Mist & Fog 2

I laughed and pushed the strap of my purse higher up my arm. “Sorry, not interested.”

            As I turned and walked to my car, I could feel his gaze on me. It burned holes in my body and I felt as if I was running a marathon. When I drove away and saw him standing in the rearview mirror, I let out the breath I’d been holding. Never did I think I’d ever see Broderick again, and not this way. I was still recovering from his smile, his face, and his smell. I felt almost like a little child who was giddy for her first bike ride. But I wasn’t a child; I was nearly 30. No one had ever made me feel the way he had and I didn’t know how to react. There was so much going through my mind and I even wondered to myself what kind of danger those hands could do to my body. I shook my head and cursed as I stopped at a red light.

            “Get over it, Natasha.”

 

            The following morning, I woke up to find I’d overslept. For some reason, I forgot to set my alarm. I called in to let Gary know and although he wasn’t too happy about it, he had no choice. I dressed in a navy blue dress that reached just above my knees. I let my hair down and slipped my feet into a pair of red pumps. I added a black belt around my waist and headed to work.

            It was busy as I entered my office. I could hear phones ringing off the hook and I caught a glance of Gary’s face as I walked to my office. I muttered sorry as I set my purse down and started to go through my messages. When I got to the last message, my heart stopped for a split second. All it said was “Call me.” I knew exactly who it was from and I tossed it away. Turning the computer on, I started on working through the files of paperwork I had sitting in front of me.

            By lunch time, the files had gone down and I was finishing up before heading to lunch when I heard a voice in the hallway. It was Broderick’s and I winced. Hopefully he was here to see Gary? But as his voice neared, I knew it wasn’t so. I stood up to get ready to go as Gary and Broderick showed up at my door.

            “Natasha, Broderick was just telling me that you’re going out to lunch with him,” Gary said.

            I laughed as I stepped around my desk, noticing how Broderick was staring at my legs. “Really? Did he also tell you that I said I would take a rain check?”

            “No, I don’t remember that part,” Broderick said as he leaned against the doorway. He was dressed in a blue suit and it brought his eyes out. He looked good enough to eat.

            “Oh, come on! Go and take an extra hour,” Gary said as he left us.

            Once Gary was gone, I glared at Broderick. “What are you doing here?”

            “Did you miss the conversation? We’re going to lunch and then heading to get some dessert.”

            I frowned. “Why is lunch and dessert not together?”

            He walked in and licked his lips. “Because you’re going to be my dessert.”

            Laughing, I replied, “You wish. That’s not happening at all, Broderick.”

            “You didn’t call me.”

            I laughed. “I had no intention of ever calling you.”

            He blocked my path and put his finger under my chin. The contact made me shiver and he noticed it. He smiled and then kicked the door closed. He walked in shoving me backward into the room. When my bottom hit the top of my desk, I knew I had nowhere to run. He leaned forward and placed both hands on either side of me. He looked at me and then a smile tugged at his lips.

            “I’ve been dreaming what it would be like to kiss you. You know in high school, all I wanted was to take that little cheerleader uniform apart and see what lay underneath it. Today, however, looking like you do, I want to take you here on your desk with your legs wrapped around my waist,” he said.

            I felt hot and sweaty as I swallowed down the lump in my throat. I felt the breaths in me come out as harsh and uneven. “Let me…go.”

            He cocked his head to one side. “Let you go? No, I won’t let you go until I can hear you scream my name in your throes of passion. And you will because right now all I want to do is suck that pretty little mouth of yours dry.”

            Oh God, no one had ever spoken to me like that before and it was hitting every single nerve of mine with an impact that left me breathless. He smiled, knowing he was winning. He leaned in closer until he was inches away from my lips.

            “You know what I like about you? You’re pretending to be unaffected when what you really want to do is rip my shirt off,” he said.

            Laughing, I stepped around him and turned around to look at him. “Don’t flatter yourself, Broderick. You’ve not changed that much that you’ll leave me tingling in strange places. Now if you’re done, I’d like to go to lunch.”

            “You mean we’re going to lunch.”

            I didn’t know how to make it any clearer to him. I sighed deeply. “Look, Broderick, you’ve done well for yourself, I’m sure. Seeing as you can show up here in a thousand dollar suit, you’re definitely better off than I thought you would end up. But I am not on the market now or ever. You and I have nothing going on here and as much as you want me to rip your shirt off, it’s not going to happen.”

            He walked to him and in his eyes I saw a mist that made me think of the fog rising from beyond the hills. It left me tingling and I tried to control my emotions. When he closed the distance between us, he took my wrist and pulled me closer to him. He leaned down and whispered into my ear.

            “I guarantee you that once you’ve had me, no other man will do because I will not leave you tingling in strange places, but I will leave you melting in my arms and begging for so much more.”

            Then he placed a tender kiss to my temple and left me shaking as he left the room. It took a while after he left to gather myself together. I didn’t know what it was about him, but I had never lied so much in my life before. He did startle me and he did make my heart jump. Just knowing he was close by had my pulse racing. The area on my wrist where he touched seemed to burn and I felt suddenly hot. I gulped and steadied myself by lowering myself to sit in a chair. Boy, was I screwed.

            When I got home, I was so exhausted I filled the tub and decided I was going to soak with a cold one. I stripped and poured some jasmine soap into the tub and let it fill as I grabbed a bottle of beer from the fridge. As I sat soaking in the tub, I thought back to Broderick and I ended up laughing. The look I remembered of him back then just didn’t fit the sex God I saw today. He was clumsy, falling over all the place, and being picked on. He couldn’t even dribble the ball without tripping on his own feet. Shaking my head, I laughed and took a long swig of my beer and leaned back to relax when the doorbell rang. Frowning, I turned to the clock on my wall in the bedroom. It was close to eight. Who was visiting this late? My girlfriends all went on a trip to Vegas and thanks to me taking a week off to attend my mother’s wedding in Paris I had no more vacation hours to join them. I groaned as the person behind the door continued to ring the bell. I pulled on my robe and walked out to the door. A shadow stood in the doorway and I sighed. It better not be someone selling something or else I would show them the witch from the East. I pulled open the door ready to cuss when Broderick’s face stared back at me. Before I could utter a word, he pushed himself in, slammed the door closed, locked it, and slammed his lips against mine.

            The force of his lips sent me into a shock and I felt the fire from my toes to my head. My vision blurred and I had my hands against his chest, part of me pushing him away while another part was screaming to keep him even closer. But finally I pushed him far enough where our lips separated and I stared at with gasping breaths.

            “What…how’d you know where I lived?” I asked.

            He smiled. “I followed you home. You are a mean girl. You left me with a hard on all day long. I had to cancel two meetings because all I thought about was you. You’re going to pay for that.”

            His heart was racing beneath my fingers and I could see that being this close to me was literally killing him. But then he glanced down and saw my robe, which had opened to our little union, and he looked back up at me. A slow smile curved his lips and he made a tsking sound.

            “You little witch. You’re naked underneath that little thing, aren’t you?” he asked.