“David… I thought you liked me?” I said, my voice small and vulnerable. I glanced up at him and away, pretending to be shy and embarrassed.
“I do. God knows, I want you so badly. But this isn’t right, Melanie.” David took another step closer to me.
Almost there. Just one more step, and I’ll have you.
“I just… You’re just,” I stammered. I pretended like I didn’t have the right words, but I knew exactly what to say.
“What?” David breathed, his own defenses dropping at my apparent shattered confidence and hurt expression.
“Oh, David.” I looked up to him imploringly. “I’m so sorry. You’re too good for me. I don’t deserve someone like you. I can’t even do this right!” I said emotionally, gesturing to him and me.
“No, don’t say that, Melanie. You’re all I’ve ever wanted to find in a woman. I just… can’t,” David said earnestly, trying to comfort me.
“You don’t want me.” I turned away from him and wiped the nonexistent tears away.
“Melanie, don’t be upset.” David’s concerned voice was growing husky again with concern and a desire to prove to me I was wrong, that he did want me.
Good, he was almost ready for round two.
David reached out and took me by the shoulders, turning me to face him. I stayed pressed against the cold steel door, my breathing growing heavy with desire and a deep-pitted craving for him was swelling in my lower abdomen almost to the bursting point.
He studied my face, his hands still on my shoulders, and I saw his own hunger fill his eyes again. I latched onto his eyes with mine and willed him to be mine. I saw his self-control begin to crack.
I seized my window, reached up slowly with my own hands, and placed them on his chest. Electricity seemed to dance between my palms and his chest and travel up my arms like liquid fire. It surged through my body, and it bowed my spine leaning me forward into him, and I cried out with the aching throb of fire as it raced through my body in a mock orgasm of what was to come. I could see he could feel it too, for he shuddered slightly and closed his eyes for a moment, fighting desperately to master himself.
I traced my hands along his chest and found his nipples hard and erect beneath his shirt. His eyes locked into mine with such determination. He was fighting me still. Fighting himself. Fighting to keep his self-control and long-bridled desires under control.
The confused war of emotions and desires I had invoked in him was slowly melting into an expression of pleading as I continued to trace my hands over his strong, muscular chest and, inch by inch, dropped them lower toward his waist.
He was almost broken. Almost mine. I saw the desire winning in his eyes and saw he was nearly ready to surrender to me.
You will by mine, David Abramson. Every inch of you. Even your soul.
My hands found the top of his dark-gray pants, the buckle of his black leather belt feeling like a barrier to what I was really after. David had staggered back a little, drawing his body away from mine as he clutched my hands, trying to stop them from searching any lower.
He looked imploringly into my face, seeking something I didn’t want to give him. Mercy.
“What’s wrong with you, Melanie? This isn’t like you. You’re not yourself,” he said, voice gone rough with the strain of his efforts to resist me.
“This is me,” I said, my voice low and uneven. “And you, David, are all I want.”
My lips were tingling at the thought of kissing him. His full, heart-shaped lips were moist, and I wanted to suck them and bite them and lick my way along his neck and nibble on his perfectly round earlobes.
I shuddered and leaned into him, his hands on my hands like iron shackles between us. I was purposefully off balance so if he let go or tried to reposition himself away from me, I would fall right over into him. I gave him this little bit of control, knowing it would only work in my favor no matter what he did.
“Melanie, please,” David pleaded. “I don’t want to take advantage of you. You’re not yourself. I can’t, in good conscience, let you do this.” His voice was strangled.
I fought against his locked hands on mine and pulled up on his neatly tucked and pressed dress shirt, yanking it out of his pants with one forceful tug. His hands slipping away from mine at my unexpected attack. I was thrown forward, still off balance and my body fell against him with a thump.
“Ah,” David said startled as my body assaulted him, and he stiffened so as not to fall.
“Wait,” he moaned his protest as my hands clambered around his body, seeking the back of his shirt. I wanted it free from his pants so my hands would also be free to feel the hot skin of his washboard stomach and the strong, muscled width of his back. I wanted to soak up the warmth of him like a lizard in the sun and bathe my body in his scent.
David staggered against my weight, and his hands went instinctively around my waist to steady me. His heart was beating so hard I could feel it against my chest, vibrating through me and making my body squeeze tight in places deep down low, my body telling me it was ready for him.
“David,” I moaned out his name and caressed my hands beneath the shirt along his back and up to the rippled swell of shoulder blades now under my hands. The tension of the muscles on his back seemed to melt slightly at my touch. His body was giving in to me; now, I needed him to fully let go and give in to me too.
“Please!” David said, this time with the heat of anger in his voice.
He seized my arms and shoved me, slamming me back up against opposite wall of the freezer. My back hit it with a loud thud, and all my breath left me. My head cracked against the steel, and I let out a small cry of pain.
He had pushed me harder than he meant to, and I could see the anger and then the fear flash across his face. Before he could speak or make any movement, I retaliated, grabbing his shirt with both of my hands. I yanked him forward with all my might. My strength was magnified like my senses.
He staggered forward, and I used his own unbalanced momentum to turn him and slam him into the wall where I had just been. Flipping us so I was now the one in control and my body was pressed against him once more. Trapping him. Dominating him. Forcing him.
Control. He had tried to gain control and assume the upper hand.
No. Not today. Today, I am the dominator. Today, I am in control.
I felt the bulge in the front of his pants growing into a hard mass against me, betraying him despite his protests, and I grabbed at his belt, yanking his hips into mine. He squirmed against me, gripping my shoulders to try and separate us, but I clung to him.
“Stop, fighting me,” I hissed at him.
“Melanie, this isn’t you. Please stop. I can’t do this. I can’t!” he said, panicked now.
“Oh, I assure you, you can,” I said, glancing at his lower body pressed against mine.
“No, I can’t. Please stop this,” he pleaded again, his voice cracking with desire and growing panic.
His panic meant he was losing the last of his self-control. Where there was panic, there was fear. And where there was fear, there was weakness. I understood fear well.
He wanted me. He wanted me so bad. His face was strained with his efforts to resist and the war between his body and his mind.
“I don’t want to take advantage of you, Melanie. You’ll despise me for it later. Please… Please just stop!” He dropped his head in defeat. His pleading made him sound exhausted and nearly broken.
I slowly released my grip from his belt, and he didn’t move away from me. He stood completely still and placid. He was almost fully surrendered. I slowly raised my hands to both sides of his face and lifted his head to look at me. His eyes held heat, hunger, and fear, and he searched my face beseechingly. I was still pressed against him, and I moved slowly, like a gently swaying dancer against his hips as I pressed his back the rest of the way against the wall.
“Kiss me, David,” I asked him, my voice gentle with a new angle of seduction.
He was almost broken. If h
e kissed me now out of his own power, he was mine.
“God, I want to. I want to so bad,” he whispered.
I saw what I thought to be the last of his self-control slip away from his face, and I saw what lay beneath. Passion. A wild, untamable, burning passion. It had been so hard for him to resist me this long. And I suddenly understood just how incredibly hard it had been for him to hide the depth of his feelings and desire from me the last few years we had worked together. He had been right too. He would have frightened me away. But not today.
And now, I had stripped him of the carefully constructed discipline he hid his passion and animal instincts behind. I had crashed through his self-control and exposed his deepest desires.
“Then kiss me,” I breathed back, resting my body gently against him, being as placid as he was to show I could be a reasonable master to him if he would only surrender to me fully.
David looked up away from my face and nearly cried out, “Jesus, help me!” It wasn’t a curse; it was a prayer of desperation.
I jerked at the mention of the name of Jesus.
No. No! David, don’t fight me! Don’t say that!
“We haven’t even had our first date yet, Melanie,” he said, licking his beautiful lips as he looked back down at me earnestly. “I haven’t even earned the right to kiss you yet, let alone treat you like this. This isn’t you. I won’t take advantage of you. You mean too much to me.” His face begged me to understand and asked me with his soul-filled eyes to please let him go.
David closed his eyes and said one more time in barely a whisper, “Jesus.”
Chivalry. Nobility. Honor. Respect. Goodness. Jesus— Jesus!
These words struck like thunder in my mind and throughout my body. I sucked in a breath and collapsed against him. I felt completely weakened as the illusion of power and domination I had tried to force over this good man seemed to squeeze and crush me on all sides, then was pulled out of me with a sharp jerk. The shame of what I had tried to do—and had wanted to do—rushed in in its place to drench me like ice-cold water, and I heard a loud gasp come out of me of shock and horror.
“Jesus, forgive me. Oh, God!” I whispered.
What had I done? Why? Oh, Lord. I am so sorry. I didn’t listen. Why didn’t I listen?
“You are your father’s daughter. You’re disgusting. You’re vial! You’re a rapist!” The harsh thoughts beat upon my mind.
Oh God!
“Melanie?” David asked as I struggled to suck in another breath. I felt as though I was being suffocated, and my upper body went rigid as my knees melted like wax beneath me. He gripped me and held me upright, my body shaking like I was doused in ice water.
“I…” I couldn’t finish.
What had I done?
It felt hard to breath, and I shuddered.
He drew me closer and held me in his arms, embracing me tightly against him as I searched his face. He was a good man, an honest man. He was a godly man. I had tried to rob him of his self-control and had sought to overcome him, to consume him, and to make him want for more and surrender it all to me. I had tried to steal from him his honorable intentions. To deceive him. To force him.
“I am so—so sorry.” I pushed out the words, managing a small voice. I was so ashamed. I felt so dirty. I felt like such a whore.
I looked down, and this time, real tears were welling up in my eyes and spilled over to run in streams down my face.
“I’m s-sorry,” I said again, the words breaking. “Pl-lease, forgive me—” my strangled voice constricting from the humiliation and self-loathing. I couldn’t speak another word.
David lifted my face now with one hand lightly embracing my chin and peered into my eyes. He was so close I could kiss him if I just raised myself up on my toes. But I was too ashamed to want him to now. I felt filthy. I had practically assaulted him.
“I want you, Melanie. I feel for you, a desire so great, so deep it could burn me up like fire, and I’d welcome it. But you,” he said gently as he repositioned his hands on either side of my face and cupped it gently between them, “are more precious to me than a fleeting moment of passion. And do you know what else? You’re worth every bit of the pain it causes me to resist you right now.”
“I’m sorry I caused you pain,” I said, tears flooding my vision. My heart was breaking for him and for what I had done. Had I destroyed any chance that someday we could be more?
“No,” David shook his head. “No, Melanie. You’re worth it. Every single bit of it. I just don’t want to screw this up. And I don’t want to take advantage of you. I’m not sure what’s wrong, but I know this, this isn’t you.”
I began to cry large, gulping sobs, unable to hold in the sorrow and heartbreak and all of the shame and self-disgust I felt. David gently pressed my face to his chest. He held me there with his arms wrapped back around me—strong, secure, and protective.
Safe.
I immediately felt the difference of being held by him like this versus what I had tried to create moments before. This was tender, pure, full of…love. Free of pressure and domination. It was about offering and freely giving. Not about taking, forcefulness or manipulation.
I began to weep harder, the shame, guilt, and all the emotions of the last few days pouring out of me like dirty oil being drained from an overworked engine.
“Shh. You’ll be all right,” David whispered softly in my ear.
“Please…forgive me,” I pleaded up at him.
He raised a hand and gently wiped the tears away from beneath my eyes while more rushed in to take their place. His other hand was still holding me tightly against him. I could feel his body was still accepting what he had been trying to convince it of—to hold back and to behave.
I felt him take in a deep breath as he placed his hand once again behind me, this time at the back of my head as I rested my face once more against his warm chest. It rose and fell with each breath he took as my body rested against him in the comfort of his arms. His body relaxed a little more, and I melted into him.
After a moment, I glanced upward at the face of this kind man. His eyes were moist with unshed tears of his own. They held pain and compassion within their depths as he looked into my eyes. Pain at seeing me cry and symbiotically feeling my suffering. It was as if he was living through everything I was pouring out and was guiding me through it like a lifeline or a lighthouse shining in a storm.
I clung to him and bit my lip to try and stop it from trembling. His eyes dropped to my lips and then back up to my eyes. There was heat in his eyes again, but this time, his self-control was once again firmly in place.
“Melanie,” he whispered my name, “you are so beautiful.”
His eyes bore into mine, and I felt my belly fill with butterflies. It felt so pure and clean compared to the lustful desires I had felt minutes ago that I smiled at the sensation, welcoming the tickling of the fluttery wings in my stomach.
Suddenly, I seemed to awaken fully, and it dawned on me I was being held in the strong warm embrace of David’s arms. I felt heat rush up my face to blush my cheeks a telltale red.
“Ah, yes,” David said quietly with an answering smile. “There she is.”
I lifted my hand, thinking I could feel the blush on my face and wasn’t disappointed. It was hot with embarrassment.
David reached up to grasp the hand I had raised to my face and covered it with his.
“I knew something was wrong. At first, I didn’t understand why you were coming on to me like that. But now, it’s so obvious. It wasn’t you. Now it is. The difference in your eyes alone is like flipping a switch,” he said knowingly. He understood more than I did at the moment. But I was grateful he seemed to accept and believe that a moment ago, I hadn’t been acting myself.
His eyes traced my face as if he was memorizing every detail and settled once more on my mouth.
“I do want to kiss you,” he confessed gently in almost a whisper. “May I?” he asked me, his voice growing rich with
his usual deep, masculine, yet boyish tone I loved to listen to so much.
His eyes found mine, and in that moment, I understood him. He knew I hadn’t been in full control of myself before, that something else was driving me. He would never touch me knowing I wasn’t completely myself and in control of my actions. Just like if I had been drunk, he would not have acted on my reckless behavior.
He had self-respect, and he likewise respected me. He wouldn’t let anyone use him, not even me, the one person he wanted more than anything else. He wanted me to want him in the right way. And now that I was myself, he was asking me if I wanted him.
Do I want him for him? Do I truly want David to kiss me?
“Yes,” I whispered.
David stood straighter and repositioned me in his arms just enough that I was still embraced against him and he could bend the rest of the way down to kiss me more comfortably. One hand was pressed into the small of my lower back while he held the back of my head with the other hand and entwined it through my free-flowing hair. I didn’t even remember taking out the ponytail. I didn’t even remember it falling free.
David slid his hand through my hair slowly, feeling the silkiness of it stream through his fingers like running water.
“You are…so beautiful, Melanie,” David whispered again as he leaned down slowly, his mouth hovered above mine for a moment, and my eyes closed, my face turned upward to him.
I felt the soft warmth of his lips brush mine as he began to lay his kiss on my lips.
“Bishop!” Frank’s voice boomed throughout the walk-in cooler and out into the kitchen hallway where he stood with his hands on his hips, making me jump and scurry away from David.
“What the hell are you two doing? I’ve got customers waiting out here. One’s asking for you by name, Bishop. Stop messing around back there!” Frank barked.
“Yes, sir,” I said, staggering back even farther. I looked up at David, who still only had eyes for me with longing and heat still burning in them.
Poor David, he has to feel sorely put out by now.
“David, get your butt moving, boy!” Frank bellowed even louder.
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