfect chest that was underneath.

"I just came from church." He explained.

"That would explain it." I nodded, slipping further into awkwardness.

"Yeah." He shuffled his feet, "So, what do you have planned today?"

"It's the last day before school starts so Wanda and I are going to walk around a bit."

"You're in school?" He raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah." I blushed for some reason.

"Junior?"

"Yes." I said before I could stop myself. Just like last night when I told James I was twenty-one.

"Do you need a tutor? Maybe I could help you out sometime." Steve's voice filled with innuendo and that just made him even slimier in my eyes.

"Is that a pick up line?" I asked, not even hiding my discomfort or disgust with the situation.

"What would you do if I said yes?" He ran his hands through his hair, trying to smooth it out.

That was when I noticed that all of this was too calculated. Every movement he made seemed like it had been practiced and done over hundreds of times. He was trying to pick me up just like he did every other girl he met. It was flattering while also being extremely overconfident on his part. It was sickening to think that this was all he had to do before girls rolled over for him although I had to admit that he had done less with me last night and I was already infatuated.

"I would say that I'm not some chick who you can get to suck your dick by being a jackass." My bold side was starting to come out.

"I have been nothing but nice to you." His lips twitched into a small smirk. He obviously liked my reaction a little too much.

"You've been a little too nice."

"Isn't that what girls want?"

"What do you think I am?"

"I'm not sure. I just met you last night."

"Damn straight." I was breathing kind of heavily and was surprised that I hadn't slapped him by now. Maybe I was getting ahead of myself.

He kept up his smirk with his hands crossed behind his back, "Are you finished with your pathetic excuse for an early 19th century woman's suffrage speech?"

I was kind of taken aback by his boldness but then realized that people usually bowed to him. He was rich, fine as hell, obviously smarter than most scholars and had a hint of danger about him. What wasn't to love?

"You're impossible." I started to walk away but he gingerly took my wrist and turned me back around. I snatched away from his grasp.

"Am I annoying you?" He asked and was almost laughing.

"Immensely."

"Are you irritated?" He started to circle me like I was his fucking prey.

"Massively." I growled.

"Am I making you…angry?" He whispered in a delicious way close to my face.

I didn't even bother answering. My face held all the anger I was feeling.

"They say that anger is the sign of true passion. We could create magic together, Natalia."

"Are you that arrogant that you think I would…what, fuck you? I don't even know you."

"Perfect. Literally no strings attached. Okay, let me just get this out there. I think you're incredibly sexy and if you would let me, I would like to have a nice fuck before I go about my business." He stopped playing his games.

My mouth hung open as I digested his words. I did register somewhere that he had called me sexy but that was overshadowed by the fact that he thought he was going to get a quick fuck from me.

"Are you serious? Is that how you normally get girls?" I asked, stunned.

"Actually, no. Ideally, you would already be on your back by now." He got a little angrier, "You're very frustrating."

It was in that moment that Steve Rogers went from total heartthrob to every other ubiquitous jerk I met in high school.

"Thanks for bringing me back my purse." I didn't even chance a look back at him as I walked around the fountain.

I could feel his eyes on me and hoped that he got a good look of my ass because that was the last time he was ever going to see it.

#romanogers #twbb

0 notes

anavoliselenu · 5 years ago

Text

blood chapter 4

I Google searched again and again.

Never in my life had I seen such an off shade of green but I just had to find it. I barely knew his name but as soon as I got home from Plasma last night, my mind wouldn't shut down. I felt like some drug crazed, groupie.

When Alice pulled me out of the office at Plasma, she was furious and still flailing her rather large taser around for everyone to see that she was tough shit. I was still slightly buzzed from the blood loss mixed with alcohol but nothing compared to the high I got from seeing those eyes for the first time. What the hell was wrong with me? Get it together Selena!

I looked at him once and already, I was itching to run my hands through his bronze hair or run my finger along his chiseled chest that was on full display for me last night. I wasn't an overly sexual person but I was a woman who just saw her first piece of true eye candy and Jesus have mercy, he was fine as hell.

Alice was less than amused and wouldn't answer my questions as to who my new Mystery Crush was. She was still pissed from having to bring out the big guns so didn't really notice my complete glazed over look as we sat in the back of the cab. She just kept talking and I just kept fantasizing.

It was completely embarrassing but I couldn't help it.

Does that even make sense?

Last night, I went to bed with dreams of green going through my head.

Emerald. Candy apple. Electric. Army. Fern. Sea. Shamrock. Jade. Pigment. Pine. Viridian. Wikipedia said that there were an estimated 9,142,857 different shades of green. I had probably gone through half of them by eight the next morning.

His name was Justin. Such an old-fashioned, strong name but it matched him perfectly. He just stood regally and it only took one second for me to fall for his looks. I bet that's how it always was.

Last night, Justin was high, that was for sure but he still had the sexiest face I had ever seen. It wasn't just that he had a nice face, it was more than that. There was a fire behind him that I could sense and it turned me on immensely although that wasn't anything close to the way he looked at me. Even thought he was slightly inebriated, something about him was calling me. It was like I was drawn to him through his blood and that was fucking weird. I was even scaring myself.

"Pull yourself together, Selena." I rubbed my eyes to try and break Justin's spell on me.

I was a fucking junkie with my coffee next to me on the desk and my laptop powered up.

Since I couldn't sleep, I spent my time on the internet trying to find out who Mystery Crush was like a stalker but I wasn't ashamed.

Through a very circuitous route, I found that Jasper Bieber was the owner of Plasma, thus I figured that Justin's last name was the same.

"Come on." I tapped my foot impatiently as Google took its sweet time loading the page after I typed in 'Justin Bieber'. I didn't know anything else so I hoped that was enough to get me some sort of information.

"Hello?" I answer quickly.

"Gezz Selena, you sound like you ran a marathon. What's going on?" Alice asked.

"Nothing." I lied and took several breaths to calm myself, "What's up?"

"I'm bored. Let's do something."

"I can't right now Alice and it's ten in the morning. There isn't much to do on a Sunday."

"We should go somewhere outside. It's so pretty and we're not going to have much time once school starts tomorrow."

"Uh...I can't. I have things to do." I stalled.

"Liar. What are you doing?"

"Nothing."

"Well I'm coming over in an hour. Be ready to go to the lake."

"What lake?"

"Lake Michigan, silly. It's really close and it's going to be filled with hot guys."

"I don't want any hot guys." I instinctively looked at the computer screen but couldn't really make out anything.

"Well I want some. Be ready in two hours." She hung up before I had the chance to say anything else but to be honest, I wasn't listening to her.

I threw the phone back down on my bed and practically raced to the computer.

There were several articles on men named Carlilse Bieber who was either that big man in the room with us at Plasma or another brother. Maybe the father? There were a couple of postings on a woman named Esme who owned a successful design firm and of course Jasper had promotional stuff up for his restaurants and clubs.

I scrowled down the page and tapped my foot faster. My bottom lip was nearly bleeding from the amount of pressure I was putting on it with my teeth.

Of course my eyes zoomed in on the title that read 'Chicago's Sexiest Bachelors'.

I clicked on the image and my panties were flooded with a sudden rush of my physical lust.

"Sweet baby Jesus." I breathed as I looked at my computer screen.

Justin was in the most form fitting, tailored, navy blue suit I had ever seen as it clung to the strong lines of his body. He was standing tall with his arms crossed, against a window that overlooked the city in the background. His hair was more styled than it had been last night but his face and eyes were still the same. I would call him beautiful but that didn't seem to be the right word for a man like him. I would have to do another Google search to find the perfect adjective. Maybe exquisite, superb, godly?

He was almost too stunning to look at and my eyes kind of hurt but I couldn't not stare at him. What I wouldn't give to have him on my bed, tied up and naked.

"What the hell is wrong with me?" I played with the ends of my hair as I read the short biography.

Justin Bieber

Age: 25

Justin Bieber comes from the Bieber business dynasty and has grown up in the upper echelon of Chicago society. His father Carlisle and mother Esme have raised three boys but Justin seems to be the only one making serious rounds in the dating community. As a fresh, up-and-coming real estate mogul, the youngest Bieber brother has already been dubbed a revamped James Dean type with piercing green eyes that can mesmerize.

"A guy likes confidence in a girl. I love a confident girl who will come up and talk to me," Bieber told us.

While Bieber isn't planning on settling down in the near future, that hasn't stopped him from "testing the waters" as he put it.

I didn't even notice that my hand was down my pants until it was almost too late. My index finger ran over my swollen clit and my butt lifted off of the chair, pushing my digit into my soaked entrance. I curled my finger slightly and kept up a constant rhythm as I looked at Justin's picture, his eyes boring into mine, causing my body to react immediately.

I stayed in that position for about half an hour, not moving, not blinking, barely breathing.

I pulled my hand back up when I could think again. I closed my laptop, not even caring to power it down. I stood up and paced the floor with heavy breathing.

Never in my life had I been so attracted to a man. Not even in my short hormonal period that I went through when I turned fifteen. Back then, everything with a penis had the ability to turn my head. Of course I wasn't a slut and didn't do anything with them until Mike came along but that still didn't stop me from having a few late night, hand parties under my sheets. Actually, Mike was the only person I had ever had sex with but that doesn't mean I didn't think about it.

This Justin fellow had the ability to turn me into a puddle just over the computer and that was dangerous.

There was a knock on my door that almost made me fall over. I calmed myself down and made sure that I looked somewhat pulled together, still in my pajama pants and a tank top.

I went to the door to let Alice in.

"Are you ready?" She held up her hands to show off her hot pink cover up that was hiding what I suspected to be a skimpy bikini underneath.

"Oh...has it been an hour already?" I looked at the clock.

Her face fell, "What is wrong with you? Why do you look so flushed?" She lowered her sunglasses, "Is there a man in that bathroom?"

"No. It's just a little hot in here." I fanned myself.

"Well that's why we're going to the beach. I brought you a bathing suit."

"Oh God. Please have it cover me up." I prayed.

"Yes, I picked out something modest." She pushed her sunglasses up into her hair, "Now move! I want to leave soon."

"I can't go to the beach Alice." I complained, pointing to the still covered up cut on my leg, "Sand and open wounds don't mix."

"Oh yeah." She pouted, "Sorry about that by the way."

"It wasn't your fault."

"I should have been watching you."

"We can do something else? Show me more of Chicago." I suggested, brightening her up.

"Okay." She jumped up and down, "Go get dressed."

I went into the bathroom to do my normal routine that only took a couple of minutes.

I walked out and went straight to my dresser. I pulled on a pair of short jean shorts that would provide me some kind of coverage but were still breathable in the Chicago heat and a tee shirt.

"Who's this?" Alice pointed to the computer that I had shut but now stood open.

I quickly closed it before more questions began pouring from her mouth.

"Are you ready to go?" I asked, trying to change the subject.

"No. I want to know who that was. I just saw the picture. I think I've seen him before." She tried to push my hand away but I wasn't budging.

"He's no one. Leave it alone." I snarled.

"Fine." She crossed her arms, "Make sure you bring money for the cab. I didn't bring my wallet."

I looked around the room and my face screwed up.

Where was my purse from last night?

I sent out the search party.

Alice and I looked for the thing for an hour before we concluded that my purse wasn't there. I know I had it with me last night but who knows what really happened after I passed out. I could have left it on the couches or someone could have stolen it but I didn't think so. I remember having it with me in Edw…in his office. I think I saw it on the desk but I wasn't sure.

"It's not here Selena. What did you do with that purse?" Alice said from under my bed.

"I don't know. I could have sworn that I had it with me last night."

"You did because I reminded myself when we walked into Plasma that I wanted to borrow the thing. It goes perfect with a blouse I just bought."

"Well you bought the stupid thing. I barely know what it looks like."

"It's a white clutch." She grumbled, going further under the bed.

"I bet I left it at the club when I feel or something." I sat in the chair by the desk, "Damn."

"What did you have in it?" Alice crawled out from her spot and sat on the bed.

"Some money, not a lot but some and my , those were important."

"But you had your key last night, didn't you?"

"No, you let me in, remember?"

"Oh yeah." She thought for a second, "I guess we could call Plasma and see if whats-his-name picked it up."

My heart started to beat quickly at the thought of going back into that place. Maybe it was from excitement or nervousness but the scene of the crime was never a good place to be.

"Do…do you think Jasper would still have it?" I asked skeptically, trying to cover up my new found enthusiasm. Just the thought of being in the same vicinity as Justin was about to make me combust.

She shrugged, "I don't see why not. We can find the number online."

Before I even had the chance to open up my laptop, the phone on my bed rang. Alice and I both turned to look at it. Since she was closer, she picked it up like it was hers.

"Hello….oh…yeah….okay…she's right here…." She covered the phone with her hand, "It's an Justin. Do you know an Justin?"

Sudden flashes of green ran through my head like blades of grass being thrown from a lawn mower.

He was calling me?

"Uh…yeah. It was the guy near the door last night in the office." I said and calmly held my hand out for the phone.

"I didn't really see anyone."

"I wouldn't be surprised. You were going all Rambo on their asses to notice. Give me the phone."

She handed it over and I placed it to my ear, "Hello."

"Is this Selena, from last night?" A cool voice came from the other line and I almost died right there. If Alice wasn't here, I would have had my second "happy time" of the day.

"Yes, this is she." I replied formally. I don't know why.

"I don't even know if you'll remember me…"

"Of course I do. You bandaged my leg." I spoke a little too loudly and blushed over the phone. Damn it, damn it all to hell!

I heard him darkly chuckled over the phone, "I have your purse. You must have left it here. You had a list of numbers in your wallet and I just called the one that said it was your cell phone."

"Oh…well thank you."

"It's no problem. Would you like to come and get it or would you like me to bring it to you?" There was a slight tinge in his voice that told me he had a narcissistic view of himself. It was almost as if he could bounce his voice in a way that would make him seem superior. I hoped he was just putting up a front over the phone because it would be a shame if he had all that beauty but a messed up personality.

"Um…well my friend Alice and I were just about to go out. I guess we could meet you somewhere." I answered.

Alice wrote something on a piece of paper eagerly and held it up for me to read.

"Sure." He replied.

"I can meet you in Grant Park, at the Buckingham fountain in what…an hour?"

Alice nodded vigorously.

"That's fine with me. I'll see you then Selena." He hung up the phone without any kind of goodbye and I was left with a low ringing dial tone.

"Well that was sufficiently awkward." I put the phone down.

"You like him." Alice had a wicked grin on her face, "I can tell. That was the guy on the computer wasn't it? I remember now."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Liar." She accused, "Don't you try to hide from me Selena Swan."

"I don't know what you mean." I was lying through my teeth but I was still hoping that she didn't notice.

"You are in so much denial. You blushed and you had that thing in your voice." She dragged me up.

"Thing?"

"Yeah. I can tell you had dreams about him. You masturbated to him didn't you? I know you did." She jumped off of the bed and did some kind of weird dance.

"I did not. Stop that." I pushed her back down so that she would sit still.

"You are just a hormonal little minx, aren't you? Who knew that Selena Swan would relieve herself to the likes of that guy. He was so…" She shuddered instead of speaking, "Although I have to admit that he had a nice body. I just got one glimpse but that was enough."

"Shut up." I grumbled.

She got off of the bed and began pulling me with her.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"To meet your new lover. I want to see him close up and without my taser."

"Oh great. Scare him again." I stuffed me feet in my shoes.

"In my defense, I thought they were raping you. I was trying to help."

"You almost killed them."

"It wouldn't be the first time." She said nonchalantly, "Come on." She pulled me out of the door and my heart started beating faster by the second.

Alice explained to me that we could get to Grant Park by walking and since it was a nice day, I didn't really have a problem stretching my legs. I was working on less than two hours of sleep and three cups of coffee so I was pretty energetic.

We had an hour to kill so we walked at a leisurely pace while talking about school and life. I was just trying to get her off the subject of Justin, which she didn't bring up again but I could tell that she wanted to. We arrived at the entrance of Grant Park from Columbus Avenue forty-five minutes later.

"So….who is your mystery man?" Alice nudged me. I could see the spray from the fountain up ahead but I tried not to look too eager.

"I don't know. I only met him for a couple of seconds before you pushed me out of the door."

"Well we had to get out of there. It was weird." She shivered. "Something was going on in that room that I didn't like. The vibes were strange."

"The vibes, what are you now, physic?"

"Duh. I've been trying to convince people of that for years but no one believes me. Call it whatever you want but I've got the gift." She pushed her fingers to her temple.

"You are one strange woman." I said under my breath.

"Whatever. Do you need some moral support? I think he's just using your purse to get to you. What if he likes you too? What if he's like this…super sexy superhero with amazing powers or…"

"Okay, okay. I get it." I calmed her down. "I just hope he didn't go through my stuff."

"He probably just wanted to meet you again."

"Stop being stupid." I said. There was no way in hell Justin Bieber, Chicago's fourth sexiest bachelor, would want to meet me. He probably had tons more things to do than bring me my purse.

"Okay, well I'll be here if you need me." Alice sat herself on a bench under some shaded tress and I kept walking towards Buckingham Fountain.

I just stood there and watched, trying to get my mind off of my masturbatory dream.

"It's a beautiful sight at night." A smooth voice whispered to me.

I jumped and spun around where Justin was holding out my clutch with a crocked grin on his face.

"You scared the crap out of me." I spoke softly, running my hands through my hair, smoothing it out.

"Sorry. I just couldn't help it. I was calling your name for about a minute." He chuckled marvelously.

"Oh…I guess I didn't hear you." I replied awkwardly.

"That's obvious. I brought your purse back and I promise I didn't steal anything."

"How do I know you're not lying?"

"I guess you'll just have to trust me."

"Did you go through my things?" I took the purse from him, acting a little callous towards him but I didn't want to appear like a giddy school girl.

"No, I didn't have to after I found the cell phone list. I didn't want to impede on your privacy."

Impede?This charmer had a vocabulary.

He crossed his arms behind him and I was glad that he had a pair of Ray Bans on or I might have been thrown to the floor by eyes.

I was worried that he would look at my driver's license and realize that I wasn't really twenty-one but he seemed to be telling the truth about not going through my things.

"Thank you." I said.

"Well thank you…for this and for last night." I pointed to the back of my leg.

"It wasn't a problem. It's not every day I get to wipe down a leg as beautiful as yours."

"Uh huh." I replied.

He was dressed in a very smart pair of black slacks and a light blue collar shirt that had its sleeves rolled up, looking old and young at the same time.

"You look very nice today." I said, trying to keep talking and not fantasize about the perfect chest that was underneath.

"I just came from church." He explained.

"That would explain it." I nodded, slipping further into awkwardness.

"Yeah." He shuffled his feet, "So, what do you have planned today?"

"It's the last day before school starts so Alice and I are going to walk around a bit."

"You're in school?" He raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah." I blushed for some reason.

"Junior?"

"Yes." I said before I could stop myself. Just like last night when I told Jasper I was twenty-one.

Pull it together, liar!

"Do you need a tutor? Maybe I could help you out sometime." Justin's voice filled with innuendo and that just made him even slimier in my eyes.

"Is that a pick up line?" I asked, not even hiding my discomfort or disgust with the situation.

"What would you do if I said yes?" He ran his hands through his hair, trying to smooth it out.

"I would say that I'm not some chick who you can get to suck your dick by being a jackass." My bold side was starting to come out.

"I have been nothing but nice to you." His lips twitched into a small smirk. He obviously liked my reaction a little too much.

"You've been a little too nice."

"Isn't that what girls want?"

"What do you think I am?"

"I'm not sure. I just met you last night."

"Damn straight." I was breathing kind of heavily and was surprised that I hadn't slapped him by now. Maybe I was getting ahead of myself.

He kept up his smirk with his hands crossed behind his back, "Are you finished with your pathetic excuse for an early 19th century woman's suffrage speech?"

"You're impossible." I started to walk away but he gingerly took my wrist and turned me back around. I snatched away from his grasp.

"Am I annoying you?" He asked and was almost laughing.

"Immensely."

"Are you irritated?" He started to circle me like I was his fucking prey.

"Massively." I growled.

"Am I making you…angry?" He whispered in a delicious way close to my face.

I didn't even bother answering. My face held all the anger I was feeling.

"They say that anger is the sign of true passion. We could create magic together, Selena."

"Are you that arrogant that you think I would…what, fuck you? I don't even know you."

"Perfect. Literally no strings attached."

"Okay, let me just get this out there. I think you're incredibly sexy and if you would let me, I would like to have a nice fuck before I go about my business." He stopped playing his games.

My mouth hung open as I digested his words. I did register somewhere that he had called me sexy but that was overshadowed by the fact that he thought he was going to get a quick fuck from me.

"Are you serious? Is that how you normally get girls?" I asked, stunned.

"Actually, no. Ideally, you would already be on your back by now." He got a little angrier, "You're very frustrating."

It was in that moment that Justin Bieber went from total heartthrob to every other ubiquitous jerk I met in high school.

"Thanks for bringing me back my purse." I didn't even chance a look back at him as I walked around the fountain.

I could feel his eyes on me and hoped that he got a good look of my ass because that was the last time he was ever going to see it.

I tapped my pen in a systematic rhythm on the wood of my desk in my penthouse as I thought about…well, nothing in particular but I felt like I should be doing something productive. The only problem was that I couldn't bring myself to get busy with anything.

It had been like this for the past week, ever since I met Selena at the fountain to return her purse.

What the hell was wrong with her?

My normal tricks didn't work. Usually, it took three minutes, five tops to hook a woman. I had gotten it down to a very mechanical and precise routine but Selena shattered all that to hell. What the heck was her problem?

"I bet she's a lesbian." I nodded, trying to convince myself of that but it wasn't working.

This girl was grating on my last nerves. As a man who likes to play games and make conquests, Selena should have been an easy kill for me, a simple mark but somehow, my charm hadn't worked. I had been going over the events of that Sunday for the past week, trying to figure out where I went wrong but my photographic memory allowed me to see that I played my role to perfection. Therefore, the blame had to be placed on her.

I couldn't sleep that night. Well, I never slept but that night I was increasingly restless all because of that damned Selena. She was like a bug that was trying to borough under my skin and wouldn't leave me alone. She was becoming a serious problem in my eyes.

By Tuesday, she was clouding my judgment, making me forget simple things and I didn't know what the hell was wrong with me. By Thursday, I had literally tried to fuck her out of my system by calling over almost every girl in my little black book but none of them were helping because I had already conquered them. By Friday, I was high on a shipment of cocaine that my father got from Vietnam and yet Selena was still able to break the barriers of my drug induced haze.

It was now Saturday, one of my days off but guess who was sitting at his desk like a bitch, trying to figure some girl out? Me!

I never once in my life had to work this hard for a lay and I had only met the woman twice, both times lasting less than a minute. Selena…

Selena.

Selena?

What kind of name was that anyway?

I guess I could go to her but that was against my morals, code, routine, whatever you wanted to call it. I didn't chase women, they chased me. I half expected her to call on Monday but something about her told me that she wouldn't. It was weird. I felt like I knew this girl even though I had barley laid eyes on her. I had called her first, to give her the purse back. That was my gentlemanly hook and she was supposed to bite.

I kind of lost my cool with her for a second when I saw her at the fountain but that was only because she was distracting me. She looked…stunning even in her dressed down attire that I found oddly refreshing. I never wore anything but suits and the occasional workout clothes when I went to the gym but anything else wasn't appropriate. In any case, Selena kind of took me off guard that day.

I could usually just walk up to a girl, spit my lines, have her on my arm in five minutes, and have her in my bed within the hour. Selena made me anxious for some reason. She made me awkward and I had grown out of that fucking stage. I was a grown man and this wasn't high school so why did I feel like it was.

She was the hot cheerleader and I was the nerdy band geek but even in high school, I knew how to get women. Selena was different.

"She's a lesbian." I said again. I hit my pen more furiously on the desk as I thought about this chick. I had to figure her out.

I had to find a way to see her again and to make sure that I wasn't fucking crazy. I had to redo my act so that she would get it this time. I thought I had her there for a minute but then she flipped on me.

To make matters worse, Jasper couldn't stop talking about her. He was always mentioning 'The Swan' from Plasma and I was about to blow his head off. She was mine to conquer and he just kept going on about how beautiful she looked that night at the club. I knew that already, what I wanted to know was how beautiful she looked with her clothes off.

Jasper and I had never fought over girls, it was never that serious but with Selena, it might come to that. I didn't care what he did with her after I was finished but I had to be first. He was trying to find her number in the Northwestern registry but wasn't having much luck since they had a lot of their records protected. I would get some sort of reprieve when he asked about the other girl with Selena that night but besides the giant taser, I didn't really remember her.

He didn't know that I had already made contact with Selena and I was planning on keeping that to myself. He would never let me forget it if he learned that I struck out.

Struck out?

Was that what this was?

I had never had to deal with this before so the fact that I was sitting here with a girl on my mind was unfounded. Maybe I should start seeing my therapist again. What the fuck was wrong with me? I usually had the mental strength of a tiger but now I felt more like a rabbit or some shit like that.

I had to get her out of my head or I was going to go insane.

The phone rang, jolting me out of my seat. I reached for my gun that was in the open top drawer of the desk but put it back once I realized it was nothing.

"Jesus." I calmed myself, "Pull it together Justin." I ran my hand through my hair and smoothed out my shirt like the person on the other end of the phone could see me.

I'm already going insane.

I picked up, "Bieber."

"Bieber? That's my phone answering reply." My father laughed.

"Oh, hi Dad." I shuffled some papers on my desk so it sounded like I was working, "Did you need something?"

"Can't a father call his son without me needing anything?"

"I guess." I said skeptically.

"So…how's it going? You've seemed distracted lately."

"Fine. Nothing to report. You know me, just daydreaming about what it would be like to be out there, enjoying my summer." I joked. We both knew that wasn't true.

"You get more like me every day. I was in your same position at that age." He sighed, "The thrill of youth."

"I've seen the pictures. Your youth days were pretty fulfilling if I remember correctly."

"Don't get me started. I remember one time…" He paused for a couple of second,"…well we won't get into that."

"Uh huh. Don't be ashamed or your wild days." I laughed.

"Okay, I see I need to keep things professional with you. I do have a reason for calling."

"I knew it."

"Anyway, we have an issue with the Japanese syndicate."

"Oh?"

"Did you read this morning's paper?"

"No, I didn't get the chance." I cradled the phone on my shoulder so that I could look up The Chicago Tribune on the computer, "Fill me in."

"Emmett should be calling you soon with the details but basically, Shinobu screwed us over."

"What did he do now? I swear, I told him to keep everything quiet."

"Well he's back in the states now but the shipment was caught trying to get into the country. Everyone's making a big deal about it. He got caught with my guns Justin." My father stressed and I heard an indication of terror in his voice.

The Cullens have several ways of getting what we needed into the country. If you were coming from the South America or Mexico, it was easy as driving across. The security down there was shit so no one really cared. Coming across an ocean was more difficult although not impossible. Guns were the hardest since they couldn't be concealed like drugs but over the years, my father had perfected his methods. I didn't know the real logistics of it all but what I did know was that we had a massive web of illegal activity under our name and had yet to be caught.

"What do you want me to do?" I asked him.

"I was smart enough to keep the destination under wraps so no one knows where the guns were headed but now they're sitting in some government warehouse. Those are mine Justin and someone has to pay for them because I have to hand them over to the Russians soon. "

"I know, I know." I went through records in my head, trying to figure out how much of a mess we were in, "What happened to Shinobu?"

"He's sitting pretty in his penthouse downtown since the Feds let him go. He just called me and apologized. Can you believe that? He apologized to me for losing my shipment. He didn't send money, compensation, nothing."

"Do we have to do this on a Saturday?" I groaned.

"You have something better to do?"

Yes, think about Selena.

"No." I replied.

"Then we're finishing this. I want my compensation and you boys need to go get it."

"Alright, fine. You'll have your guns by the end of the day Old Man."

My father's voice seemed to calm in an instant, "Thank you and tell your brothers to come over for dinner tonight. You're more than welcome if you want but I know how you like to go out on Saturdays."

"I'll be there." I hung up the phone and beat my head on the table.

There were few days when I would rather sit and do nothing than get out there with my gun but today was one of those days. I would have given anything to stay in bed but business called. What did normal twenty-five year olds do anyway? I would have to find out later.

I made a quick call to Jasper who was already geared up to go and then Emmett who was busy trying to make an inventory of what we needed. I was slightly impressed when he told me that he was already on the situation until he went off onto a tangent of the fun him and Rose had last night. That's Emmett for you. A layer of brains wrapped under a layer of muscle and then sexual stupidity.

I shut down my computer, straightened out my desk and then made sure I had everything I needed before leaving the office on the second floor of my apartment. I went into the kitchen, grabbing a bottle of water and shoved a granola bar down my throat before throwing my jacket over my shoulder. I locked up and set the security code before shutting the door to my apartment.

I was in the elevator a couple of seconds later and tapped my foot on the carpeted floor, noticing how ugly the thing looked. It was a drab beige color that had no life to it. It wasn't like I cared but since this was my building I wanted to make sure that it at least looked presentable. I made a mental note to have all the carpets changed. Other people lived here too but there wasn't any kind of association for these kinds of things. I made my own decisions.

The elevator dinged on Jasper's twenty-fifth floor and he sauntered in lazily while whistling a tune.

"Howdy." He waved, "You ready to deal with Yakuza street trash?"

"Always am. I brought my Browning 9x19 today." I flashed my gun that was situation prettily in my belt.

"I see you came prepared." He quirked an eyebrow.

"Got to with these fuckers." I growled just thinking about the shit I was about to put up with.

"Che cosa hai fatto ieri sera?" I asked him in Italian for no reason in particular.

What did you do last night?

He shrugged, "Seduto a casa a guardare la partita di baseball"

Sat at home and watched the baseball game.

I nodded to myself at how sad our lives were, "Hai saputo niente altro su Selena?"

Did you find anything else out about Selena?

"No, lei cerca di nascondersi da me." He replied with a smirk.

No, she's trying to hide from me.

I twisted my neck to loosen up the nerves that were starting to build just thinking about what sick thoughts that were going through Jasper's head. Selena wasn't his and I had to make that known but I didn't want to make myself seem too eager. He would never let me live it down if he found out that I was actually chasing a girl.

The elevator arrived on Emmett's floor and he came in with his head buried in a piece of paper. Like we were all on the same wavelength, he spoke in Italian, "Non parlare. Sono woking"

Don't talk, I'm working.

We all stayed silent until we reached the garage level.

"What do we need chief?" I asked Emmett as we went to the section that was blocked off for our cars only.

"Not much. "I'll tell you when we get there." He shrugged.

"I think we should take the Hummer today. We might be coming back with a lot." Jasper nodded towards Emmett's huge black tank of a truck that he bought for his month long fascination with off roading

"Great." I replied sarcastically as we stalked off towards the beast.

Emmett giddily jumped in front and started the thunderous engine that rattled the car to its core. I climbed in the front seat and Jasper got in the back. There was actually a harness that wrapped around my body for safety purposes.

"Who drives a Hummer in the city anyway?" I asked as I strapped myself in.

"Me." Emmett laughed evilly as he pulled out of the parking lot and whipped the car around like it was made of plastic. I said the rosary in my head as he raced out of the parking garage at an unhealthy speed for this tank.

We rattled and shook down the crowded streets of Chicago, making the cars below look like punk go-karts.

"I think some of us value our life." Jasper shouted from the back over the engine as Emmett took a turn at well over the speed limit.

"Whatever. This is nothing compared to the Yakuza den we're about to enter." Emmett gave another maniacal laugh but he was right.

Shinobu Moioka was about my age and another rival that I had to deal with when I was first starting out in this life. He was from a rich Japanese family that had ties in ancient Japan, dating back for centuries. Like the Cullens, the Moiokas were tough shit but dealt with things a lot differently. I guess they would be considered our Asian equivalent. Shinobu was wild and uncontrollable, making him sloppy. We wouldn't even be using him if his gun supply wasn't so good.

The father of the family was weak, letting his son rule over him without respect. Carlisle would never allow some of the things that went on in that family but to each his own I guess.

Shinobu was an American born, half French, half Japanese but he would fight anyone to the death if you said that. To him, he was full Japanese. His mother was some French model who had charmed her way into Shinobu's father's life. No one really acknowledged her though because she was an "outsider" since the two weren't married and she wasn't Japanese. It was that way with all mob families. The bloodlines had to be viable and connected to the old country in some way as far as marriages went.

Good thing Rose had Italian in her or Emmett might have to find him another girlfriend but that's beside the point. Shinobu didn't acknowledge his French side, leaving his mother out in the cold.

He was young, a partyer, drinker, smoker and we had had fun on some occasions whenever he was in town but I tried to keep my distance from him. He was too unmanageable for me and I was more than tempted to just kill him but that would start a Chicago battle that would have obliterated the entire city. Not a good thing.

"What the hell do you think he's going to be like today?" Emmett grumbled, obviously thinking the same thing I was.

"Ole' Shin Shin. We've had good times." Jasper laughed.

"I just hope he doesn't try to play Russian roulette like we did the last time." I rolled my eyes just thinking about how horrible that experience was.

"He is a trip." Jasper sighed, "I just want to make it home in one piece. Ma's making cioppino for dinner and I don't want to miss it."

"We'll be fine." Emmett waved it off like this was nothing.

Emmett pulled the Hummer onto the south end of North Jefferson Street and the polished apartments shinned on both sides.

"180." I said and pointed to the building where Shinobu lived whenever he was in Chicago. This area was known as the West Loop, catering to those Chicagoians who thought they had money and tried to show off but everyone knew all the real wealth was uptown.

"I just got il freddo." Jasper shuddered as we went into the underground parking garage.

Il freddo or The Chill, as we called it, was the feeling we all got when going into situations like these. It was our survival instinct telling us to run but at this point in our lives, we had been able to suppress that emotion. Now, a slight coldness would just creep through our bodies when we got into business mode.

"Stay on your toes." Emmett parked the tank and we all got out. I didn't bother getting my jacket because I needed to be free.

I shoved the Browning deeper into my belt as we walked towards the elevators. Two huge, Japanese security guards stood at the entrance with sunglasses and crossed arms, looking like something out of a comic book.

I let Jasper take the lead since he was the only one of us who spoke Japanese fluently although I could understand a lot of it.

Jasper spoke professionally and quickly, stating our business without any pleasantries.

Security Guard No. 1 made a rapid call that took three seconds before he hung up and stepped aside.

Jasper, Emmett and I walked into the glass elevator before pressing the penthouse button. The elevator shot up and Emmet pulled his list out of his pocket, handing it to me. I looked it over and got a gist of what my father wanted from Shinobu. Just a few handhelds and explosives, nothing too much but enough that I knew a shipment was going to be made to the house. There was no way we could bring all of that back even in Emmett's Hummer.

The guns for us but my father was acting as a halfway point between the Yakuza and the Bratva, the Russian version of the mafia. One thing that you learned in this underground world was that clans never mixed but somehow, my father had made friends with all of them and served as the buffer for many families that needed interactions completed and didn't want to do them themselves.

"This should be fun." I sighed as the elevator reached the top floor.

As soon as the doors opened, we were pulled out and frisked by more security guards who pushed us up against the wall. I had been through this many times so I knew what to do.

"Weapons?" A gruff voice asked and I emptied my pockets, showing I didn't have anything but my wallet and then flashed the gun in my belt.

"That's all I have." I replied dryly.

He eyed me skeptically and eyed him back, daring him to say something.

He nodded and let us by.

Jasper, Emmett and I walked down a long hallway with doors on each side. Windows were open to show the city below and I felt an odd sense of competitiveness as I compared Shinobu's building to mine. Call it a Freudian theory on male dominance but I always had to win whether it was a competition or not.

I knocked rapidly on the door at the end of the hall and even from the other side I could hear the thumping techno.

"Jesus, it's only two in the afternoon and I bet he's already plastered." Jasper muttered.

"Yeah." I agreed, "Let's just hope he has a clear head."

The door was flung open and another burly guard stepped aside for us to enter.

The whole apartment was filled with smoke that I could taste was marijuana and cigar. The shades were drawn, not letting any light in and strobe balls were on the floor, casting oddly shaded colors over the walls. It was like a fucking club in here but I guess that was Shinobu's style. Life was a club to him. Naked Japanese women waved to us as we walked through the apartment though they had no appeal to me. I was here for business, we'll talk about pleasure later.

Shinobu was situated in a steaming hot tub in his sunken living room with a group of girls around him, a thick cigar hanging out of his mouth and a glass of bourbon in his hand.

"Boys, I was wondering when I was going to get a call from you!" He shouted when we came in. I had to roll my eyes at his fake Japanese accent that he had acquired over the years, trying to mask his true heritage.

"Shinobu." I nodded professionally.

"What's with the stick up your ass Eddie? Come on in, have a drink." He replied.

"I don't' think so." Jasper spoke from next to me, "We're here for our father's guns, the ones that are currently in lockup thanks to you." He clarified.

He brushed it off, acting like he had no idea what we were talking about, "Please. I sent those guns off two days ago."

"Really? The same guns that we didn't get?" Emmett asked.

"Yeah, it's not my fault."

"All I know is that I came here to pick up compensation. You lost the shipment so you have to give us something to work with." I stopped beating around the bush. Now was not the time to be nice.

"You Bieber boys think you rule the world, don't you?" He jumped out of the tub, grabbing a towel to wrap around his waist, "It's not like I meant to get the stuff caught up in customs but if those fuckers didn't feel the need to check everything…"

"I thought you have people in customs?" Emmett walked around, trying to get as far away from Shinobu as possible. They had never really gotten along.

"Well, obviously something fell through." He snapped and glared at us.

"We're not leaving until we have our father's stuff." Jasper was very stern and made his point clear by pulling his gun out for the entire world to see. "You know how Carlisle can get about his guns."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw guards at the ready, hands on weapons, feet in the attack position.

"This isn't going to go down that road." Shinobu sighed. He wasn't stupid and a shootout in his apartment wouldn't end well for him, "You'll get your stuff." He snapped his fingers and the girls were removed from the room, the security was thinned out and covered tables were brought in on rollers.

The sheets were ripped from the tables to reveal shinning guns and beautiful firearms. My whole body seemed to know it was in the presence of superior artillery and I felt like I was having sex. It was the same kind of high for me.

I circled the tables, trying to quickly see what was needed. Emmett picked up an impressive Kel-Tec RFB, It was one of those long sniper rifles that you saw in the movies but never thought was real.

"Are these the new ones?" Emmett asked as he held it in the shooting position, his eye looking through the scope.

"Yep." Shinobu replied proudly, "Twenty-six inches of perfect stainless steel, fluted barrel, plus a suppressor. Has a muzzle velocity in excess of 3000 feet per second and can pop someone off from a good mile or so."

I almost jumped over the table to steal the thing from Emmett. It was so sleek and beautiful but I kept my cool.

"How many do you have?" Jasper asked in a clipped tone.

"Five right now but I owe Carlisle six. I have other rifles if you want to take a look. This is all I have until my next trip back home so your father will just have to make do with what is here."

This fucker was starting to get on my last nerves. Who the hell did he think he was? He was playing with someone else's money here and it was completely unacceptable for him to be messing with my shit.

Two hours later, Jasper, Emmett and I were walking out of Shinobu's apartment building with written agreements for the shipments to arrive on Carlisle doorstep within the next twenty-four hours. No exceptions. The amount of money he owned us wouldn't have been enough to sell his blood to a vampire and Shinobu knew he was in deep horse crap. If we had to make another trip to him to get our stuff, we might leave with his head in a bag. Carlisle didn't play around with his shit and expected the best from whoever he was working with. I actually feared for Shinobu's life if he didn't pull through.

"That wasn't as bad as I thought." Emmett said as he pulled out of the parking garage, heading towards Esme's.

"That's because he was high and sedated." I snickered.

"Whatever, I like the new Shinobu."

On the ride home, that damned, brunet popped back into my head.

Selena…

It was weird how easy it was to push her out of my head but no matter how hard I tried, she always came back like a mosquito or a parasite. That's what she was, a parasite.

What happened to the strong, unwavering Justin who never looked back at a girl? What happened to the strength of the tiger?

I shook my head, trying to clear my damn thoughts but she was always there so I just had to focus on something else.

As we pulled up to the front gate of my parent's house, I thought of what my father would do in this situation. He was more of a softie than I was and he would say something like I needed to court Selena but that was pointless. I just wanted sex. What was the point of making an effort if I was just going to throw her away?

That thought made my stomach churn for some reason. Throw her away? Then someone else might have her.

I actually scratched the skin of my arm like a meth addict as I thought more and more about how I was going to get Selena into my bed. It was like planning a war with my million man army against her lone brown eyes.

I was certifiably insane.

"Hey, do you have pen?" Tyler asked from behind me.

"No. You ask me that every day and every day I say that same thing. Leave me alone." I snapped without turning around.

I refocused my thoughts back on the professor at the front of the cavernous, arena style classroom.

Another Monday was upon us and even though I had only spent a week in school, it felt much longer. I was in a bad mood. Not only was it "that time of the month" but I was more frustrated than ever because those damn shades of green were still haunting my dreams. He was still haunting my dreams.

If I knew college was going to be this hard, I would have stayed in Forks. But the thing was, nothing was as hard as suppressing the attraction I was feeling for Justin.

I had met the man twice and he was controlling me. It was scary to the point of sleep deprivation. I didn't even want to close my eyes at night because he would be there, watching me, taunting me, loving me.

Oh yes, I went there.

The sex dreams were the worst because I couldn't do anything about them. Nothing short of stick my hand down my underwear provided me with any kind of release but even after I was done, my body was still wound tight like a coil because they were just fantasies, dreams, nightmares. Nothing was like the real physical touch of his hands and I was about to jump off a building from insanity.

I kept tabs of my sins in my head because I figured that I would have to recite them to St. Peter at the gates of heaven. I wasn't a religious person by any means but even I knew that the intense lustful thoughts I was having were enough to send me to hell if I didn't repent. The dangerous thing about it all was that I could have cared less.

I used to live my life with some sort of morality but in my head, all bets were off when it came to Justin. If he came to me tomorrow and said that he wanted me to strangle Alice, I would have done it just to feel his lips on mine. He was controlling me like a puppeteer and I was slightly scared by that.

The only form of solace I got was that I never had to see Justin again. I wasn't planning on ever going back to Plasma and he was twenty-five so it wasn't like we ran in the same circles. Chicago was big enough that he could live on one side and I could live on the other. We wouldn't have to even cross paths and I was thanking every God in heaven for that.

To be honest, I didn't even have time to think about Justin unless I was sleeping because I was so busy otherwise. I quickly found out that the Northwestern curriculum was demanding for a reason. The university was trying to crank out the top lawyers, businessmen, engineers, and doctors in the whole country so a lot was required from us. I was keeping up but it took work.

I had adjusted pretty well, all thanks to Alice and my life fell into an easy routine that I liked. I would wake up and basically spend all day in class, fall into trances about Justin during my downtime, go back to my dorm and study with Alice, eat when I needed and then sleep, dreaming about Justin again.

He was riding to high on my priorities list for me and I was going to have to find a way to bring him down.

"Are you sure you don't have a pen?" I felt a tap on my shoulder again.

"You want a pen?" I quickly spun around and threw it at Tyler's head, "There. Stop bothering me."

Tyler Crowly had to be the most annoying boy I had ever met but no matter how hard I tried, he wouldn't leave me alone. He was cute, nothing as beautiful as Justin but was there any male specimen out there who could compare to my green eyed man? No.

Tyler was tall, tanned, blonde haired and hazel eyed. He was a year older than me and made sure everyone knew what a great hockey player he was. All the girls were going crazy because of him but I seemed to be the only one turned off by his arrogance. What was it with guys and their egos? It wasn't flattering at all.

In any case, Alice said he liked me, which I already knew but I was trying to deny it with all my being. Every day he would ask me for a pen and then give it back when he realized he had one in his pocket. His arrogance made him annoying and his annoyance made him childish. He wouldn't leave me alone. He had already asked me out on two occasions and I had of course said no but it didn't seem to faze him any. He was a chaser.

"Thanks for the pen but I just found one." He whispered over my shoulder and handed mine back to me, making sure to brush his hand past my hair. I cringed slightly and then refocused on my literature professor.

I was intrigued by this class because it was so difficult but right up my alley. It was more of a contemporary classical literature class, dealing with books that made an impact on America in the 20th century. I was soaking up the information like a sponge and really enjoyed class discussions although Tyler and sometimes even my mental Justin kept my thoughts occupied.

Our first assigned book was Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, a hard hitting look at the Chicago based meatpacking industry in the early part of the 1900s. It was famous for shinning light on the depravity and pure horror of the meat plants that employed immigrants for basically nothing. It was a journalistic piece disguised as fiction but still got Sinclair's message across. In high school, I only got through the first half of the book before I had to put it down. The filth, grime, and muck that were presented in the novel were a little too much for me. This go-round, I was doing slightly better and was almost finished with it.

I took a glance at the page I was currently on and decided to read a little more.

All day long the blazing midsummer sun beat down upon that square mile of abominations: upon tens of thousands of cattle crowded into pens whose wooden floors stank and steamed contagion; upon bare, blistering, cinder-strewn railroad tracks, and huge blocks of dingy meat factories, whose labyrinthine passages defied a breath of fresh air to penetrate them; and there were not merely rivers of hot blood, and carloads of moist flesh…

That was as far as I was going to get in this class period. I had to read the thing in installments because it was so disgusting.

I felt Tyler's foot tapping on the back of my chair and I was tempted to turn around and beat the shit out of him but I didn't feel like it. I barely had enough energy to keep my eyes open all thanks to Justin's dream hold on me. I was woken up at three this morning with sweat all over my body and my mind racing with sexual fantasies that would have made a prostitute blush.

"So class, that's all I have for today. Make sure you read the last few chapters of the book and be prepared for a quiz on Friday." The professor spoke loudly so that everyone could hear him.

I started to gather my things and the classroom filled with the noise of scarping chairs and stacked papers.

"Hey, Selena." Tyler's voice came from behind me. I hung my head, hoping he would go away, "I was just wondering if you could help me out with this book. It's really kicking my ass." He came in front of me.

"No, I can't help you."I clipped.

"Why?"

"Because I saw your last quiz grade. You should be helping me."

He shrugged, "I can do that. You need me to come over or something?"

I gave him a pitiful look before I just turned around to leave, my backpack over my shoulders but he caught up with me.

"Okay, I was just kidding. I don't need help but I want to see you…outside of school."

"Are you asking me out again? This is what, the third time?"

"You keep shutting me down." He jutted out his lip in a pout that was incredibly embarrassing for him but he didn't seem to mind.

"Let's just say that I say yes, then what?" I gave him the option and he brightened up.

"Well then I would take you out and we would have an incredible time."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Yes." He answered simply.

"Okay, we'll go out…one time." I held up my finger, "And that's it. If I don't like the date, then you have to stop asking me."

"Really? Sweet!" He pumped his fist in the air.

"One time, Tyler." I yelled after him as he ran up the stairs.

"I'll call you later. Don't worry Selena, you're going to love it." He bumped into the door on his way out but that couldn't stop the bounce in his step.

"I highly doubt that." I muttered to myself as I went up the stairs and followed the stream of students outside.

I didn't have another class until later that afternoon so this was the time Alice and I usually went to lunch.

I walked outside into the bright sunlight and my eyes immediately went to Alice who was sitting on a bench in jeans and a hot pink jacket that astronauts could probably see from space. Her heels were making holes in the grass and she had a pair of cat-like sunglasses with pointed, rhinestone covered rims.

I was slightly embarrassed by her but then realized that this was Alice and there was no changing her so I might as well get used to it.

"Hello, my love." Alice jumped off the bench when I approached and wrapped her arms around me.

"Hi." I patted her back.

"How was class?" She let go and began lively skipping off towards the dining hall where we always ate.

"Good. I'm almost done with The Jungle."

"Yuck, I hate that book."

"Me too but it's not that bad if you don't think about it."

"Still, I won't be reading it anytime soon. Was Tyler annoying again?"

"Yes but I think I found a way to shut him up. I said yes when he asked me on another date…"

"You did what?" She pulled her glasses down over her nose.

"I said yes but only one date. I know it won't go well so I told him that after this, we're through. He's become way too irritating."

"So…what you're saying here is that I can dress you up?"

"Is that all you got from that conversation?" I rolled my eyes.

"Yeah." She tapped her chin, "I think I need to go shopping again. Don't worry, I'll spare you but you have to wear what I say."

"Whatever, Alice. Just don't make me look like a slut. I'm still not over Plasma."

"I know, I might as well put Justin's picture as your screensaver." She giggled.

"Shut up. You said you weren't going to talk about him anymore."

"I can't help it. You just get so hazy eyed when I even say his name. It's hilarious."

I had told Alice a partial version of the feelings I was having and she thought it was funny that I was being tortured by my imaginative crush.

What a friend!

Alice and I ate lunch as usual. By the time my last class was over, I was starting to regret my decision to go out with Tyler because Alice wouldn't stop talking about it. She was determined to get me a boyfriend by the time Halloween approached.

I finished the day up like I always did, studying in my room after a rather long call from my mother who wanted to know when I was coming to visit her in Florida. I really didn't know when that would be but I replied with a 'soon' and that seemed to keep her at bay. I called Charlie before I attempted to sleep but just like every other night, Justin ripped through my mind, making it impossible for me to even close my eyes.

By the time Friday rolled around, I had gotten maybe fifteen hours of sleep collectively from five days. That was a problem. This wasn't healthy. It might have sounded better if I was up all night studying but that was never the case.

I sat in my literature class, tapping my pen on my desk as I focused on the quiz that I had already completed. I breezed through it easily. Tyler had moved his seat from behind me to next to me. We were so far up in the room that we could talk without getting caught.

"Are you ready for our date tonight?" He whispered to me.

"Stoked." I replied dryly.

"It's going to be awesome. I'll come get you at seven."

"Where are we going?" I asked, just trying to take my mind off of this mundane quiz. I had already checked over it three times.

"Downtown to a nice restaurant."

"I don't want you spending too much money."

Especially on one date that won't ever go anywhere.

"It's no problem. Dad just sent me a money order so I'm ready for a night out on the town."

Tyler was from that rich side of society where his parents spent their lives in Europe, leaving him to bounce from boarding school to boarding school. The amount of money he had only added to his superiority that he thought he deserved.

"Oh well then by all means, spend away." I said sarcastically.

"Sure thing. You won't ever want to go on a regular date again." He smiled proudly.

I kept my head down for the rest of the class, checking over my quiz four, five, six times. If I didn't get a perfect score, I was dropping out.

"Okay, so I'll see you at seven, right?" Tyler asked for conformation when we were turning in our papers on the front desk.

"Yes and I'll be ready with a smile." I said as mockingly as possible so that he knew I was not going to have fun but his head was too thick to get it.

"Awsome. Don't forget, seven." I think I saw him prance out of the room.

"I should just kill myself right now."

I got back to my dorm at five that afternoon with a very annoyed Alice sitting on my bed with her arms crossed.

"I don't know how I feel about you having a key anymore." I said as I put my bag down.

"Too bad. Why are you late?"

"I had to go print of some notes in the library."

"Well now I only have two hours to turn you into something beautiful." She pouted.

"Oh, well thanks for the wonderful shot of confidence."

"Shut up. Get into the shower." She pushed me towards the bathroom.

After my shower, I was sat in front of the mirror while Alice did my makeup, which she insisted that I needed done since I was on the prowl for a boyfriend and my lack of sleep had left bags under my eyes that made me look like a raccoon. Following my makeup, my hair was put in a stylish messy bun that sat at the base of my neck and left a few tendrils of long curly hair to frame my face.

"Okay, now for the dress I picked out. It's so cute." Alice pulled me into the room.

"I hope it covers up some skin." I said as I sat on the bed.

"It will do." She shrugged and fumbled in a bag for something, "And I don't want you complaining about the shoes either. Here it is."

She held up a dress that look too tight and too sophisticated for me but I was done fighting her.

The dress was a two toned cocktail number that had a ruched, white, one shoulder top and a sleek banded, black skirt on the bottom. I put it on and just like I suspected, the thing fit like a glove around my body, showing off my waist. It stopped at a respectable length a couple of inches above my knee and I looked surprisingly mature.

"You look so cute. Okay, now time for shoes." Alice bounced, "Don't say a word about them." She held up a pair of terrifying pumps that would probably be the death of me.

"Alice…"

"I know, I know but they look so good with the dress. I want you to look nice."

"I would look fine in something two inches shorter."

"But…they don't even make heels that short." She said confused.

I gave her a look to say that she wasn't fooling me and she rolled her eyes.

"Okay fine. I knew you would complain so I got a different pair. These will be a little better." She got some more shoes out of the bag that were a more respectable height.

"Those are better." I took them from her hand and slipped on the closed toed, black, pumps that had a red sole. I knew enough about shoes to detect that the bottom meant Christian Louboutin. I didn't even want to know how much they cost because I would probably pass out.

"There." Alice nodded in approval, "And your purse." She handed me a black clutch, "Don't lose this one."

"I didn't lose the last one. Edw…He stole it. I know he did."

"Whatever Selena just make sure you bring everything back."

An hour later, there was a happy knock on the door and I got up from my seat to answer it. Alice had left me awhile ago so I could just cop out of this date if I wanted to but I knew that would only make Tyler more persistent.

I opened the door and found him in a nice pair of slacks, a pressed white shirt and a dinner jacket that was left open.

"You look amazing." Tyler eyed me up and down.

"Thank you." I closed the door behind me and made sure I had my key. I decided to not be so mean to the poor boy. Even though I knew this wasn't going anywhere, I could have a good time and make up some excuse as to why I didn't want to go out with him anymore.

"So, you ready to go?"

"Yes. Where are we off to?" I asked as we got into the elevators.

"My favorite restaurant, Carmel. Its downtown and everyone loves it."

"Sounds good to me. I don't know anything else so you could take me to Burger King and I would be fine."

"You're too beautiful for Burger King." He tried to take my hand but I scrambled to fix with my hair, keeping it occupied.

We got off of the elevators and there was a cab already waiting outside. Tyler opened my door and then situated himself next to me in the back. He gave clear and concise directions to the driver who sped off into the crowded streets. The drive was silent but not uncomfortable. Tyler kept humming, trying to fill the silence and I just looked out of the window.

The lights of the city still amazed me when I saw them at night. They kind of reminded me of the stars back in Forks, which I didn't see much anymore. You can't see stars in a city so it was nice to have some reminder of home.

We got to the restaurant half an hour later, made longer by the traffic we had to battle.

"Here we are." Tyler paid the cab driver and then helped me out of the back.

The front of Carmel was very modern, covered in earth tones and big windows. We went inside where Tyler gave his name before we were escorted to our booth in a corner. Carmel was a nice restaurant that evoked the feeling of a Japanese rock garden. There were soft waterfalls and glowing lights on the tables along with bamboo shoots that added accents to the massive dining room, which held maybe fifty tables.

I sat in the booth on the side facing the entrance because it was closer to the waterfall behind me and I needed anything I could to make this night better.

"This is nice." I said as I read over the menu, "I hope you aren't going to spend a lot of money."

"Don't worry about it. I just wanted to take you out. You don't know how long I've been trying to get you to say yes. I guess all my pushiness paid off." He grinned.

"I guess."

After we ordered drinks and an appetizer, Tyler went off at the mouth. He talked about everything under the sun and I tried to stay focused but I couldn't. I ended up just playing with the ice in my glass as he continued to drone on about himself. I looked at him in the eyes, making sure he thought I was listening but my mind was trying to figure out what I was going to do with my Saturday tomorrow.

"…and then he fell on his ass." Tyler threw his head back and laughed.

I joined in like I knew what was going on but I could have cared less. It was during my hearty, fake laugh that I started to feel weird….off for some reason. The air seemed to get chillier and my body shuddered.

"Are you cold?" Tyler asked.

"No, I'm fine." I answered and I felt my legs get a slight breeze as my napkin fell from my lap.

While I was under the table, searching for my napkin, I saw the red pumps of a woman with slender legs and the Italian loafers of an obviously wealthy man. I would have thought nothing of it if the voice that sounded didn't seep into my bones.

"This will be fine." I heard Justin say from somewhere near me but by that time, his shoes had disappeared from my sight.

I jerked up and slammed my head on the table, causing it to shake a little.

"Damn." I rubbed the spot of my skull where I hit it as I resurfaced.

"Are you okay?" Tyler looked worried.

"Yeah, I'm great." I said through gritted teeth.

"Good. You're kind of clumsy aren't you." He laughed.

"Yes but I've always been that way." I answered, not caring.

I was trying my hardest not to move around to see if it really was Justin I saw or just a mirage but I could tell it was him and if I smelled correctly, he was in the booth right behind me. He smelled of fresh cut grass and a slight hint of tobacco. I know that sounds strange but it was the way he smelled when I met him at the fountain and I almost fell at his feet because it was so enticing.

My breathing increased and I felt some sweat on my brow that I quickly wiped away.

"Is it hot in here?" I whispered to Tyler.

"I thought you were cold a couple of seconds ago?" He said strangely.

"You're right. What were we talking about?"

"I honestly forgot." He thought.

He started talking again but I couldn't have cared less. Tyler's stupid voice was drowned out by Justin's velvet words that seemed to pour from his lips. I almost combusted right there. I couldn't distinguish who he was talking to but there was no mistaking that it was him.

I knew what this was.

This was God punishing me for my sins over the past week. All those lustful thoughts were my downfall and I was being punished…hard.

"I'll be right back." I felt the booth behind me move as Justin got up from his seat. I shifted so that there was no way he would brush me as he walked away.

"I think we should go." I said quickly when Justin ducked out of sight near the door.

"Why? Our food isn't even here yet." Tyler looked around.

"My stomach hurts." I made up a quick excuse.

"Oh, really." He looked kind of bummed out, "I guess we can go out again another night."

Damn.

"Or we can go somewhere else. I don't think I'm in the mood of sushi." I pleaded with him.

"That's okay. I can call someone over and have them cancel our order if you want."

"That would be great."

"But only if you promise to come back here with me. It is my favorite after all."

I was about to make up another excuse when I saw Justin coming back into the dining room. I quickly grabbed the menu off of the table and pretended like I was reading it while peeking over the edge.

He wasn't looking directly at me but that didn't stop his green eyes from penetrating my entire soul. I thought I was going to shoot off into space. I still didn't know the exact color but I had a new found urge to find out and couldn't wait to get back home so I could Google search until the early morning.

He was in a very stylish pair of black pants that fit him as if he were born in them, a light blue shirt that was pressed to perfection and his Italian loafers probably cost more than my tuition. His wrist was adorned with a gleaming silver watch and I noticed that he tried to style his hair tonight. That almost made me laugh because it was done in such a poor way.

The way he walked was mesmerizing and like it was all happening in slow motion, I saw him lift one of his long fingers to his mouth, trying to wipe the corner. I was done. I was either going to murder everyone in this restaurant or strap Justin to my truck to drive him off to my lair.

I hid my face until Justin passed again, sitting down in his seat. His smell washed past me and my eyes rolled back into my head like a nymphomaniac.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Tyler asked, this time with more worry in his voice.

"I'm fine." I put the menu down softly. I probably looked like some crazy person to him but this all seemed normal in my head, "We can stay here if you want." I said partly because I didn't feel coming back out with him but also because I didn't want to leave Justin as stupid as that sounds.

My foot bounced up and down for a couple minutes, without anything to do but sit in this purgatory.

I was less than a couple of inches away from the man I had been fantasizing over for the past week and I couldn't even touch him. I couldn't see him. I couldn't speak to him.

I still remembered what a jerk he was at the fountain but I was sure I could live through that if he just fucked the hell out of my on this table.

"Calm the hell down." I whispered to myself.

"What was that?" Tyler asked after he took a sip of water.

"Nothing. I was just…" I couldn't think of what to say but thankfully, I didn't have to because our food came at that moment.

"Wow, this looks great." I said enthusiastically. I was trying to get this over with as soon as possible.

"Yeah it does." Tyler clapped his hands together.

I had ordered a spicy tuna roll but was slightly disappointed that I had to use chopsticks. I wasn't the best at them but I would make it work.

Tyler and I started eating and he was talking the whole time but Justin's voice was like a foghorn in my head. He was having dinner with some girl named Vienna and I didn't know who she was but apparently, he was mad at her. He was saying things like 'we won't ever have anything together' and 'all we had was sex, nothing more, get that through your head'. This was obviously a breakup dinner for him.

I would have loved to be in her position right now. To just have sex with Justin would have made me fall over and die. I didn't know who this Vienna was but a sudden surge of rage and jealousy filled me. I wanted to spin around and rip her hair out for even sitting with my Justin. I felt like he was mine and mine only.

Oh, no. My possessiveness is coming out over a guy I hardly know.

I thought in my head about how many sins I had racked up in the past hour.

Greed, check.

Wrath, check.

Envy, check.

Lust, double check.

Four out of seven was not a good percentage.

Justin's voice was stern throughout his speeches and I wanted so much to turn around and see what was going on but I couldn't bring myself to move.

"Selena, are you sure you know how to use those?" Tyler asked as I fumbled with my chopsticks and sushi.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm not a pro but I can at least pick things up."

"You look like you're struggling. Do you need help?"

"No, I got it." I replied.

Do you know when you have some occurrence you created that seems to transpire in slow motion? That was what happened next.

My left chopstick slipped, flinging the roll I was holding behind me. I watched with wide eyes as the sushi flipped in the air a couple of times over my head and then disappeared. What the hell kind of physics made it possible for me to do that?

Tyler had went back to eating so he didn't notice but I sure did and holy hell, it landed with a thud on the table behind me.

Shit.

Shit!

I didn't move. I didn't breathe and closed my eyes tight.

"Uh…ma'am." I felt a tap on my shoulder and Justin's voice filled my ears, "I think this is yours."

"No it's not." I replied quickly.

"I think it is." Justin said again.

"No it's not. It's not mine." I mumbled and opened my eyes.

Tyler was looking at me like I had grown another head with his tilted sideways. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Justin's long fingers trying to push the sushi roll over the partition that separated the booths.

"It's no problem. I can throw it away if you want." He was being so nice, nothing like the Justin I met at the fountain.

"No, leave me alone."

"Ma'am, I don't mean to be rude but I don't want your sushi so you need to take it back."

"Thank you." I snatched it from him without turning my head, "I think we need to go." I said to Tyler, "My stomach really hurts."

"Okay, let me get a waiter." He called one over but I knew it was too late.

I could feel eyes on me from behind and Justin leaned over the booth, "Selena, is that you?" He asked with what I think was hopefulness in his voice.

I turned my head away "No."

"Really, what's your name?" The smug voice of Justin dick Bieber came back.

"Jessica." It was the first thing I could come up with.

"Oh well, excuse me." He repositioned himself in his booth. I could hear him muttering to himself behind me.

I kept my head almost turned all the way in a 180 position for a couple of seconds just to make sure I was out of the line of fire. When I turned back, I saw not one man but two sitting across from me. One was Tyler and the other, Justin who had a crooked grin that made my panties go damp.

"I knew it was you. You think you can hide from me?" His voice was as smooth as butter and jesting.

Tyler looked incredibly annoyed and confused, "Selena, do you know this guy?"

"Not really." I hung my head, fearing that if I looked Justin in the eyes, I might jump the table.

"I think you should leave." Tyler spoke up but Justin didn't even acknowledge him.

"So Selena, how have you been?" He asked and crossed his arms over the table. He started picking up pieces of bread crumbs in a stealthy but almost neurotic way. It almost made me think of an OCD special I had seen on TV one time.

"Fine, you?" I moved some hair out of my face and sat up straighter, determined not to let him win whatever game he was playing.

"Good. You look very beautiful tonight." His eyes went straight to my chest and then up my neck to my face. I could almost feel his hand along with them.

"Is that a real compliment or are you just trying to get me to sleep with you again?"

"Well…both I guess." He shrugged like it was nothing and poor Tyler just looked at us with his mouth open.

"Don't you have a date to get back to?" I crossed my arms, mirroring him.

"She went to the bathroom." I checked behind me to make sure he wasn't lying and sure enough, she was gone.

"Well you're interrupting mine."

"Oh, I'm sorry. Is that what this was?" He mocked me, "I didn't realize."

"Go back to your seat Justin. What are you even doing here?"

"This is Jasper's restaurant. I eat free."

This is getting ridiculous.

Of all the fucking restaurants in this city, I had to sit here in Jasper's. This was God trying to punish me again. I just know it's him.

"It was nice to see you again but if you don't mind, I would like to get back to my date." I pointed to Tyler, "I was having a wonderful time."

"Of course." Justin got up and brushed off his shirt, "It was nice seeing you again Selena." He nodded before going to sit back behind me.

I let out a deep breath and regained my thoughts.

"We really need to go." I said.

"I agree. This is creepy." Tyler asked for the check and it was brought a couple of minutes later.

While he was dealing with paying, I felt a warm hand slip a piece of paper in mine.

"If you ever want to have some fun and not hang around pussies for the rest of your life, give me a call." Justin whispered into my ear.

I secretly flipped the paper over and read it under the table. It was his business card and I quickly stuffed it in my purse.

"You wish." I whispered back harshly.

"That I do." I heard him chuckled, "Don't you want a good fuck?"

Yes!

"No, you're rude and condescending. I can go without."

"Yeah right. You're about to burst."

"Well then maybe I'll ask Tyler for some sexual relief."

I think I heard a growl or a low roar from behind me but as far as I knew, there weren't any animals in here.

"I could help you better than he could." Justin said in a stressed tone. I grinned when I realized that I struck a nerve.

"I'm not so sure about that. You look like you don't have much experience." I smirked at my tactics at winning this war.

"You have no idea what I'm capable of in the bedroom. I can make you feel things that you could only dream about." Justin was so close to my ear, I could feel the moisture from his breath.

Tyler still hadn't noticed since he was haggling with a waiter but I could have given a damn if he did.

"I'll take care of it myself." I whispered back.

"I bet you could and I would love to watch that." His breath was so close to the nape of my neck, I almost felt it inside my skin, "Or I could help."

"I said I don't need your help." I snapped.

"I bet you're so tight and wet right now. Put your finger in your pussy and let me taste."

I had to sit up straighter and cross my legs because his dirty talk was about to do me in.

"I'm going to file a report against you."

"Go ahead, then you'll always wonder what could have been. I can make you feel incredible, Selena."

"I don't need your help." My voice at this point was nothing more than a faint pant.

"You just watch. One of these days, you're going to fall."

"Don't be so sure of it. I don't plan on ever seeing you again."

I got up from my seat and Tyler did the same as we both walked out of the restaurant.

I chanced a small glance back at Justin once we reached the door and found him sitting with Vienna again, a wicked smirk on his perfect lips.

Please God, stop punishing me!

0 notes

well-itbetterbeblack · 7 years ago

Text

best led grow lights for weed complete review!

If you're starting your seedlings on a bright windowsill and you're serious about your gardening, then you need to buy a grow light rather. You'll see an immediate difference in the color and growth of your seedlings before you set them outside for the season. They will be greener and stockier, with stronger stalks, and they will grow faster than they want with restricted, filtered light through your window. If you already have a traditional fluorescent light set up with T8 or T12 bulbs (having a diameter of about 1-1.5 in. / /2.5-4 cm), you should consider upgrading. Over the course of five decades, you are going to spend roughly $30 to $60 more with T5 bulbs than you'd using two T8 bulbs, depending on how much your energy costs. Nonetheless, it's worth it: Your seedlings will get greener and grow quicker simply because the T5s will send more photons for their light-loving leaves than the T8s.

The best grow light is the light which grows what you wish to grow. It generates enough photons in the ideal spectrum (400-700 nm) to provide plants the energy that they need to grow and has enough light in both "red" and "blue" wavelengths to create plants grow dark green leaves and thick stems. ) The top lights give you just as much light as you require, but not more (because you don't need to waste energy), and don't produce extra heat. Unfortunately for anglers, it is hard to get good info regarding plant lights (see Why can not you get useful measurements for grow lights? ). Lighting companies do not give out relevant measurements, and the typists stuffing up the internet only seem to need to grow either bud, salt-water corals, or even orchids. (I've been searching for a website around a garden that combines all three into a single beachfront pleasure dome, but I have yet to locate it.) Regrettably, most hobbyist growers--from pot to petunias--don't print rigorous scientific study to their growth methods. The aquarium lighting people actually examine their setups, but their criteria for a fantastic light is a bit different from a normal tomato-grower's (ditto for orchids). Therefore, I consulted with five different experts to find out what makes a great grow light and exactly what most anglers want:

Neil Mattson, PhD, is an associate professor and floriculture extension specialist in Cornell University's Department of Horticulture. Peter Wardenburg is the president of Hydrofarm hydroponic providers. He co-authored an article about grow light efficiency with his grad student Jacob Nelson, my sixth pro. These bulbs change in size, the total amount of light they put out, and what wavelengths of light they emit. Using our specialists' plant lighting evaluation, I looked for lights that supplied the photon output required for regular seedlings, herbs, and tabletop lettuces. After estimating functionality, I then calculated the five-year cost of using the fixture including purchase cost, bulb replacement expenses, and the amount of power needed to give plants the essential daily light integral (DLI). (See How we calculated output signal price. )

The results of our study and expert input were unequivocal. If you would like to give your seedlings a greenhouse-worthy start, go out and get a Hydrofarm Commercial T5 fixture using four 2-foot tubes (individual 2-foot T5 bulbs are just 14 watts and will not create as much light). There are not that many 2-foot, four-bulb T5 fixtures available on the market--and even fewer testimonials of T5 systems--although the overwhelming favorite among Amazon reviewers is your Hydrofarm Commercial T5. A few reviewers complain about client support for replacement bulbs broken in shipping. Peter Warburg, Hydrofarm president, recommended the industrial T5 for anglers over various kinds of lights. "For seed-starting, T5s will be the most cost-effective. They're practical and affordable ... they are the best practical option."

"It works nicely for me," he said. "With four lights onto a 2-foot [broad] shelf that you get far better growth than just two." This light does put some heat out, however. An orchid grower composed that this light fixture raised the temperature of his terrarium by 5-7ºF (3-5ºC). However, most seed-starters possess their apartments outside in the open, not in a glass box. If that's the case, the temperature increase ought to be minimal. The industrial T5's light temperature is rated as 6500 K, or "daylight," which means the light will appear slightly bluish-white. It is possible to see the spectrum with this carnivorous plants fan site, or witness a nausea-inducing animation of the colors of distinct light beams on Wikipedia. When you look at your plants under the industrial T5, their colours will look in the same as they want if you set them outside at noon. If you prefer a woodsy, rustic brown color for your own plant light home, instead of white, the Hydrofarm Agrobrite Designer T5 FLP24 is practically identical to our select. Its one point of death from the Commercial T5, aside from the distinguished mottled-bronze outside, is that it features a three-prong socket at the same corner of the light. That outlet allowing growers to "daisy-chain" lights collectively and control multiple lights using one timer, which is presumably why it now costs more than the white version. You could also just buy a two-outlet timer when the time comes to plug in another light, but you will miss the thrill of viewing a block of gleaming mud-colored metal hovering above your tender seedlings. The option is yours.

Depending on the cost of your power, it will cost about $30 to $100 to operate these lights for 5 decades along with your seedlings will get loads of photons--a DLI of 6 over the duration of a 16-hour day--to reach their highest possible potential. (If you want them to attain a rather average seedling potential, run your lights for just 11 hours a day to get a DLI of 4 and save a third of the energy price.) With an anticipated bulb life of 20,000 hours, then you need to be able to start seedlings for the next 22 years.

As stated before, the Hydrofarm Commercial T5 won't attract your tabletop greens to their full potential. If you maintain this light on 24 hours a day, you'll still only get a DLI of 9--considerably under the DLI of 12 that greenhouse growers believe necessary for generating vegetables, lettuce, lettuce, along with other greens. If you are hankering for leafy greens, then keep reading to see our option to lettuce farmers below.

If you truly wish to grow greens inside, you're going to need to spend a lot of lettuce ... I mean money. As Giacomelli said, "The premium [for indoor plants] is just two to three times the price of non-branded tomato or lettuce at the supermarket" Depending on the expense of your electricity, you are going to spend anywhere from $600 to $1,200 growing lettuce for 5 years using two Fluence RAY22 lights--the cheapest choice I discovered that would provide enough photons per day to grow greens. Mount two bars a foot on your seedling tray, and you're going to get a DLI of 12 if you keep these bars for 17 hours per day along with a DLI of 17 in the event you keep your greens lit for 24 hours a day just like Aerofarm along with other indoor growers. That's a great DLI for green bibb lettuce, according to researchers in Cornell University's Controlled Environment Agriculture Program, but more delicate greens might suffer "tip burn"--yucky-looking brown edges because of plant stress. Researchers enjoy Fluence Bioengineering (previously BML Horticulture) for its extensive product information and quality build. Mattson called the organization's Spyder light "the Cadillac of LEDs," and its own lights tied for the cheapest electric cost per photons delivered of the LEDs which Bruce Bugbee tested. Be warned, though, your interior-decorator-slash-vampire buddies will adore the color of the Grow Max light bars, which encircle everything a type of damn pink. Choose a 90º beam angle for more even light distribution across your seedlings.

If all you wish to do is get your seedlings around about 1/2 inch high, I can tell you from personal experience that a fixture with two T8s will perform an adequate job. But they'll only offer you a maximum DLI of 3 if you maintain them on 16 hours a day; for a DLI of 4, then you will need to run them at least 23 hours per day. Your seedlings will be somewhat light and leggy compared to crops grown under better lights, and they will gain from getting outside whenever possible. If you are starting small with a single seedling apartment, you don't have that many alternatives for shop lights with a reflecting hood that will direct slightly more mild downwards and make viewing your plants slightly more pleasurable.

The Hydrofarm Fluorescent Grow Light Fixture along with also the Lights of America Fluorescent Grow Light System Seem to be exactly the same light and would be the cheapest available alternatives to get a 2-foot shop light. The Lights of America fixture includes two T8 bulbs; you'll have to purchase them separately for the Hydrofarm fixture. Run them for 5 years for eight months a year, along with your total cost including power will be approximately $60 to $83. Just don't come running to me when your Radiator Charlie's Mortgage Lifter berries do not fruit in time for the state fair.

How we calculated output signal cost Giacomelli was unequivocal: "Are you attempting to develop seedlings? Proceed to Home Depot and buy fluorescent tubes." Other experts had marginally more nuanced views. Harwood and Mattson observed that although LEDs have improved over time and now put out as many μmoles/kg of photons as fluorescents, they are still expensive. "For the ordinary man using lights for a couple of weeks at the spring, it is probably not worth it [to purchase LEDs]" said Mattson. Since Jacob A. Nelson and Bruce Bugbee composed: "In massive greenhouses with small aisles and uniformly spaced plants, the wide, even output pattern usually emitted from HPS fixtures provides uniform lighting distribution and great catch of photosynthetic photons. In bigger greenhouses with spaced benches, the more concentrated pattern typically found in LED fittings can maximize radiation transport to plant leaves."

Even though these remarks were useful, I wanted to confirm them. For home use, I put together a spreadsheet for different types of bulbs, for example:

Initial purchase cost (bulb and fixture) Cost of power to function Replacement cost (bulb only) I presumed that you, gentle reader, intend to grow thoroughly legal seedlings, herbs, and table-top lettuce, and that seedlings require approximately 4 moles/m²/day of photons, while lettuce needs least 12 moles/m²/day. Additionally, I assumed that you're going to start small, with one or two standard 21-by-11-inch black seedling flats that seem like this. Four feet is the typical length for mature lights used in the nursery trade, but firms that appeal to house growers, aquarium hobbyists, and orchid growers normally offer you 2-foot bulbs and fixtures. Based on their advice, including Jacob Nelson and Dr. Bugbee's evaluation of plant light, I made up a spreadsheet calculating the cost of using the lights for 5 years, employing the exact daily light integral (DLI), the minimum absolute number of photons needed daily which researchers recommend for growing seedlings (4 mol/m²/p) and lettuce and lettuce (12 mol/m²/d). I analyzed lights suitable for a single seedling flat (approximately 11 by 20 inches or 28 by 51 cm) at a small space--say, hung onto a bookshelf. Additionally, I read reviews on Amazon, Home Depot, and assorted aquarium hobby websites to learn what users thought of the lights.

I created two sets of calculations such as seedlings and lettuce. For average usage, I presumed that growers could have the light on for 16 hours every day for eight months every spring for five years, or 3,480 hours. For tabletop lettuce, I assumed that, for example AeroFarms' clients, growers could leave the light on for 24 hours every day for five decades straight, for 43,800 hours. To calculate the electricity cost of growing seedlings and lettuce, I made two sets of calculations assuming low-cost energy (10 cents per kilowatt hour) and high-cost electricity (30 cents per kilowatt hour). For more miserly users, I also calculated that the price of power for just getting plants the minimum daily light integral (DLI). I excluded lights that couldn't provide the minimal DLI for seedlings in 24 hours. I did calculations to its top-rated T5 High Output fluorescent fixtures, standard shop-light T8 fluorescent bulbs, LED, and high pressure sodium (HPS) lights on Amazon and Home Depot, in addition to the best three stair fittings (with respect to price per micromole of photographs) in each category as evaluated from Jacob Nelson and Bruce Bugbee at the USU Crop Physiology Laboratory. I removed lights that were clearly overpowered for house seedlings (such as 1,000-watt HPS lights designed to light a 10' by 10' greenhouse, which could generate enough heat to cook blossoms if they were foot off), but if there were still lower-powered lights accessible from the exact same manufacturer in precisely the exact same model lineup, I included them. I looked at photosynthetic photon flux density information (PPFD) for the lights, which describes how many photons fall on a square meter of surface at a second, measured in μmoles/m²/sec. In cases where dependable PPFD data was not accessible, I made independent calculations for the highest and lowest values for photon creation per joule for this type of light from the Nelson and Bugbee evaluation, multiplied it by the wattage given for that light, and presumed a narrow surface region underneath the light would be illuminated (a place the length of the fixture using a width equivalent to 1.3 times the fixture's height over the seedling flat).

What about LEDs? LEDs are a fascinating technology, but they are still a lot more expensive than other varieties of plant lighting, and they don't produce enough photons per unit cost to justify their usage by many home gardeners. One evening, LEDs will produce enough photons per watt of wall-plug electricity to make them economically competitive with fluorescent lighting. But as of now, you are going to pay a premium to get enough LEDs to grow plants indoors. 1 expert who opted to talk off the record said, "With LEDs, you're paying for future research." Horticulturists and light scientists hope that LED lighting will turn out to be much more efficient over the next ten years and begin to become aggressive with high-pressure aluminum and metal halide lighting for supplemental greenhouse light and indoor growers, but they're not there yet. As Giacomelli said, "LEDs will improve in the years to come, however, HPS [lighting] will not." Mattson discovered, "It is eight times that the [carbon] footprint to grow plants completely inside in a greenhouse." If you want to try and save the earth by growing your own lettuce, then wait.

The competition I seemed at high pressure sodium (HPS) lamps as well. Warburg said, "Most applications in commercial farmers utilize HPS [lights]," and based on Giacomelli, they're still the most practical lights for growing plants indoors. As a result of their heat output, high-watt HPS need to be kept up to many feet away from young seedlings to prevent the lights from scorching their leaves--and those volt result in expensive electrical bills. I calculated the anticipated cost of starting seedlings and growing lettuce under many different HPS lamps rated highly by Amazon users and cited as being most effective in Dr. Bruce Bugbee's paper. In cases in which I didn't have PPFD measurements readily available, I made independent estimates for both high-PPFD and low-PPFD scenarios, according to Bugbee's HPS data.

The lamps higher than 200 watts were obviously overkill. They are designed to light a 3' by 3' area, create a DLI of 4 three hours, and need to get suspended at least 24 inches over seedlings according to this Sunlight Supply Information Sheet.

They need to get suspended about 12 to 24 inches over crops, depending upon your setup's ventilation. All three of those HPS systems are a bit overpowered for seed-starting as well: They'll generate a DLI of 4 four hours to get seedlings, plus a DLI of 12 for lettuce in only 16 hours. Should you run them for only the period of time required to create the minimum DLI, they're economical. The total cost for five years of seedlings will operate from $90-200 for four hours per day of light, depending on your electricity cost, whilst lettuce will run you somewhere between $450-1000 for 16 hours every day. But so long as you're pumping out that many photons, you might as well keep it around for 20 hours and test out some berries (DLI 15, at the "great" variety for lycopersicon).

That said, I'm not recommending HPS lights per se since their heat output means they need more focus. If your plants grow too near those bulbs, they will be ruined--and if you spill water on the bulb while it's on, the bulb could explode. If you feel like you'd like to experiment using HPS lights, both the Hydrofarm SBM150S and the Sun System received enthusiastic user reviews, such as, "that I LOVE THIS LIGHT. "

A few T8 fluorescent fixtures are somewhat different from our main selections, but they aren't any better. The 2-foot Flora Hydroponics Fluorescent Grow Light System has exactly the same attributes as the Lights of America T8 fixture, but comes with bulbs that have a mild temperature of 5000 K, maybe not 41000 K such as Lights of America, which means that light will look slightly bluer. If that matters to you, go right ahead and spend a bit more on this mild, but don't expect your crops to observe the difference. If you still haven't spent enough money on T8 bulbs, then you could opt to purchase "full spectrum" T12 increase bulbs, which will fit into precisely the same fixture, like the Agrosun T12 or an Agrobrite 24-inch 20-watt T12 bulb. I am sure they're charming, but they will only get you to a maximum DLI of two in the event that you leave a two-bulb fixture for 24 hours every day under a foot away from little leaves. That is enough light to raise ferns, African violets, and orchids, but seedlings of other species won't fulfill their full potential.

0 notes

sweetmarshmellowninja-blog · 7 years ago

Text

LED grow lights 2018 reviews & complete guide!

If you're beginning your seedlings to a sunny windowsill and you are serious about your gardening, you need to purchase a grow light instead. You will see an immediate difference in the color and growth of your seedlings before you put them outdoors for the season.

They will be greener and stockier, with stronger stems, and they will grow faster than they want with restricted, filtered light through your window. If you already have a traditional fluorescent light set up with T8 or T12 bulbs (with a diameter of about 1-1.5 in. /2.5-4 cm), you should consider upgrading. Over the span of five years, you are going to spend approximately $30 to $60 more with T5 bulbs than you'd with two T8 bulbs, depending on how much your electricity costs. But it's well worth it: Your seedlings will get greener and grow quicker simply because the T5s will send more photons for their light-loving leaves than the T8s. You will see even more of a benefit with plants which need long indoor growing periods until you move them outside (tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, artichokes, cardoons, sluggish offspring...).

The best increase light is the light that grows what you want to grow. It generates enough photons in the right spectrum (400-700 nm) to give plants the energy they need to develop and has sufficient light in both "red" and "blue" wavelengths to create plants grow dark green leaves and thick stems. (You can read more about this in The mild plants need. ) The best lights give you just as much light as you require, but not more (because you don't need to waste electricity), and don't produce extra heat. Unfortunately for gardeners, it is hard to find decent information regarding plant lights (see Why can not you get helpful measurements for mature lights? ). Lighting companies don't give out important measurements, and the typists stuffing up the world wide web only seem to need to grow either bud, salt-water corals, or even orchids. (I have been searching for a website about a garden which combines all three to one beachfront pleasure asses, but I have yet to find it.) Regrettably, most hobbyist growers--out of pot to petunias--do not print rigorous scientific study to their growing methods. The aquarium light folks actually test their setups, but their criteria for a fantastic lighting is a bit different from a typical tomato-grower's (ditto for orchids). Therefore, I consulted five Distinct experts to Learn What makes a good grow light and what most gardeners need:

Gene Giacomelli, PhD, director of the Controlled Environment Agriculture Center at the University of Arizona, has made plant lighting to its Antarctic research laboratory McMurdo Station and a "lunar greenhouse" to be used on space missions.

Peter Wardenburg is the president of Hydrofarm hydroponic suppliers. He co-authored a post about increase light efficiency with his grad student Jacob Nelson, my sixth expert.

Essentially, if you're growing plants indoors, you can choose between fluorescent, compact fluorescent, metal halide, and high pressure sodium (HPS) lamps or LED bulbs (more about that in kinds of lights). These bulbs vary in size, the total amount of light they put out, and what wavelengths of light they emit. Utilizing our specialists' plant lighting analysis, I looked for lighting that provided the photon output necessary for regular seedlings, herbs, and tabletop lettuces. After estimating performance, I then calculated the approximate price of using the fixture including cost, bulb replacement costs, and the quantity of electricity required to give plants the essential daily light integral (DLI). (See How we calculated output signal cost. )

The results of our study and specialist input were unequivocal. If you want to give your seedlings a greenhouse-worthy start, go out and get a Hydrofarm Commercial T5 fixture with four 2-foot tubes (individual 2-foot T5 bulbs are only 14 watts and won't produce as much light). There are not that many 2-foot, four-bulb T5 fixtures available on the market--and even fewer reviews of T5 systems--although the overwhelming favorite among Amazon reviewers would be your Hydrofarm Commercial T5. A few reviewers complain about customer service for replacement bulbs broken in shipping. Peter Warburg, Hydrofarm president, also recommended the Commercial T5 for anglers over various sorts of lighting. "For seed-starting, T5s will be the most economical. They are practical and affordable ... they are the best practical choice."

"It works nicely for me," he explained. "With four lights onto a 2-foot [broad] shelf that you get far better growth than two." This light does put some heat out, however. An orchid grower wrote that this light fixture raised the warmth of his terrarium by 5-7ºF (3-5ºC). If that's the case, the temperature increase ought to be minimal. The industrial T5's light temperature is rated as 6500 K, or "daylight," so the light will look slightly bluish-white. You can see the spectrum with this carnivorous plants enthusiast site, or witness a nausea-inducing animation of the colors of distinct light beams on Wikipedia. When you take a look at your plants under the Commercial T5, their colors will look about the same as they want if you put them outside. If you prefer a woodsy, rustic brown color for your own plant light home, instead of dazzling white, the Hydrofarm Magritte Designer T5 FLP24 is practically identical to our select. Its one purpose of death from the industrial T5, apart from its distinguished mottled-bronze exterior, is that it comes with a three-prong socket at one corner of the light. That socket allowing growers to "daisy-chain" lights collectively and control multiple lights using a single timer, which is presumably why it now costs more than the white version. You may also just buy a two-outlet timer when the time arrives to plug in another mild, but you will miss the thrill of viewing a block of shiny mud-colored metal hovering over your tender seedlings. The choice is yours.

Depending on the expense of your electricity, it will cost about $30 to $100 to operate these lights for five decades and your seedlings will get plenty of photons--a DLI of 6 over the duration of a 16-hour day--to attain their maximum potential. (If you would like them to reach a fairly average seedling potential, operate your lights for only 11 hours per day to acquire a DLI of 4 and save a third of the electricity cost.) With an anticipated bulb life of 20,000 hours, then you should be able to begin afresh for another 22 years.

As mentioned before, the Hydrofarm Commercial T5 won't attract your tabletop greens into their entire potential. If you maintain this light on 24 hours every day, you'll still only get a DLI of 9--considerably under the DLI of 12 that greenhouse growers believe necessary for generating lettuce, herbs, lettuce, along with other greens. If you're hankering for leafy greens, then keep reading to see our choice to lettuce farmers below.

If you truly wish to grow greens indoors, you are going to have to spend a good deal of lettuce ... I mean money. As Giacomelli stated, "The premium [for indoor plants] is two to three times the price of non-branded lettuce or tomato at the supermarket" Depending on the expense of your electricity, you are going to spend anywhere from $600 to $1,200 rising lettuce for 5 years using two Fluence RAY22 lights--the cheapest alternative I discovered that could provide enough photons daily to increase greens. Mount two bars a foot on your seedling tray, and you're going to find a DLI of 12 in the event that you keep these bars on for 17 hours a day and also a DLI of 17 in the event you keep your greens lit for 24 hours a day just like Aerofarm and other indoor growers. That is a fantastic DLI for green bibb lettuce, according to researchers in Cornell University's Controlled Environment Agriculture Program, but more delicate greens may suffer "tip burn"--yucky-looking brownish edges due to plant stress. Researchers like Fluence Bioengineering (previously BML Horticulture) because of the extensive product information and quality construct. Mattson called the organization's Spyder light "the Cadillac of LEDs," and its lights tied to the cheapest electrical cost per photons delivered of the LEDs which Bruce Bugbee tested. Be warned, though, your interior-decorator-slash-vampire friends will adore the colour of this Grow Max light bars, which encircle everything a type of bloody pink. Choose a 90º beam angle to get more even light distribution across your seedlings.

If all you wish to do is get your seedlings around about 1/2 inch high, I can tell you from personal experience that a fixture with two T8s will do an adequate job. But they will only offer you a maximum DLI of 3 in the event that you maintain them on 16 hours every day; for a DLI of 4, then you will want to run them at least 23 hours a day. Your seedlings will be a bit pale and leggy compared to crops grown under better lights, and they'll gain from getting outside as soon as possible. If you're starting small with a single seedling apartment, you don't have that many alternatives for shop lights with a reflecting hood which will direct marginally more light downwards and also make watching your plants slightly more pleasing.

The Hydrofarm Fluorescent Grow Light Fixture along with the Lights of America Fluorescent Grow Light System Seem to be Precisely the same mild and are the cheapest available options to get a 2-foot shop light. The Lights of America fixture comes with two T8 bulbs; you are going to have to purchase them separately to your Hydrofarm fixture. Run them for five years for eight months a year, along with your total price including power will probably be around $60 to $83. Just don't come running to me if your Radiator Charlie's Mortgage Lifter berries do not fruit in time for the country fair.

The way we calculated output vs. cost Giacomelli was unequivocal: "Are you really attempting to grow seedlings? Go to Home Depot and purchase fluorescent tubes" Other specialists had slightly more nuanced views. Harwood and Mattson observed that although LEDs have improved over the years and today put out as several μmoles/watt of photons as fluorescents, they're still expensive. "For the ordinary person using lights for a few months in the spring, it is probably not worthwhile [to buy LEDs]" said Mattson. Since Jacob A. Nelson and Bruce Bugbee wrote: "In large greenhouses with little aisles and thickly spaced plants, the broad, even output pattern typically emitted from HPS fixtures provides uniform light distribution and good capture of photosynthetic photons. In bigger greenhouses with spaced benches, the concentrated pattern typically found in LED fittings can maximize radiation transport to plant leaves."

Even though these opinions were useful, I wanted to confirm them. For home use, I put together a spreadsheet for different Kinds of bulbs, for example:

I presumed that you, gentle reader, want to develop thoroughly legal seedlings, herbs, and table-top lettuce, and that seedlings need approximately 4 moles/m²daily of photons, while lettuce requires least 12 moles/m²daily. I also assumed that you are going to start small, with one or two standard 21-by-11-inch black seedling flats that look like that. Four feet is the typical duration for grow lights used at the nursery school, but firms that cater to home growers, aquarium hobbyists, and orchid growers normally offer you 2-foot bulbs and fixtures. According to their advice, such as Jacob Nelson and Dr. Bugbee's evaluation of plant light, I made a spreadsheet calculating the cost of using the lights for five decades, using the exact daily light integral (DLI), the minimum total number of photons necessary daily which researchers advocate for developing seedlings (4 mol/m²/d) and lettuce and herbs (12 mol/m²/d). I analyzed lights suitable for one seedling flat (approximately 11 by 20 inches or 28 by 51 cm) in a small space--say, hung onto a bookshelf. I also read reviews about Amazon, Home Depot, and various aquarium hobby websites to see what users thought of the lights.

I created two sets of calculations such as seedlings and lettuce. For ordinary usage, I presumed that growers would have the light on for 16 hours a day for eight months every spring for five decades, or 3,480 hours. For tabletop lettuce, I presumed that, for example AeroFarms' clients, growers would leave the light on for 24 hours a day for five decades straight, for 43,800 hours. For more miserly users, I calculated that the price of electricity for only getting plants the minimum daily light integral (DLI). I excluded lights that couldn't offer the minimum DLI for seedlings in one day. I did calculations to the top-rated T5 High Output fluorescent fixtures, standard shop-light T8 fluorescent bulbs, LED, and high pressure sodium (HPS) lights on Amazon along with Home Depot, in addition to the best three energy-efficient fixtures (with respect to price per micromole of photographs) in each class as assessed from Jacob Nelson and Bruce Bugbee at the USU Crop Physiology Laboratory. I eliminated lights which were clearly overpowered for home seedlings (such as 1,000-watt HPS lights created to light a 10' by 10' greenhouse, which would generate enough heat to cook blossoms if they were foot off), but if there were lower-powered lights available from precisely the same manufacturer in precisely the exact same model lineup, I included them. In circumstances where reliable PPFD information was not available, I made independent calculations for the lowest and highest values for photon creation per joule for that type of light from the Nelson and Bugbee evaluation, multiplied it by the wattage provided for this light, and assumed a narrow surface area underneath the light would be pinpointed (an area the length of the fixture using a diameter equal to 1.3 times the fixture's elevation over the seedling level).

What about LEDs?

LEDs are a fascinating technology, but they are still far more expensive than other types of plant lighting, plus they don't create enough photons per unit cost to warrant their use by many home gardeners. One day, LEDs will produce enough photons per watt of wall-plug electricity to make them economically competitive with fluorescent lights. But as of today, you'll pay a premium to get sufficient LEDs to grow plants indoors. One expert who chose to talk off the record stated, "With LEDs, you're paying for future research." Horticulturists and lighting scientists expect that LED lights will become much more efficient over the next decade and begin to become aggressive with high-pressure aluminum and metal halide lights for underfloor lighting and indoor growers, but they're not available yet. Still, there's hope for a cooler, more effective mild. As Giacomelli said, "LEDs will improve in the years ahead, however, HPS [lighting] won't." Mattson observed, "It is eight times that the [carbon] footprint to mature plants completely indoors vs. in a greenhouse" If you want to attempt and save the earth by developing your own lettuce, then wait.

The competition:

I looked at high pressure sodium (HPS) lamps too. Warburg said, "Most programs in commercial greenhouse use HPS [lights]," and according to Giacomelli, they are still the most practical lights for growing plants inside. As a result of their heat output, high-watt HPS have to be kept up to several feet apart from young seedlings to prevent the lights from scorching their leaves--and those volt make for expensive electric bills. I calculated that the anticipated cost of starting seedlings and growing lettuce under a variety of HPS lamps rated highly by Amazon users and cited as being efficient in Dr. Bruce Bugbee's paper. In cases where I didn't have PPFD dimensions available, I made separate estimates for both high-PPFD and low-PPFD situations, based on Bugbee's HPS data.

The lamps greater than 200 watts were clearly overkill. They're intended to light a 3' by 3' place, create a DLI of 4 in three hours, and need to be suspended at least 24 inches over seedlings according to the Sunlight Supply Information Sheet. That left three low-wattage HPS fixtures: Horizon Grow Light Kit (now unavailable), Hydrofarm SBM150S, and also the Sun System 150 Watt HPS Reflector, Ballast and Bulb.

They need to get suspended about 12 to 24 inches over plants, depending upon your installation's ventilation. All three of those HPS systems are somewhat overpowered for seed-starting too: They'll produce a DLI of 4 in four hours to get seedlings, plus a DLI of 12 for lettuce in only 16 hours. If you run them for only the period of time needed to create the minimum DLI, they're economical. The total cost for five years of seedlings will operate from $90-200 for four hours per day of light, depending upon your energy cost, while lettuce will run you somewhere between $450-1000 for 16 hours every day. But as long as you're pumping out that many photons, you may too keep it on for 20 hours and try out some berries (DLI 15, in the "good" variety for lycopersicon).

That said, I am not recommending HPS lights per se because their heat output means they require more focus. If your plants grow too near these bulbs, they'll be ruined--and if you spill water on the bulb while it's on, the bulb could explode. If you really feel as if you'd like to experiment with HPS lights, the Hydrofarm SBM150S and the Sun System received enthusiastic user testimonials, such as, "that I LOVE THIS LIGHT. "

A few T8 fluorescent fixtures are somewhat different from our main picks, but they are no better. The 2-foot Flora Hydroponics Fluorescent Grow Light System has the same attributes as the Lights of America T8 fixture, but comes with bulbs that have a light temperature of 5000 K, not 41000 K like Lights of America, which means that light will appear slightly bluer. If that matters to you, go ahead and spend a bit more on this mild, but don't expect your plants to notice the difference. If you still have not spent enough cash on T8 bulbs, then you could choose to purchase "full spectrum" T12 increase bulbs, which will fit into precisely the exact same fixture, such as the Agrosun T12 or a Agrobrite 24-inch 20-watt T12 bulb. I am sure they are charming, but they'll only get you to a max DLI of two in the event that you leave a two-bulb fixture for 24 hours a day less than a foot away from small leaves. That is enough light to increase ferns, African violets, and orchids, but lots of other species won't live up to their full potential.

0 notes