“I need this.” He grunted, each word accompanying a thrust.
“Daniel.” Reese sighed, her toes curling as she felt herself climbing laboriously towards a climax.
Daniel drew his frame away from her and when she looked at him, that fire was once again in his eyes. She remembered what she had seen in him that very first night at Per Se. For it wasn't his thousand dollar suit. It wasn't his nearly reflective tie or his cufflinks which were so bright, they could flag down a plane. It was those eyes and the beautiful fiery confidence behind them. And she knew, that the real Daniel; the Daniel she had fallen for, had not gone anywhere. This was him right here. His thrusts grew more desperate, the intensity reverberating through her entire body until she felt his seed inside of her.
The two of them layed there in the center of their living room feeling cleansed and calm.
Chapter 19
Reese searched for the broom over the sound of the shower running. After their impromptu bout of intimacy, she was finally able to convince him to take a shower. She checked the pantry and the coat closet, and yet, still couldn't find it. A smile played at the corner of her lips as she heard the sound of Daniel's out of tune singing. With a sigh, she pulled the door to the laundry room open.
Luckily for her she spotted the broom leaning against the wall right next to the washing machine. As her fingers clasped it, the image of Daniel, his eyes intent and full of life, came to mind. Her heart swelled at this and at the fact that he was letting her see him like this; that he was letting her in. “Well, he doesn't even really have a choice,” she muttered to herself as she made her way back to the living room and the pile of glass sitting next to their overturned couch.
She frowned at the way that the rancid wine began to stain the bottom of the broom. Once she had gathered it all up into a pile, she swept the gook into the dust pan, then went and threw it in the trash can. After this, she sifted through his drawers, grabbed the first rag she laid eyes on and used it to soak up the wine. It was as she was doing this; half naked, with her knees in a puddle of wine and her fingers clutching a small towel that just was not doing the job, that Daniel walked in on her.
She saw his house-shoe clad feet first, then, her eyes followed his bare legs all the way up to the hem of the satin bath robe that draped his perfect form. “What are you doing down there?” He asked.
Reese sifted her brain for the right answer , but eventually just settled with, “I-I'm taking care of this.”
Daniel scoffed. “I'll call someone tomorrow.”
“No, it's fine. I'm already down here.” Reese contested, but when she looked up again, she found that Daniel had extended a hand to her, a determined look on his face.
Reese sighed to herself, much too tired to engage in this game of will with him, and took his hand. “It's just hard for me to go to sleep knowing this is out here.”
Daniel raised her hand to his lips and planted a gentle kiss on it. “I'm sorry I did this to you.” He murmured, lifting her chin with his hand.
Reese held her breath and her stomach flipped as the words, “this is all your fault,” came to mind. Their sex had all but erased those insidious words from her mind, but, as her afterglow faded, the hurt in her heart was rapidly setting in. She shook her head, wrestling her chin out of his grip.
“No. I mean it.” He pressed.
She felt her eyes stinging again, promising tears within seconds. “I believe you.” She mumbled.
But Daniel wouldn't let her go. “Forgive me?” His eyes were wide and earnest.
Only, the problem was that he did not ask forgiveness out of regret, but out of guilt. “There's nothing to forgive.” She replied with a heavy voice as she was finally able to break his grip. She stalked into their bedroom, ignoring the fact that he was following her. She entered their room, stripped off what little clothes she was still wearing, then went to the bathroom, and stepped inside of his massive shower. Once she turned on the faucet, she turned back around and shut the door in Daniel's face.
But, he wasn't getting the message.
Reese's eyes flickered shut as she walked under the shower. “Daniel, we just had the best sex I have ever had with anyone in my life. Please, please don't ruin it.” she said as he yanked the door open and entered the shower behind her. She glanced over her shoulder at his figure in the corner of their shower, the steam only making him look more desirable. “Take your robe off or get out. I don't want you ruining it.”
With a smirk, he shrugged out of it and threw it over the top of the glass door.
Reese couldn't help but to drink in his perfect, naked body before turning back around.
“Can we have this conversation now?” He asked as he approached her.
Reese grabbed her Sweet Pea body wash and poured a generous amount onto her sponge. “I don't want to have this conversation now or ever.” She turned to face him. “I don't want to ask questions because I'm afraid of the answers. I don't want to make statements, because I'm afraid of how you'll react.”
By the time she had finished talking, he was three inches away from her. He pried the body wash out of her hands and gently lifted the sponge from her. “I don't want you to be afraid of me.” He whispered as he turned her around and began to lather her with the sponge.
She sighed to herself. “Daniel, I am afraid of you.” She snatched the sponge from him. “I'm terrified of you.” She could still hear his voice in her head reciting everything he had ever said that hurt her. She couldn't help but to drown in the weight of all of her suppressed emotion.
“It hurts me to hear you say that.” Daniel replied with a heavy voice.
Reese nodded, as her eyes began to leak hot tears. She turned around. “I have never felt so drawn to someone who makes me feel the way you do.”
“I don't understand what you're saying.” Daniel breathed as he placed two gentle hands on either one of her shoulders. He rubbed her upper arms.
“I'm saying I'm in love with you.”
Daniel's mouth hung slightly ajar as his eyes went wide at this.
Reese just kept talking. “I am so hopelessly bound to you. I just want to see you happy.” Her words came out as gasps of air as she was now fighting with her tears to get coherent sounds out. “And I want to know you inside out. I want to be a part of your life.”
“Reese-”
But she shook her head and kept going. “I mean really a part of your life. Not just living in your house-”
She would have kept going. There were a hundred things going through her mind that she could have let out, but Daniel cupped his hand over her mouth. “Reese. Just listen. You have always been a part of my life.”
Reese tried to shake herself free so that she could argue with him, but he placed his free hand against the back of her head, trapping her in his grip. She glowered at him, but stopped struggling.
“But this business is not my life. It's my life's work. The fruit of years and years of hard work, maybe, but not my life.” he slowly released his grip.
“I don't believe you.” Reese snapped.
“Well that's too bad, because I love you and I can't see a future without you and this is the only way I know how to love someone.” he replied.
A million butterflies launched into flight in the pit of Reese's stomach. His words swelled and filled her mind. “A future?” She repeated with a trembling voice.
“Yes.” He nodded, stepping under the warm shower of water with her. He held her face in both of his hands and pressed his lips against hers. She was overwhelmed by the strong torrents of water raining down on her, by the buckets of tears streaming down her face, and by Daniel, who was becoming a part of her very essence.
“This feels so right.” She whispered.
“I know I feel it too.” Daniel replied.
Reese giggled. “You're wet again.” She took the sponge out of his hands and lathered herself again. “You've already showered.” She added.
“Well, I like seeing yo
u like this.” He replied as he took the sponge from her yet again.
“What? Wet and naked?” Her voice was dry.
Daniel shrugged as he grabbed the bottle of body wash and poured more of it into the sponge. “This smells good.” he murmured as he ran it over her back and shoulders.
Reese sucked in a deep breath. “I know, but you're using so much of it.” She turned, placing her palms on his chest.
“Relax. I'll buy you another one.” He knelt in front of her, rubbing the sponge on her inner thigh.
Reese bit her lip. “Daniel.” She breathed.
Daniel looked up at her. “Hey.”
She met his gaze. “What?” but immediately regretted it, for when she stared down at him, she felt as if he was staring right past her eyes and into her soul.
“I hate seeing you cry.”
She plastered a fake smile on her face. “They're tears of joy, Daniel. You just professed your love to me.”
He shook his head, standing up. “No, they're not.”
Reese bent her head, realizing that she couldn't put it off any longer. “I believed what you said earlier.”
Daniel scoffed. “You know I didn't mean it.”
Reese stared straight into his eyes. “Yes, you did.” She pressed.
He stepped away from her, shaking his head, his eyes turning red, and started pacing the length of the shower, but she kept going anyway. “I believed it when you said it and I still believe it now.”
“Why?” He demanded.
“Because you're right.” Reese replied, raising her voice. “It is my fault. You lost all that money because you came after me. If I had never happened, you'd still have a company. You wouldn't be broke.”
Daniel pounced on her, crossing the length of his shower in one stride, and grasped her shoulders. “I am not completely broke. I have some money that can hold us over until we figure this out.”
“Us?” Reese breathed. “We?”
“Yes, we.” He continued. “And it's not your fault. You didn't do anything. I made that decision of my own accord... and, I would do it again.”
“You would?” She asked, her chest tightening at what he just said.
He nodded. “A hundred times over.”
Reese pulled him under the shower with her, and wrapped her arms around him. “I love you.” She murmured.
“Me too.”
Chapter 20
Reese yanked at the heavy wooden doors of Per Se and groaned when, with a thump, they refused to open. She sighed to herself and knocked on the door, cupping her hand over her eyes and pressing it against the glass. To her annoyance, her manager, Frank took his time, reluctantly putting his calculator and pen down, lifting himself from the chair behind the hostess stand and slugging his way to the door. Reese glowered at him as he opened the door.
“Oh, it's you. What a surprise.” he groaned as he held the door open. He shut it behind her as soon as she had crossed the threshold.
Reese rolled her eyes as she followed him to the hostess stand. She ran her fingers through her thick hair, which was rapidly frizzing up due to the long day she had already had, then leaned over the counter. “It's only been like a week.”
Frank feigned nonchalance. “1 week is a long time for a waitress.”
She glowered at him. It annoyed her that people were always forgetting that she wasn't just a waitress. “I'll be fine.”
He held what looked like a sales report up to the light like it was a dollar bill he was investigating for fraud, then shifted his gaze back to her. “It was a particularly good week. Maria made $600.”
Reese pursed her lips. “If you're trying to make me remorseful by telling me what Maria made, it's not going to work.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Because you don't need the money?”
Her stomach churned with agitation. She loved Frank to death, but the last thing she needed was him judging her over the time that she took off from work. It would have been different if he were willing to fire her for taking a week off from work, but he clearly wasn't. So this conversation was nothing more than an annoying waste of time. “Because the stock market could crash again and Maria would still make $600 a week.” Reese argued.
Frank let out a dry laugh that echoed throughout the empty restaurant. “I don't understand why you're getting so mad at me. I was just asking a question.”
Reese cocked her head to one side. “Oh were you? Because I have yet to hear the actual question behind your unfair assumptions.”
Frank dropped his pen, leaned back in his chair and stared up at her; his arms crossed and a blank look in his eye. “I don't know what kind of day you've had, but I am not about to become your punching bag.” His voice came out sharp as knife.
Reese flinched at this, her face instantly flushing as she had suddenly become the deer in headlights. She opened her mouth twice with half a response prepared, but, in the end, couldn't bring herself to say anything. So she just glowered at him, frustrated at all the thoughts that she knew were going through his head about her.
Everywhere she looked, there were people standing around with a million thoughts about her going through their minds. No doubt, he knew about her and Daniel, and, no doubt he thought that her absence in the last week had to do with him. However, she couldn't just go around defending herself from accusations that hadn't actually been verbally expressed yet. She would look neurotic. And, what's more, this was her boss. He could think whatever he wanted to think about her and she couldn't do a thing about it. She tried in vain to swallow the lump in her throat. “I'm gonna go do my side work.” she muttered.
“Yeah, you do that.” Frank replied as he uncrossed his arms and returned to whatever he had been working on before she had arrived.
She snatched up her apron and waitress book and scurried down the back hall and into the harshly lit kitchen. She was pleased to find that standing at the end of the line was Maria, who had just drastically cut her hair, reducing it to a length that just barely reached her chin, and colored it a vibrant red color.
Reese practically skipped over to her. “New hair?” She asked as she ran her fingers through it.
A shrill laugh escaped from Maria's lips as she ducked theatrically out of the way. She then sifted her fingers through Reese's hair in much the same fashion.
Reese scoffed. “Can you not?” She took three big steps back away from her and raised both of her hands to her head, trying her best to undo whatever disaster Maria had just caused.
“Can you not?” she replied.
Reese smirked. “You got new hair. That's practically a free pass.”
“Not in my world honey.” She returned her attention to the lemons she was slicing. “Come help me with this. There are like ten thousand lemons here.”
“What made you chop it all off anyways?” Reese asked as she tied her apron, slipped on two gloves and dug in to the whole lemon-slicing event.
Maria shrugged. “I don't know, girl.”
Reese giggled. “What do you mean, you don't know.”
“I mean, I just felt like I needed some kind of change, you know?” She shot her an earnest stare.
Reese shook her head, “No, Maria. Honestly, I don't know. You used to have the longest, thickest hair I had ever seen on a human before.”
“Well, 'long, thick,' hair hasn't helped me find a man.”
Reese stopped cutting and turned towards her. She took in her clear skin, her huge, almond-shaped eyes, her perfect frame and shook her head. “There's more to you than your hair.”
Maria scoffed.
“No. I'm serious.” Reese pressed. “There's your eyes and your skin and your body... oh and your personality too. Can't forget that one.” She continued, her voice dry and sarcastic.
“You make it sound like men should just be flocking to me.” Maria mumbled.
“Well, they should. You're an amazing person.” Reese replied.
Marie shook her head. “I just, don't know how you did it.”
“Did what?”
Maria dropped her knife and turned a sharp, piercing gaze at Reese. “Got Daniel? Or anyone like him, for that matter. It's like he just fell into your lap.”
Reese raised an eyebrow. True, Daniel had fallen into her lap, but so had his problems and his world and the confusing situation of being stuck between the haves and have nots. True, she never could have seen Daniel coming, but, at the same time, he had made her doubt herself in ways she hadn't even realized were possible. “Yeah, well be careful what you wish for.” She muttered dryly.
“Right because wearing a 32-karot gold necklace is such a burden to you. Oh Reese, I pity you for having to carry around all of that worth all the time.” Maria retorted.
Reese's jaw dropped at the mention of Daniel's Christmas present, which she had worn to work one time, and taken off as soon as Frank said something about it. In fact, there were a lot of things; rings, earrings, necklaces... and more subtle things like Broadway tickets and stories of upper east-side parties, that she found herself having to hide from the people she was never ashamed to be completely honest around, like Frank and Maria. “Maria!” she cried.
“I don't know why it was you! Of all the people, of all the waitresses, of all the girls.... it was you.” Maria's voice came out harsh and broken.
Reese stared wide-eyed at the sunken face of her friend, who usually had so much confidence, so much life in her. “Maria, what's wrong with you?”
Maria snatched her gaze away from Reese and returned it to the lemons. Without a word in response to Reese's very forthright question, she resumed the slicing, her cheeks trembling with the rigid motions of her knife. “Nothing. I just-” She stopped.
Reese ducked, taking a step closer to Maria so that she could hear her better. “Just?” She egged her on, trying her best to sound as welcoming and non-judgmental as possible.
Maria released a long and painful sigh as she continued with, “I've been on tinder and-”
City Vibes - Complete Series (BWWM Interracial Billionaire Romance) Page 9