I turn away from him, stomping toward the door to escape his presence – this building – and close this chapter in my life. I’m prepared to find another job because I’m certain this is it for me. I can’t take any more of this man.
Before I can reach the door, Essex grabs my arm and walks me backward until my back is touching the wall. I literally have nowhere to go – being held hostage by my adversary while his eyes bore into me. Stalk me. I have no idea what he’s doing to me. All I know is I’m stuck between two hard places – his body and the wall. I’m completely at his mercy. I’m too afraid to look at him, but I have to in order to understand what he’s thinking. My heart beats frantically when I recognize the lust in his eyes and feel his strong hands cup my face, angling my head up toward him like he’s angry.
My body trembles, but it’s not because I’m afraid of him. This trembling has more to do with desire than fear. My heart beats rapidly. Chemistry burns between us. I place my palms flat against his chest to push him away, but he grabs my wrists, lowers my arms then nearly in a growl, he says, “You should’ve left when I told you to.”
In the blink of an eye, he lowers his head and captures my mouth. My once defiant arms are now wrapped around his neck.
His lips to mine have produced a spark between us that has the potential to grow into a wildfire. He kisses me so hungrily, greedily, without regard. I feel his strength as he purposely presses his chest to mine – as he groans and deepens the kiss and by deep, I mean his tongue knows the love language of mine. He’s relentless, fiercely tackling my lips, nibbling and borderline biting them like he’s trying to eat them, releasing his frustration, and fulfilling desire simultaneously. He slides one hand to the nape of my neck and locks it there like a vice grip, holding me in place while he gets his feel of my mouth. I hear myself moaning. I can’t believe he’s taken me there. He kisses the anger right away from me. All the things I said to him I now want to recant. He’s torn down my walls, my defenses and now, I’m back to square one – irritated, enamored and thoroughly confused by him. And while he kisses me with unrelenting strokes, I read into it. Dissect it. I taste desperation on his tongue. I feel his desire to be wanted. To be understood. To be needed. Wanted. Loved. The man with everything doesn’t have everything after all. He wants to feel something. The problem is, he doesn’t have the discipline or any emotional control to be in a proper relationship – hence his uncanny attachment to me – a nobody.
He pulls away from me, nearly snatching my lips off my face in the process. I gasp and touch my lips, expecting to see a twinge of blood after the way he’s kissed, sucked, and nipped on them, but there’s nothing. He doesn’t say a word – he just looks at me. I’m staring back at him. Speechless.
I catch my breath and move away from him.
“Tess,” he breathes in a whisper.
I open the door and almost sprint to the elevators because I’m not fully understanding what just happened. One minute he’s mad at me and the next, he has me pinned to the wall, giving me a tongue-lashing.
This is confusing.
This job has been challenging since day one.
It’s only going to get worse from here.
I don’t know how much more of this I can take. I can’t decipher what I’m feeling right now.
I tell Greta I’m not feeling well. She doesn’t need to know why. I just don’t. It’s around eleven in the morning when I’m out of there. I go straight to Ella’s place because I can’t take these thoughts home with me. I wouldn’t be able to function.
She’s working while I’m filling her on the latest chaos that is my life, but it wasn’t until I told her Essex kissed me that she stopped typing and turned around.
“What!” She covers her mouth with her hand. “When? Where? Why?”
“The when was this morning at work. Where…his office. Why? I have no idea. It’s like he was mad at me. It was an angry kiss. Even when he ended it, he stepped away from me and was frowning. I don’t know, Ella. It’s just weird. Everything is messed up now. I don’t know if I can work there anymore.”
“Well, you can’t quit. You just got your place, Quin. I would hate for you to lose it.”
“I know. Maybe I can find another job fairly quickly. Or I could call Dominion back to see if they’d filled the position I had applied for. I don’t know what else to do. I know I’m not going to work tomorrow. I can’t look at him after what happened between us. Anyway, I just needed to vent. I’ll get out of your hair.”
“Girl, stop. You can stay as long as you want.”
“No, I should go. I’ll see you later.”
Ella sighs. “Okay, Quin. Just try to relax. It may not be as bad as you think once you’ve fully processed everything.”
She’s right, so after I arrive home, I take a shower and lay on my bed processing what’s happened. Every time my eyes close, I see Essex’s face. I feel his lips – his pectorals beneath my hands. My body shivers in response to his tongue touching mine and what he did to me. I try to brush it off as insignificant, but I can’t do that when I relive it over and over again and still feel his emotions. I’ve learned things after being connected to his mouth – things I probably wouldn’t have otherwise picked up on.
Essex is a man of passion. He’s not the tyrant he wants everyone to think he is. There’s a real man underneath all that tough skin who wants to be loved, just like there’s a yearning deep within my soul to experience the purity of a connection with someone.
But not just any someone…
I want a man who’s extremely masculine but can be gentle when he needs to be. Firm but not unyielding. A man who put my needs ahead of his own without hesitation. A man who knows how to treat people with respect. Is that Essex DePaul?
No.
But then again, maybe.
I’m completely ambivalent about my feelings for him. They ride the fence – don’t jump off on one side or the other – just ride it. That’s why I need to distance myself from him and this situation, but that’s easier said than done when the taste of his lips – his mouth – resides on my tongue like it’s taken permanent residence there. And here’s the thing – they say you don’t miss what you never had. But I’ve had his kiss and with a kiss like that, I know I’ll miss it which is why I can’t fully write him off though it’s what my brain is telling me to do. The rest of my body – that’s another story.