Lovely Trigger(32)

I had a brief and intense fantasy where I buried my face between her legs and made her lose it. I wanted to taste her, even if it was only for a moment. I needed to know if I remembered even that last detail as well as I thought I did. How long did a tongue’s memory last? I badly wanted to find out.

My mind wandered to our encounter from earlier. It had been so incredible. The feel of her hot walls closing on me; God, I needed to get a grip.

I couldn’t believe that, even as I sat there, my dick was still covered in the evidence of what we’d done. That got me thinking about how it couldn’t be that hopeless of a cause.

I started plotting ways to get up to her hotel room with her.

She was still talking, and I tried to pretend that I hadn’t been daydreaming about the things she was talking about never doing again.

“I don’t need conflict, I need peace. I don’t need chaos, I need order. I’m dealing with needs here, not wants, not wishes. And you need to understand that. You need to respect it.”

I made her look at me, straight in the eye, when I spoke. “Whatever you need me to be, I’ll be that. Whatever you want me to do, however we need to make this work, we will do it.” And it was as I spoke that I realized that I couldn’t seduce her again so soon, certainly not tonight.

I needed to bind her to me again with more than the most incredible sex of my life.

We needed to become best friends again. Yes, that was how I would do it. I needed to become so essential in her life that she couldn’t conceive walking away.

I meant to break her.

Needed to break her.

Whether it be with deceit, subterfuge, cold calculation, or sheer willpower alone, I was set in my course.

She’d built a wall up against me. A wall that seemed to me to be interwoven into her very soul.

For years, I’d thought that wall was impregnable. But a few words, a few brief encounters had shown me that the wall wasn’t stone, but glass.

I meant to break it, and her, and anything that stood in my way. I was going to shatter all of the things she used to keep us apart.

It had become my sole purpose. And if she failed to give, to yield, I’d break myself in the process.

I was prepared for that. At this point in my life, with what I’d learned from our separation, I was willing to risk it.

“So it’s pretty obvious you’re never going to call me. Let’s start with baby steps. How about you just start to actually answer when I call you?”

She chewed on her lip for a minute and then nodded.

“And we work in the same building, so how about I come by sometimes, and say hi, and you don’t call security, or hell, our boss, to get me to stay away?”

That got me a rueful smile and another nod.

“And you let me walk you up to your hotel room. We can cuddle for a few hours, no funny business.” I smiled. She’d say no, but it would be sassy and cute, so I tried anyway.

She rolled her eyes, a corner of her pretty mouth kicking up. “Not happening.”

“Well, I had to try.”

Our cheeseburgers arrived, and we ate. The burger must have been good, because she ate the whole thing, wasting lots of her allotted calories on it.

I finished mine too, but I couldn’t have said if it tasted good. I was too distracted, too focused on her, to notice I was even eating until the food was gone. I’d inhaled the thing, the fries too.

She shook her head at me, still working on hers. “Must be nice to get to eat however much of whatever you want and still have a perfect body.”

I grinned at her, the word body making me think of nothing but what mine could do to hers. “I do spend two to three hours in the gym every day. Weights and calories go hand in hand.” I flexed my arms a bit, loving the way it drew her eyes and made them glaze over. Only with Danika could workout talk become foreplay.

I ordered a milkshake after she finished her burger. She declined dessert, though she eyed mine up hungrily when it arrived.

It was banana, not the real banana flavor, but the fake banana flavor.

I knew that was her favorite kind of shake. I’d only ordered it to stall and draw the night out longer but when I saw the chance to torment her, I took it happily.

I took a long drink, moaning appreciatively, like it was the best shake I’d ever had, though I barely tasted it.

“Want a drink?”

She shook her head stubbornly.

“One drink won’t affect your diet.”

I slid it her way, and she tried it. Apparently, it did taste good, because she just kept drinking, and as she always said, she didn’t waste calories on sub-par food.

She finished the whole thing, then blamed me for letting her have it. “Now I have to hit the gym extra hard tomorrow.”

“I could always give you another workout tonight.” Even if we were in friend mode for the moment, what could it hurt to flirt?

Of course, if she’d taken me up on it, nothing on earth could have kept me from following through.

Unfortunately she didn’t. Instead, she glared.

I ordered cherry pie a la mode, just to keep dragging the night out, then proceeded to go on and on about how much I loved to eat pie.

Just to make her laugh.

And it did. And her laugh made me happy, as it always had.

Next I ordered coffee, and she had a cup as well.

I was stuffed, but I ordered an omelet next.