by Amari, Nina
Mindy's eyes were smoldering full desire as she looked up at him. "How 'bout I give you," she purred in her sultry sex kitten voice as she traced the outline of his lips with her carroty orange fingertip, "a little morning massage and we--" Her eyes suddenly darted toward the bedroom hall, as her fingers poised and drew away from his face.
She smoothed back her honey-colored highlights to their most glorious luster. While her fishnet stockings tongued, I'm easy. Come and take me.
"Who's she?" Mindy called over his broad shoulders.
Mindy's eyes were wide as she looked behind him and sharpened her easy smile. Obviously, surprise had frozen her in place at his doorstep as it took her a minute to focus her eyes on the woman slinked in a silky robe to her hips.
The dimness had masked Danielle's beauty until she flipped the light on, "Roman--" Danielle paused. Stunned by the woman's presence, she clutched her robe to her chest gingerly backing toward the hall back to the bedroom.
Roman's eyes darted from the bottle-blonde to Danielle's svelte poise like a beautiful opalescent angel. The way the fading moonlight danced across the open rafters, radiating her dreamy bronze afterglow, caressing its glimmer from her curvy hips to her toes.
Her hair was just as luscious as the day before, riding down her bosom in soft, silky loose curls. He'd only vision her naked sultriness swelling his desire, undulating his pearlescent passion.
Roman was still intensely focused on Danielle. He couldn't take his eyes off her when she'd paused at the foot of the hallway. She'd looked sexy in pearl silk-- a fact he knew Mindy was all too quick to notice the shameless and brazen attempt to tantalize him.
Before he could think fast enough and get Mindy out of there, she burst past him in her sky-high heels to the living room with last year's designer handbag and matching patent leather boots repeating, "I said who is she?" Mindy froze as her eyes darted between the two of them.
"I don't owe you an explanation," he said, as frustration with himself and for her busting into the privacy of his quarters made the words sharpened. Mindy looked irritated. Her heel tapping was muted by the fir under toe as she daggered her eyes.
As he looked back and forth between the women, he waited for the backlash. It wasn't long for Roman to guess that Danielle would begin the sparring match.
Danielle folded her arms and asked the woman, "So... who are you, Roman's girlfriend?"
Circling closer, Mindy's eyes roved Danielle from head to toe, "I see your tastes have improved Roman." Mindy gave Roman a slanting glance as she cocked her brow and formed a slightly impish grin.
He moved back across the room to Danielle, "Ah... ladies." But before anything had a chance to stir, he cleared his throat-- heaving heavy dramatic sighs in between.
All of a sudden bursts of laughter clanged the rafters of the apartment. Both Danielle and Mindy watched him recover from the anticipated angst. Roman wouldn't have guessed he could've aroused a smile in Danielle, just like the one that melted his heart when he first saw her.
"I'm Mindy," the woman held a hand out to Danielle as she replied, "Nice to meet you, I'm Danielle."
"I'll just go back to--" Danielle spoke softly.
"No," Roman countered, "Don't leave. Mindy was just leaving." He daggered a look to Mindy that said-- Get out now. Roman peered at Mindy curiously. Intelligence lurked in those guileless blue eyes, but obviously she hadn't the shrewdness to realize the welcome mat was long overdue.
"Huh?" Mindy asked, startled. Her eyes widened before she even realized what had happened. The way she was leaning on the sofa arm perfectly poised one minute, and out the door the next.
"How'd you like the way her heels glided right off the carpet before I slammed the door behind her--" he gave Danielle a wry smile, as he moved toward her nearing the foot of the hall.
"I bet she's not the first you've had to--"
"What--"
"I mean, I bet you've got a slew of women, waiting to--"
"Waiting to what?" He asked as if he was startled to see her brazen audacity to label him. He couldn't stand the thought of being pegged a party boy. Although, life to him was just that-- It was one big party-- Nothing serious, as far as Roman was concerned. Not that his engine stayed in park. But, he just wasn't ready to turn his sports car into a van for four.
Roman raised his voice another octave, "What'd you mean," his voice demanding. "Waiting to what?" He repeated his question and her gaze flew to his scowling face.
Sounding impishly brusque she said, "You know. Rock your world. Quiver your bones." She'd barely stalled. She could feel herself mounting tenseness the longer she spoke.
But it had all flooded through her-- she'd barely had a chance to process the filter that didn't seem to be at all present. "You want to get all R-rated about it. Huh? You want to get all mature about it--fuse your balls with their naked flesh--mature about it."
He gasped in a choked voice, "Balls?" As he asked, "Is that you talking Danielle?" He drew a deep breath, "Did I hear you correctly?" Suddenly, his attention whipped to her silky tie belt that was inching its way open, gaping through to her shapely thigh--that already poised a figure--she needn't worry of any feminine opposition, as far as his eyes were concerned.
"Let's just say your little female friends would rather bite and lick their way up your--"
"Danielle!" He bolstered from his silken preoccupation, and was caught by her eyes again, hardly ever reaching a breath of resistance. He could still see the beauty in her, whether she was scowling.
Danielle wasn't surprised, that women were a magnet to his rich, sensual prowess, and his revved up engine gave exactly that impression-- attracting fast, faster, curvy, beautiful and expensive. But, he was no fool to fall for all that glitters. He wasn't a ticket to ride, nor would he ever be. Even if he were ready for love-- he'd know true love once he'd found it.
Danielle barely caught her breath as she went on, "I bet it's wild... purring on your pillow, all sorts of--"
Given the fact that Roman had a thing for a revved up, supercharged engine, it was no surprise he'd wanted his women the same way.
Roman came towards her, when she'd almost backed into the wall. He fought to focus on whatever was driving her utter impulse. Knowing it wouldn't help the situation; he'd just about had enough when his scowl suddenly rose to match the tonality in his voice. "Danielle, stop. Just stop it. That's enough!"
She'd simply looked at him. And then she continued in the next breath. "I bet you just love," she echoed, "a little late-night massage with a bucket of ice down your--"
He could feel her warm breath tickling the little hairs on his chest, all but starting to tantalize him, as if he hadn't had enough going on at the moment.
"Danielle!" He wiped the sweat off his brow. "You have such a vivid imagination-- animated is more like it." He swallowed at the look in her eyes, at the fact she was hell bent on rocking his nerves with sobering accusations.
"God, sometimes I just don’t get you." Roman paused, as he threaded his fingers through his hair with a long sigh, he went on, "Why must you probe such delicate matters of the heart."
"Roman. You're joking." There was a long pause when she'd simply stood with mockery still in her eyes. She was focused. She wasn't laughing, but clearly calibrating her frustration.
"Seriously," she asked, as her frustration suddenly shifted to a smirk when he'd tipped his head back and briefly closed his eyes. Her cheeks turned crimson to his silent response.
His gaze narrowed, as he'd tucked his hands deep into his jean pockets.
Danielle went on, as if he still hadn't had enough. "Yeah, I bet you would've been all over that had I not--"
A slight quake came over him as he'd remembered the way she'd looked at him when she thought he'd had another woman. And the fact she'd doubted him before.
His husky voice was a little gentler, softer in fact. When finally he'd said, "I care about you Danielle. Not her. Why won't you believe me," he replied, with perfect
honesty, as he drew his hands from his pockets.
Amazingly, after last night's brawled intrusion, the apartment was breathtakingly spotless. But, even still, after he'd defended her honor, she stood to question his motives. If Roman didn't know better, he'd wonder about his own qualms. But he knew himself too well-- his virtuous character and noble generosity to ever be anything but a more than ample suitor. Although in his mind, he'd wonder what it would take to please her.
Danielle all but considered the love she'd been denying herself far too long, to revisit that conversation from yesterday...
Danielle, there is more to life than your career. Love is what you've been denying yourself for far too long. Love can find you, if you keep an open mind to find it.
Her mind fell short of recalling the risk she'd had to take to love-- the vulnerability of heartbreak was all-consuming.
But, in spite of it all, she'd managed to pull herself down to earth the second she saw his hazel eyes sparkling daylight. She watched him try to grin, looking down at his wallet cupped to his pocket. Rays of sunlight had already started to pour into the apartment, prickling the height of his stubble chiseling a lightly hairy armor.
"You were going to pick up some coffees... for us... for me weren't you?" she asked. She moved closer towards him, as she looked straight up into his eyes. Her expression drew languid.
She put her hands on his chest before adding in a softer voice, "That's sweet but believe it or not, I don't think there's really anything going on between you two." Her voice held a spry note of hesitation. "But sometimes I wonder though, a man as handsomely gorgeous as you could have his pick of women. And I'm certain they lust after you like hungry animals. Sultry felines sashaying their sassy butts like voracious volcanoes wanting one thing-- and one thing only."
"Seriously, you know you could have any woman you want?" She told him in perfect honesty.
"But I don't--" Roman put his hand on her shoulder for a moment.
The next minute, he had trailed his hand down her arm, and grabbed her hand weaving his fingers in and out of hers. As he pulled her toward the sofa, his hand never left hers for a minute. All that mattered was assuring her, she had no cause for suspicion.
Crossing her legs, Roman's gaze flew to the silky tie belt rolling against her thigh with every beat of vibration her tongue thrust between breaths. She pushed her hair out of her face, as she felt his hand tighten around hers.
And shouldn't she have been feeling something other than caution stirring every cell in her? He'd barely had a chance to utter there was no one else in his life but her. But would she have even considered anything otherwise?
She'd had yet to cut through her gripes. Clearly, honesty hadn't completely poured outside of her. But, when would she have discovered how wrong she was-- well, at least when it'd came to his choice in women.
He could see that she was anxious again, when he'd felt her hand shaking in his, as it slowly glided from his. The instant she'd paused to take a deep breath, she said, "I've seen women, out of desperation that'll do anything to please a man. Whether they came from sordid pasts--none of us are perfect--but I just know their souls couldn't possibly spark the love they need in themselves."
Danielle quickened a vision of his syrupy flirtations and charming sophistication that would boost a girl off her feet and into his luring wiles in a split second. She could just imagine his suave persona chatting it up with a flock of gorgeous women just waiting to take off with him--women on parade like a floral bouquet of exotic delicacies.
The virtuousness of her beliefs, the look on her face said she'd meant every word. She couldn't keep making the same mistakes--when it came to her love life--after all his choices were a reflection of his soul. He listened as she went on.
"Sweetheart. Honey. Babe. Love. Are just words to a man that need to be earned. My mother didn’t raised a fool. Love Yourself, should be a national--no--a worldwide anthem," she said.
Roman understood why Danielle was fickle and effusively brooding over the sudden run-in with his ex or whatever he chose to call her.
How long would it take her to realize she'd been hiding from the one thing she'd wanted most? When would she finally begin to face herself and figure out exactly where she saw herself going, instead of allowing life to carry her along its tides?
If she hadn't still been crushed. If only the suffering still hadn't been so painful-- Especially now. But after some time alone, apart from a serious relationship, just maybe it was her chance to start anew. To start making some long overdue changes and rebuild what may never have been broken from the start.
But to do that would take time and patience, beginning with a man that had yet to abandon her side in her time of need. Plainly, she thought with a bridling tap of her foot. Maybe she'd needed a reprieve to regain her sense of self-- the part of her that she'd thought had gone missing those past years.
If only it could be that easy.
Danielle was going solo in her spirited stir when she added, "Not to sound pretentious or anything, but any man that would be worthy of my love will be the lucky one." Her words sent a quiver up his spine as he bit the corner of his lip.
The way Roman poised on the sofa arm sumptuously positioned made her raise an eyebrow. She had yet to resist his chiseled jaw line and perfectly fused afterglow.
Danielle couldn't believe anything was serious between the two of them. She couldn't have thought she interrupted what quite possibly was a lascivious encounter. But then she channeled his expression to memory as she realized there was clearly nothing standing between him and another woman-- unless another woman wasn't what he wanted.
Chapter Ten
The warmth of the day had begun to burst through the apartment, sucking a potted orchid that lay on a corner pedestal bone dry. The warmth felt good in the heart of winter, especially after the heart of their relationship had sunk to uncertain territory.
As orange, pink, and yellow hues mingled bright blue, suddenly the open rafters made the airy space more temperate. Moderated just enough that seemed to simmer her nerves to a stilled calm-- as golden rays flooded the glass from floor to ceiling. Seeping the scent of spiced Irish cream into a rich cocoa bean haven.
The decadent intoxication swathed her tongue in recollection as she paced the maple wood in thought. Suddenly, Danielle remembered quite vividly the one reason her nerves hadn't given out on her-- It's business, not personal.
She had to put Roman behind her. The more distance she put between him and herself-- the better. Or so she thought. She'd told herself a dozen times-- Don't mix business with pleasure. But her virtuous heart more often times than not, made the task nearly impossible in the presence of his allure. After all, she'd climbed the ladder in business with the same motto, and with the accompaniment of absolute professionalism.
Danielle knew she'd have to fight her feelings if she ever stood a chance of getting to the bottom of the situation at Finch Young. She still hadn't gotten used to the name-- instead of Finch Young and Prentiss, but she would soon learn to, just like everything else in her life. With sacrifice, focus and determination--she knew that anything was possible as long as she kept her mind on the goal.
Naturally, she'd still wanted to smack some sense back into her life. She'd still wanted her emptiness absolved. Obviously, she hadn't dismissed the wish she'd made in her office early Sunday morning, "I just want someone to love me."
Danielle reposed herself, slowly melting the vision of flirty provocative women like Mindy and Amanda. Women falling victim to their shameless lust to be loved-- mired and fool-hearted promiscuity. Years carousing an outcome less than, "I love you."
She drifted to the thought of realizing the courage she'd pretended to have for so long. Thinking her life was contentment. Money, career, all that glittered was not as it seemed in her cold and lonely bed.
She couldn't recall the last time she'd been the princess along the moat of the castle. Growing up seemed to vaporize her childl
ike innocence. But, as her lungs filled with an earthy blend of chocolate redolence, she was stunned to realize she'd been hiding from the dreams of her past.
Her knight in shining armor seemed to be just that now-- a dream of the past.
He'd made her kindle feelings she'd thought were gone. And for a long time, she'd convinced herself that those feelings didn't matter. That she didn't want them to matter anymore.
Danielle dwarfed the massive ceilings as she steadily paced the floors of the apartment, spanning its length cupping a swirling earthy surge of java. As she eased another sip radiating heat to her bare feet all the way through her bones, she'd ambled toward Roman nearing the living room.
Rather than chastise, she felt terribly awkward and said, "Maybe I should find some place else to stay. I've infringed upon you enough as it is, and I don't want to impose." The look on his face told her she hadn't expected what would come next.
His hands were anchored in his pockets when he walked over toward the antique desk nestled against the bookcase, pulling out a small slip of paper from his hip pocket.
"Europe." Roman spoke one word, followed by a series of alphanumeric digits.
He frisbeed the paper onto the desk before he opened a built-in compartment housing all sorts of impressive electronic gadgetry, and techie gadgets for deciphering networks, telecommunications… any and everything technical... Smooth silvery metal and black blared from the niches of the laddering compartments. It was what any high tech guru had at his fingertips…tricks of the trade.
His tricks of the trade were certain to mesmerize her, a woman of her astute caliber.
Roman sat at the upholstered bench and wiped his forehead pimpling tiny beads of sweat. "Have a seat," he gestured to the small bench where he was sitting. Danielle gulped a couple more sips, finishing off her coffee before she placed her cup on a side table and sashayed over towards him. She reached into the pocket of her robe for a peppermint and vehemently sucked on it-- just in case.
Her eyebrows rose in awe when she saw all of the equipment, just before she'd sat beside him. The cushion was ample. But she'd felt his shoulder nudge her torso more than a few times already, and it was making her weak. She'd hardly begun to stick to her motto and it hadn't even been an hour later.