I know exactly where I’ll find Stacy: in the prepping room for reporters from her news outlet. If I knew her as well as I think I do, she’ll be the only one there, since it’s earlier than anything is supposed to get started, and she is nothing if not impeccably ready at all times.
Sure enough, as I knock on the door, it’s Stacy who lets me in. She’s alone, just as I was hoping.
She opens the door absentmindedly, while looking down at the little notebook she always carries with her, lost in thought. She obviously assumes I’m another reporter and is too immersed in what she’s doing to look up at me right away.
But I’m looking at her, alright.
How could I not?
She looks sexier than I’ve ever seen her, and that’s saying a lot, because she always looks sexy.
She’s wearing a black skirt suit with a white button-down silk shirt underneath. The top button reaches just above her breasts, providing me a lovely view of her just a small amount of cleavage that is peeking out from underneath. The skirt falls perfectly over the curves of her hips and reaches to her thighs, giving me a pleasant view of her toned legs.
Sometime in between my glances on the way down and then back up her body, she must have finally decided to look in my direction.
“Elias!” she says, sounding shocked.
She clears her throat, as if trying to indicate that she’s busy.
“I wasn’t expecting to see you just yet.”
Clearly, I want to say.
That was supposed to be the whole point. And I can’t help but feel a bit insulted. She’s the one who wanted to question me, and I told her I’d give her the first opportunity and yet now she doesn’t want me around?
But I decide not to be deterred.
“What can I help you with?” she asks me.
“With this,” I say, pulling her close to me and giving her a kiss on the lips.
Luckily, she kisses me back, just a bit, at first, and then a bit harder, giving into my tongue in between her lips and even sucking back a little, but with enough push and pull to let me know she’s conflicted.
She doesn’t think we should be doing this, but she likes it, I conclude.
I can work with that.
In fact, I feel pretty much the exact same way.
Suddenly, though, she pulls away, and looks like she wants to slap me, but thinks better of it.
“Elias. That’s not acceptable.”
“But it’s fun, right?” I tease.
“Hey. Seriously,” she insists.
“I’m sorry,” I say, meaning it, or at least meaning it for right now.
If she had let the kiss linger longer, I wouldn’t be sorry for it at all. In fact, I have every intention of trying again. I’ve never had a woman occupy my brain, my heart, my cock to this extent.
Even though we only had our first encounter yesterday, and even though it was under less than ideal circumstances, to say the least, I’m determined to keep pursuing her.
Until I make her mine.
Chapter 6
Elias
“That’s okay,” Stacy says, quickly accepting my apology.
“I forgot you were just… traumatized by that asshole,” I tell her, suddenly feeling actually very sorry as I realize that it might be kind of scary for her to have a guy walk into her space after what happened to her yesterday.
“You think that’s the only reason I wouldn’t want to kiss you?” she asks, her pretty, dark brown eyebrows scrunching together in annoyance.
“No, I didn’t mean that,” I quickly tell her, even though I guess I did.
I just don’t know how to win with her. And I’m used to winning in everything I do. To me, though, it just means I need to keep trying.
“Look, you and I… this could never work out,” she says.
“Don’t be so sure about that,” I tell her. “Stranger things have happened. Look at Marvin and Olivia. At Bryan and Scout. At Jameson and Jenny.”
I’m rattling off all the same names she bought up yesterday as being overblown scandals, and also the names of their significant others that were involved in those alleged scandals with them, and all of whom are still happily together to this day, to get her to see that even when the whole world thinks you won’t work out, sometimes, you just do.
I’d say I’m doing a pretty good job of making an argument that could impress anyone. I might as well sign myself up for law school right now.
But she doesn’t seem to appreciate it.
She crinkles her nose together and shakes her head.
“Look, we’re not them,” she says. “I’m happy for them, and I’m glad it all worked out, but that kind of life isn’t for me. You might be want to be in the middle of all of this drama I’m always having to report about, but I just want…”