She pursed her lips again as she glanced down at her now ever present notebook. Darting a quick motion upward, she tucked a fallen lock behind her ear. I felt my eyes drawn that motion, like a moth to a flame. It exposed the soft curve of her neck, a sight that I devoured greedily with my eyes as they grazed upward along her jaw line to settle on her face.
It was a measure of my obsession with her that I actually noticed something was different. I don't usually take the time to notice the appearance of others, something that forever disappointed Dana. But I noticed everything about Nakia and today what I saw made me nervous.
The usual bloom on her cheeks was absent. In its place I noticed a sallowness that had not been there before. There was a dark shadow underneath her deep brown eyes.
She looked…tired.
I blinked for a moment as I gazed at her. She was speaking, but her words were falling against my ears with little effect. I was too caught up in my own rising panic.
She looked exhausted, if I were being true to myself. She looked as exhausted as Dana had when she had finally broken and declared that she was leaving me for someone who wasn't going to work her to death.
Was I doing the same thing to Nakia?
"Good, good, let's make that happen." I waved my hand airily and she nodded and returned to her desk to do what it was I had presumably agreed to.
I still had no idea what was going on today. I was too busy worrying that I was repeating history all over again.
I swore then and there that I wasn't going to ruin Nakia the way I had ruined Dana. If things were going to be different, I had to be different.
Zach
¤ ¤ ¤
The next morning, I had decided it. I was going to give her the afternoon off as a surprise. Perhaps I might take her out for lunch at the restaurant below my hotel. If things went well...
I took another scalding gulp of coffee, and glanced at the clock. In the weeks we had been working together, I had never known Nakia to be in the office after me. And of course this morning I had gotten it into my head that I would come in early as well, just for the chance to be alone with her. I don't know what exactly I thought I would do once I got her alone. A million thoughts, none of them chaste, went racing through my brain but I carefully held them at bay. I was finding more and more that I enjoyed the simple act of spending time with her.
It would figure that today, of all days, she would come in late.
I tapped my pen at the edge of my desk. It wasn't that she was late, per se, it's just that she wasn't as early as she usually was. Briefly, the thought of her being in trouble flitted through my head, and I was startled to feel the rise of panic that the idea brought to my throat. I did want anything to happen to Nakia James. I wanted Nakia James to be happy, and healthy, and I really really wanted her in my bed.
I heard the ding of the elevator, and I quickly composed myself, pulling my feet off of my desk and arranging a few papers in front of me. I don't know why I was play-acting, it wasn't as if I needed to prove anything to her. She was just my intern, my secretary, a naïve little college student who just happened to have completely captivated me.
She burst into the office, wild eyed and flushed, breathless as usual, but this time it seemed desperate rather than charming. When she saw me behind my desk already, her mouth dropped open and her eyes went wide. I thought I saw a flash of fear, and I wondered what about me that she feared. The thought of her fearing me hurt almost as deeply as the idea of her in trouble.
"Good morning sir!" she recovered quickly.
Goddamn did I like it when she called me 'sir.'
"Hello Nakia, I hope you are well this morning."
She actually didn't look very well at all. Her normally gleaming skin had a sickly sheen to it, and her eyes shone feverishly. She was somehow both sallow and flushed at the same time and her hair hung around her face instead of up in her usual tidy up-do.
"Yes sir, and I was doing some research last night for you sir, and I found out that Sirius Brands has been moving into the Vietnamese market quite strenuously.…"
I held up my hands to ward off the stream of words that was now pouring from her mouth. Her voice was high and strained and she was teetering slightly on her low heels. Her eyes were strangely unfocused.
I was moving before I even registered something was going on. My body reacted to her being in danger on instinct. I leapt from my chair and caught her just as she was falling.
It took my brain several moments to catch up and my mouth to form the words. "Nakia!" I cried as she tumbled into my arms.
She made a wordless, strangled cry somewhere between a shout and a scream. Her head lolled against my chest as if it was too heavy for her to hold up any more, and her body folded into mine like she no longer had the strength to stand.
Carefully, I lowered the both of us to the floor and I cradled her as she shook her head from side to side trying to clear it
"Oh my God," she whispered. It came out more as a moan.
"Are you all right, should I call an ambulance?" My heart was thudding in my ears. Was she ill? Did she have a condition I didn't know about? I realized I had no idea either the answers to these questions and felt a strange guilt. I wanted her so badly yet I knew nothing about her.
"No, no," she moaned, pulling herself upward to a sit. "I'm okay, I don't know what that was all about." She tried to smile and give an airy laugh but it came out more like a wince.
"Stop!" I commanded imperiously.
I knew she would obey.
She immediately stopped trying to stand up and look at me expectantly.
"Nakia, you are exhausted. I've been working you way too hard. I have a tendency to do that to people I believe in, and I am so sorry." The words were tumbling out of my mouth faster than I could rein them in. This woman had me completely unnerved, and the feeling of her warm body sagging against mine was more than I could take. She had disarmed all of my normal defenses and I was now completely at her mercy. "You need to rest. Why don't you take the day off? In fact…" I saw my opening, "Why don't I take you out? You look like you could use some pampering."
I saw her staring at me in the most beguiling way, and suddenly the urge was too hard to hold back. "Nakia," I breathed as she leaned into me. "Oh my God…"
She was right there. She is right there leaning against me.
I am only a man. And I could no longer bear the temptation.
Kissing her was like an instinct that called me home. I was drawn to her as if I were a moth to a flame, and the heat that I found there her lips seared me just as mercilessly as the candle did the moth's wings. She made a small noise of surprise but did not draw away, and I took that as all the encouragement I needed to kiss her further. Suddenly my body was moving without any input from my brain. My hands snaked upwards, tangling themselves in the locks of her hair, pulling her closer so that I could kiss her more deeply. Her lips parted slightly, allowing me to pry her mouth open with an insistent thrust of my tongue, and begin in the new exploration of every inch of her hot little mouth.
I was on fire. I hadn't felt like this in years, possibly ever. I wanted to possess her; I wanted to have her for my own and no one else's forever and ever. In that moment I would have died for her. It was one hell of a kiss.
She made another noise, somewhere between a sigh and a moan, and I felt her small hand upon my skin. She traced it upward catching me just under the jaw, each finger digging slightly into my scalp as she threaded them through my hair. She pulled me closer, yanking slightly, my scalp livening with the electricity of her touch.
"Nakia," her name on my lips was like a moan, a low animal sound.
"Zach."
It was the first time I had ever heard my name from her mouth. It went through me like a lightning bolt and I heard a sound tear from my throat the likes of which I've never heard before. I rose quickly, lifting her with ease. She wrapped her legs around my waist as I moved to my desk. I needed to touch her mor
e.
I needed her under me.
She cupped my face as our lips found each other again, our tongues met and mingled, swirling around each other in a frantic dance. I was touching her everywhere, pulling her closer, her soft body fitting and molding itself completely around me, I could not hold her tight enough. I want to touch every inch of her soft, smooth, caramel skin.
My hands sought, and found the edge of her blouse, and when I strayed under to run my hands across her belly, she shied away.
"Nakia?"
She ducked her head down, hints of color flaming in her cheeks. "I'm sorry, it's just that… I don't think, I don't want you to touch me there."
I was confused. "Why?"
"It's not, it's just not very pretty." The words came tumbling out of her mouth like an avalanche and I swear I saw tears in her eyes.
I looked down to where my hands were. "You have got to be kidding me," I said.
She looked up at me but didn't say a word. I saw the soft glitter of tears in the corners her eyes.
And something inside of me broke wide open. "Nakia, you are, without a doubt, the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. If you have any doubts about this fact, I'm about to alleviate them. If you'd only let me."