Rekindled Desire

by Hadley Raydeen

  “Call me. The card has my personal cell phone number on it.”

  “I will.”

  He reached out and pulled her in for another hug, warming her completely, sending tingles to her fingers and toes. She shuddered in his embrace not wanting him to let go, but she needed to get back inside, regardless.

  “It’s cold. Let’s go in,” he said, holding the door for her. When they stepped in, the dance floor was in full swing. “Do… you want to?” He looked at her, then back at the dance floor.

  “Uh, no. I-I have to go.” She shrugged his coat from her shoulders.

  “Are you sure?”

  She smiled. “Yes. I hate to be a downer, but I’m tired.” I need to get the hell out of here before I take more than your coat off. Why does he always do this to me?…fuck.

  He kissed her cheek lightly. She couldn’t take this much more. She wanted to run her hands through his hair, kiss at his lips and just lose herself in his green eyes. “Hey,” he said, grabbing at her hand as she stepped away from him. “Call me, Cambria.”

  The earnestness in his request piqued her interest, but she knew better. “Okay,” she lied. She knew how Brandon McKay worked—a charmer, a ladies’ man. He could have any woman he wanted. She didn't want to be just another notch in his belt. That is why she couldn’t allow the kiss. She needed to get away from him, now.

  CHAPTER 4

  A month later, Cambria sat in her office finishing up a conference call. She never called him, but his business card still lay on her desk. She looked at it and sighed, something she did every once in awhile. The feelings she felt for him that night were just reminiscent of a college crush.

  She couldn’t forget about everything she felt for him by burying herself in her work by day and a glass or two of Zinfandel by night, but she sure as hell tried. She kept thinking about his lips when they lightly touched hers. How would those lips feel on other areas of her body?

  She daydreamed of him kissing her all over, into a slow, blind abandon, without so much as a thought about the why, what or where. She wanted to run her fingertips across the hard contours of his pecs and abs, through his dark blond hair and lose herself in his green eyes.

  She imagined he’d rock her world in bed. She had wandered just how hot a roll in the hay would be with him every time she saw him whispering in a new girl’s ear at school. That thought made her frown, then and now. Because it had never been her.

  He had shown interest in her, but never like that. She wiped a hand across her forehead and finger combed her hair back into a ponytail.

  Her thoughts ran to this man way too much, and it needed to stop. She had no clue when she might see him again, if ever. He made no attempt to contact her, and she sure as hell wasn’t calling him.

  Kimi stuck her head in the door. “Can I come in?”

  “Depends. What did you do?”

  Kimi held a French manicured hand to her chest in feigned shock. “Who me?”

  “Yes, you.”

  She walked through the door, without a confirmed invitation and sat across from her friend with mischief sparkling in her eyes.

  “I have to say, I’m frightened by the look in your eyes right now.” Cambria groaned.

  “I have two things to tell you.”

  “Sounds like gossip.” Cambria shifted in her chair, debating on if she wanted to hear the piece of information Kimi had to offer.

  “You know me.” She leaned in to whisper, “I overheard some of the execs talking—”

  “Whoa, stop right there. How do you overhear execs talking, Kimi? Do you mean you couldn’t help but hear from where you were eavesdropping? Let’s just call it what it is.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Proceed,” she said, waving her friend on.

  “We lost the Magna account,” Kimi said, hitting the desk in front of her to drive her point home.

  “What!”

  Magna was their gold mine. She had been working on marketing research since before Thanksgiving for this account, and was sure this would land her the raise she had been after for well over a year. “Tom hasn’t said anything about this to me.”

  “Supposedly it just happened this afternoon. I’m sure he will call a staff meeting about it soon.”

  “I don’t understand. I’ve put so much time and effort into this. I thought they were pleased with the work we have been doing so far.” I’ve been working my ass off on this project why would they pull it now?

  “I’m sure Tom and Jeff will have some bullshit excuse for why we lost it when they finally tell everyone. But you know how this firm is, honey, we lose them and gain them in a matter of days. They are probably working on the next big deal as we speak.”

  “Who won the bid on the account?”

  “I have no idea. How long do you think I could stand around listening without being detected?” Kimi rolled her eyes.

  “Knowing you, I’m surprised you didn’t pull up a chair and start taking meeting minutes.”

  “Again, shut up!” She laughed dramatically and rolled her eyes

  “I don’t think either of the guys would have minded though. Haven’t you slept with both of our bosses at one time or another?”

  “They don’t know I was with the other one. Though, I’m sure a roll in the hay with them together would be fucking hot.” Her best friend rolled her eyes.

  “Men talk, honey, I’m sure they know you’ve been with the other one.” Cambria laughed at the thoughtful look on Kimi’s face. “Stop thinking about our bosses and threesomes! Now that you hit me with that whammy, what else could you possibly have to tell me?” She remembered her friend had two things to gossip about.

  Kimi looked at her sheepishly.

  “Oh damn, now I really don’t like that look. I revert back to my original question, what did you do?”

  “Honey—”

  “This isn’t going to be good.”

  “How mad would you be—”

  “Oh, hell, this is going to be good.”

  “If I told you Brandon gave me a call here at the office and asked for your phone number?”

  Cambria could feel her eyes widen like saucers. “What are you talking about?” Cambria spoke slowly, making sure her voice didn’t sound shrill. “Why didn’t you transfer the call to me?”

  “You were on a call. Which is why he asked for me instead.”

  “Damn it, Kimi. How did he even find out where we work? I never told him…you did…at the party.”

  Kimi nodded her head in confirmation. “What! I thought the two of you were friends. You looked pretty cozy from what I could see at the party, and you were always with him in college. I thought you two were okay.”

  “We were. I mean we are. It’s complicated. I didn’t want him to have my number here.”

  “I gave him your cell.” She ducked her head.

  “Kimi! That’s worse.” What the hell am I going to say when he calls? He’s going to want to know why I haven’t called him yet.

  “Sorry, Cam, but he may be exactly what you need in your life.”

  “It’s not that easy.” I can’t resist him now that I had a sample of his lips…no, this is not easy at all.

  “Okay, I know he hurt you in college with his stupid playboy routine, but really he has to be different now, right? A few years have passed; he’s had time to mature. Plus, he looks good as hell and damned if his voice isn’t like smooth, sexy silk—”

  “Kimi,” Cambria warned, maybe a little too abrupt.

  Kimi held her hands up in surrender. “It’s an innocent observation. He is back in your life now. Why not change the past and see what happens between the two of you? He wants to make nice. Why don’t you talk to him?”

  “The problem is he doesn’t know he hurt me. He doesn’t know I was in love with him. If I try to make nice or flirt with him, or whatever it is you are suggesting I do, it will seem like it’s coming way out of left field. I will talk to him in my own time, but rest assured it will onl
y be a friendly chat.”

  “All I know is that man is interested. Left field, right field, center field, wherever the hell it’s coming from, sweetie, he loves him some you.”

  Cambria laughed out loud. “Leave it to you to say something crazy like that, and how do you know this piece of information?”

  “I could tell in his voice when he was inquiring. He is smitten, kitten. I don’t think this is a new found infatuation, either. I think he had a thing for the sexy chocolate back in school.”

  “Oh, stop that. Brandon never made an advance on me. If anything, I was the first person he would come to about homework assignments. We studied together and that’s about it. I didn’t fit the mold of the perky blonde he was used to being with.”

  Kimi stood up, shaking her head. “I think you’re wrong, honey, and I promise I won’t say ‘I told you’ so when that man swoops in here and knocks you head over heels.”

  CHAPTER 5

  C ambria stayed at work much later than usual. She didn’t have a relationship to go home to, so she went after her dream job. She dove in head and heart first, letting go of any other passions.

  The thought of Brandon in class with her working just as hard for the same thing, made her smile. She bet he was great at his job, but didn’t want to think of him as her competition. They had been friends, good friends. She’d sat back and watched him date other women and listened to him tell her about his dates. While she wished it was her…and really didn’t want to think about it now. It had been pathetic to pine away after a man who only saw her as a friend.

  She’d moved on. At least she thought she had, until she saw Brandon at that New Year’s Eve party and everything she thought was left in her past came creeping up to tap her on the shoulder.

  Her office phone buzzed on the desk top. She had a few more things to research tonight to be prepared for work tomorrow. She ignored the call the first time, but when it promptly started ringing again, she looked at the phone then at her watch. It’s 10:00 pm… Who would be calling her work phone at this hour? It couldn’t be him. Kimi said she gave him her cell phone. Why did her mind have to immediately go to him? Ugh, she was falling into his trap again. She answered the phone.

  “Miss Loman?” She did not recognize the voice on the other end.

  “Yes?”

  “This is Henry with building security. Brandon McKay is here to see you. It is really late, ma’am, is it okay to send him up?”

  Her mouth dropped open and her heart skipped a beat. My hair…my makeup. God, I’ve been working all day, I must look like shit.

  She stood up and looked at herself on the small wall mirror behind her desk. Her makeup needed touched up.

  “Miss Loman, are you still there?”

  “Yes, sure, please send him up. He is a friend and colleague from a different office,” she lied.

  “Very well, ma’am. He is on his way, up.”

  What am I doing? She clicked the phone back on its receiver. She let her hair out of the ponytail, running her fingers through the mess, but it didn’t work. She reached for her purse for a brush to smooth out the tangles. She grabbed her compact, brushing it over her nose, chin and forehead to hide the shine. Dabbing a touch of tinted gloss over her lips, she looked at herself in the mirror again. This is as good as it’s going to get at ten o’clock at night.

  They’d stayed in the coed dorms in college. How many times had he seen her in flannel PJ bottoms, T-shirts, ponytails and sans makeup? But for some reason, tonight, she felt the need to feel like a beauty queen.

  She slipped into her high heels and took off her suit jacket. The form fitting, coordinating dress hit her mid-thigh. She felt sexy, but didn’t know what he would think. She walked through the office to the front reception area and waited for the elevator to ding.

  He stepped off the elevator on the thirty-fifth floor, laid his suit jacket over his arm, and loosened his tie. He smiled when he saw her through the glass office door, and she worked to wipe away the goofy grin forming on her face. He looked fantastic, per usual. He tried to open the door, but it was locked. He waved and held up a bottle of champagne, smuggled in under his suit jacket. She raised a brow and pressed the intercom button at the reception desk. “What’s the occasion?”

  “I just landed a huge account. I couldn’t think of anyone I would rather celebrate with more than you, Cami.”

  “You seem like you had a few drinks already.”

  “I stopped at a bar on the way over and had a beer.”

  She raised both brows and crossed her arms, chuckling. “Seems like more than one to me.”

  “Okay, Mom, I confess the whole firm went out tonight. I had more than one. Are you going to let me in, or are we going to talk through the intercom all night?”

  She hit the door lock release on the intercom and watched him pull the door open. He looked around. “It’s very nice in here,” he commented, following her through the office.

  She walked the distance to her office and stepped in, turning to him as he entered behind her. She caught him checking out her ass and his gaze shot up to meet hers. She raised a brow, again, and he smiled.

  “Do you have any glasses?” he asked, shaking the bottle lightly.

  “We have plastic cups in the kitchen.”

  “That will work.”

  “I’ll go get a couple. Be right back.”

  He watched her walk away and tilted his head slightly to the side. Damn, she fills the hell out of that dress. He couldn’t help but wonder how she would look without it on.

  The untouchable Cambria Loman. Not like all the other girls in school willing to take off their clothes as soon as he mentioned it. Not Cambria. She was classy, something he would have to work for, something he had been working for, for a long time. He couldn’t believe he ran into her at that party. She looked great. Her hair was so different now than the last time he saw her. It used to be in micro-braids and she wore it in a ponytail or piled on top of her head often. He could remember looking at her exposed neck. Her skin was the color of caramel, smooth and creamy. He wanted to nuzzle her neck. He could smell the subtle scent of coconut. She always smelled tropical when they studied together. Intoxicating. He had never been with a black woman before. He knew one he wanted to be with…Cambria.

  CHAPTER 6

  She roamed around the kitchen in her workplace whispering to herself like a crazy woman. “What are you doing, Cambria? Why would you even let him in the office? If your boss finds out, you will definitely be reprimanded. But, then again, Brandon is alone with you, in this office, looking like a wrapped up package of goodness...” She bit her bottom lip, opening closets, looking for plastic cups. She thought about being alone with him so many times since she met him; not just studying and being friends, but romantically alone and involved with him. She wondered how the contrast of their skin would look together when he closed his hands over her breasts. She closed her eyes, shaking the image from her mind. He made it perfectly clear, several times, his taste in women remained within his own race. They were merely friends. “Study buddies,” she mimicked. She ran a hand over her hair. She didn’t have the blonde hair and the blue eyes with the size two ass. “I am what I am, a beautiful black woman. Take it or leave it.” She growled.

  Snagging two plastic cups, she left the kitchen.

  He sat in her guest chair in her office. The champagne remained unopened on her desk. “So is that bottle chilled?” She cleared her throat, and entered her office.

  “I bought it on the way over here. It was chilled when I bought it,” he said, looking up at her. He smiled and his green eyes shined, just like she remembered.

  “What made you come over here?” She turned away before she got lost again, in everything Brandon.

  “You didn’t call me, Cami. I wanted to see you.”

  “How did you know I would still be at the office?”

  “Kimi said you often work late. I took my chances.”

  She sat in her seat
on the other side of the desk from him, where she thought it might be safer. He stood up and she jumped, slightly. He frowned.

  “I’m not going to hurt you Cami.”

  “I-I don’t think that you would.”

  “So why are so jumpy around me?”

  Shit, he noticed. “I have no idea what you are talking about,” she denied.

  She ran a sweaty palm up and down over her stocking-covered thigh, watching him work the cork on the champagne. She jumped from her seat when the cork popped. He laughed.

  “That is what I’m talking about.”

  “I’m fine,” she said, watching him, not able to take a breath as he came around the desk closer to her. She was completely losing it and he noticed her every move. He reached out and took one of the plastic cups from her hand.

  T heir fingers touched when he took the glass from her and he saw it—quick, fleeting. She tried to hide it, but it was right there in her eyes. He saw the attraction, the lust. He cleared his throat, poured her champagne, and handed it back to her. When she reached for it, he held onto it, until she looked up at him.

  “What are you doing?”

  Her eyes are gorgeous. Doe-like, dark brown, framed by long doll-like lashes. She didn’t wear much makeup, but she didn’t need it.

  He smiled at her. “I wanted you to look at me. You’ve been looking at your feet since I walked through the door. I don’t understand why I am making you so nervous. It wasn’t like this between us when we were at school, Cam.”

  Making sure to keep eye contact with him, she took the cup from his grasp. She sipped from the cup and walked past him to the window. “I have no idea what you are talking about, Brandon.”