Daniel

“No” I quickly spat out in disgust. Where the hell was all of this coming from? She sat behind her desk with a conflicted expression on her face. It almost looked as if she didn’t really want to do this; as if she was forcing herself to do it. Terri stared at the chestnut door behind me with her entrancing brown eyes and blinked rapidly. Her gaze seemed to set on anything but me. “Where is this even coming from? I’m not going anywhere.”

“Don’t question my motives” she gulped.

I took a step closer to her desk and crossed my arms over my chest. “Can you at least look at me and give me a good reason to you’re making such an idiotic decision?”

Terri’s forehead wrinkled as she finally looked me in the eyes. “Excuse me?!”

“You heard me” I paused. “God, you’re being such a coward right now.  I can’t believe this. Oh, you know what? Give me a honest-to-God reason to why you no longer want me to be your client. That’s all I need. “

Seconds passed before she said something. “I don’t have to give you any kind of justification for my actions, boy. Okay? I damn near own this fucking company and an entry-level model such as yourself is not going to come up in my office and act like he deserves some kind of reasoning.”

“Your words no longer hurt me, Terri. You’re not as hard as you want everyone to believe you are and you’re afraid that your little wall is being softened so what you do is ‘fire me’. You want me to disappear so that you can remain cold and heartless. That’s exactly why I refuse to go anywhere. I may be new to this whole world of yours, but sweetheart, I’m no fucking idiot. I can tell when people are afraid of something, and it’s written all over that beautiful face of yours.”

Terri began shaking her head, emotion beginning to well up in her eyes. “Look Daniel, just because I’ve become somewhat ‘nice’ to you doesn’t mean anything. You still don’t know a thing about me and I would greatly appreciate it if you stopped acting like you know who I am-“

“Please, just stop. Stop right there. I didn’t say I knew anything about you. Hell, I don’t even know how old you are. What I do know is that you’ve got a dark past. You’ve got something locked up inside of you begging to come out. No one could have this…this…” I began waving my hands around, trying to figure out a word that I could use to describe her personality, or lack thereof.  “unsympathetic, heartless, cruel persona you have going on. Unless something happened to them in the past.”

Right as she opened her mouth in response, there was a knock on the door. Since it was unlocked, a baldhead guy strutted in and shut the door behind him. Noticing the intense atmosphere, he looked between Terri and I, and finally reached his hand out for me to shake. “Alonzo Lopez” he said. “Daniel Jones, correct?”

“Yes…” I trailed off, not bothering to shake his manicured hand.

Alonzo went behind Terri and squeezed her shoulders, making her immediately tense up and let out a low groan. “I can’t believe you’re giving him up” he smirked. “Ah, let me shut up before you change your mind. My two girls are outside of your office waiting, as promised.”

“Get your hands off of me before I-“

The baldheaded man silenced her with a quick kiss on her right cheek. Terri grimaced and slapped him away. “Daniel” she sighed. “You have to sign this. Please.”

“Let me think about it.”

“You have a day” Terri quickly retorted. “You can assume whatever you want to assume about why I’m passing over your contract, but just know that I’m only doing what’s for the best of you.”

I flared my nostrils, shook my head, and exited the room as quickly as my body would allow. When I reached the lobby area, I noticed two skinny blondes chatting with each other on an ivory colored vintage-type sofa. They both simultaneously shot their heads up at me and flashed flirtatious smiles. My cheeks involuntarily burned at the attention I was getting.

“Hey!” one of them shouted. I turned around and lifted my eyebrows.

She began speaking with a strong French accent. “You’re the new guy, right?”

“Yes”

“My name’s Laetitia and this is Audrie” she pointed to her friend.

Right as I extended my hand out to shake their hands, the both of them got up and gave me kisses on the both of my cheeks. Must be some European thing. The two women were extremely attractive and they were definitely something I would have been drooling over a few years ago, but after taking a good look at them, I felt no attraction whatsoever. Laetitia had long wavy dirty blonde hair, striking greenish-grey eyes, and a slight gap between her front two teeth. Her body type was thin for the most part with a definite exception to her breasts. Those things had to be at least a double C or something. Audrie on the other hand was skinnier. The thing that stood out the most to me about her was her somewhat exotic look. Her hair, just like Latitia’s, was long blonde and wavy. Her eyes were big and blue. Her facial structure was strong and very angular, almost like mines; very high cheekbones. The fullness of her lips added to her interesting features. The two ladies had to be around 6’3” in the heels that they wore.

I nodded with a quaint smile and said “Nice to meet you”.

“Why are you so antsy?” Audrie asked in a British accent as she pulled me back towards them. “You should hang out with us tonight. There’s this club-“

“No thanks ladies. Thanks for the invitation.”

They gave me suspicious looks as I departed from them. I could feel their eyes burning into my back. Hanging out with them would be an adventure in the making, but all I could think about was getting answers to Terri’s sudden change in mind. I also felt jealousy towards the two women because their new boss would eventually be Terri if I didn’t figure out a way to get her to change her mind.

~*~*~*~

Instead of taking the bus back to my apartment, I decided to get dropped off at Laila’s and hoped to God that she’d be there. The doormen and receptionist were very familiar with me so it was no problem getting up to her place.

She answered the door with her usual bright smile. This time, red lipstick that complemented her hair coated her full lips and a tight red V-neck dress covered her body in all of the right places. “Are you gonna just stand out there and stare or come in?” she interrupted.

I nervously gulped and followed her into the apartment. Attempting to distract myself from provocatively ogling at her perfectly round ass, I asked her the question I’ve been dying to ask as soon as I saw her in that getup. “Date?”

“If you want to call a charity ball a date, then yes. Me and my money will be having a night full of romance and passion” Laila flashed me a smile and got back to getting herself ready.

I made myself comfortable by plopping down in her sofa. The thing felt like it was made out of memory foam and cushion made from the gods themselves. I rolled my eyes back into my head and tried to focus on relaxation.

“So what’s up? Everything alright? You look a bit stressed.”

“No…” I let out a low grunt. “Everything’s not okay. Terri wants me to sign with some dude named Alonzo.”

“What?!!!” Laila shrieked, forcing me to cover my ears and wince.

She ran over to where I was sitting and continued to scream. “You’re kidding right?!”

My hand combed through my shaggy hair out of frustration. “Nope. Apparently, I’m not good enough for her anymore. I don’t know what happened. First we’re cool with each other. I might even go as far as saying we became friends. Then this morning, she pulls this shit.”

“Oh no…” she began to panic. “No no no…”

“Please tell me you have some sort of plan that’ll keep me from signing that damn contract. Beggars can’t be choosers, but I don’t think I trust that Alonzo guy. He looks like he’s up to something.”

Laila ignored me as she lifted one of the sofa cushions up in search of her phone. She spotted it and dialed Terri’s number. It went straight to voicemail. Out of frustration, Laila dropped the phone on the floor. She began to nervously pace around the small living room. “Agh! I don’t know why she’s doing this. She knows all that’s at risk. Why Terri…”

My head shot back in forth, keeping up with her random movements. As if she had a sudden epiphany, Laila stopped in her tracks, smacked her palm against her forehead, and let her hand fall down her face. “Oh my God…really…?”

“Laila, what is it?” I anxiously asked.  

She looked at me with wide eyes. “I think she has feelings for you”

Terri

I sat in the darkness of my apartment with all kinds of bitterness shooting through my veins. All I kept thinking was “Did I just make the worst decision of my career?” I continuously thought this over and over again until I put myself in a funky mood. The look on Alonzo’s face was full of victory and arrogance. He knew that signing Daniel would be the highlight of his career and he didn’t even have to do much to get him. The sheer thought of Daniel being under him made me want to vomit. Clearly, I’m not in my right mind. I can see potential ten miles away and having Daniel as a client could do all kinds of things for me.

And that’s just it.

When I say all kinds of things…I mean all kinds of things. I guess that’s what scares the hell out of me. I haven’t felt so out of control of with my emotions since…well, since Jerome. Knowing that I was on the verge of being an emotional, weak mess, I felt the need to save myself and the only way to accomplish this would be to get that kid away from me as far as possible.  He brought shit out of me that I didn’t think anyone could. He confronted me without being full of fear or condescension. He started to force me to face my past without knowing a single thing about it.

I brought the glass of wine to my lips and smirked. With his young cute ass…

What business do I have thinking inappropriate thoughts about a college-aged young man? Barely into adulthood was what he was…

The attraction I had for him was something I could no longer deny. With his stupid tantalizing cologne, his stupid beautiful face, and his stupid humble personality, I found it harder each day not to be like Jocelyn’s straightforward ass and make a move on him.

An unexpected knock on the door tore me from my thoughts. Now who could that be? Laila? It wouldn’t be too much of a surprise, assuming that Daniel spilled the beans on the happenings of earlier today. I felt a wave of dizziness as I lifted myself out of the chair. It probably had something to do with the three glasses of wine I just gulped down.

Without looking through the peephole, I unlocked my front door and swung it open. It wasn’t Laila.

~*~*~*

The way the moonlight and soft breeze affected Daniel made me almost whimper. How dare he show up at my doorstep looking this sexy? I stumbled back, nearly dropping the glass of wine to the floor, and took in his appearance. He wasn’t dressed in his usual neutral way of dressing. Daniel had on an olive green Los Angeles Angels baseball shirt and a pair of dark form-fitting denim jeans. Black shoes peeped from under them.

“Are you gonna just stand there and stare or are you gonna let me in?” he half-smiled.

I looked at him for a few more seconds before shaking my head and giving the door a weak push, attempting to close it. Daniel blocked it and invited himself in. I was too tipsy for this shit. He walked past me and turned on a lamp that sat on the nearest coffee table. “Why are you sitting in the dark? We need to talk.”

“I don’t believe I formally invited you in…” I mumbled after closing the door behind him.

“Oh, so you’re not a happy drunk I take it?”

“I’m not drunk and you need to get the hell out of my apartment.”

“You don’t want me to leave. I mean, you literally just closed the door behind me.”

I clenched my teeth and furrowed my brows. “Get. Out.” Somewhere deep inside, I was telling myself that I didn’t really want him to leave. His presence made everything in my body go haywire.

“Terri, I’m not leaving until we settle things.”

“That’s what my office is for, you-“

“I didn’t come here to argue. I just want to have a civil conversation where we both lay things out on the table.”

I watched him as he lightly grasped my arm and motioned for me to take a seat on a barstool. He took the glass out of my hand and placed in on top of the countertop. “I think it’s safe to say that you’re done for the night” he softly chuckled.

“Please leave, Daniel” I practically whined. In that moment, I felt miserable and I looked a hot fucking mess. He was probably used to seeing me with my head up, radiating with confidence instead of having a bowed head and being damn near drunk. “You don’t need to see my like this.”

“Like what?” he asked in a whisper. “Yourself? You’re human…we all get caught up in our emotions.”

I ignored him and tried not to focus on the effect the aroma of his cologne and masculinity had on me. He moved closer. In between my legs this time. It was hard trying to stop his subtle movements because I wanted him to keep going. I felt like a damn high schooler.

“Terri” he bent down and inched closer to the side of my neck. I could feel the heat of his breath on my collarbone.

“Daniel, please…” This time I whimpered. By instinct, I grabbed ahold of the back of his shirt so my half-drunk ass wouldn’t fall back and embarrass myself.

Daniel turned his head so that his lips were barely touching my neck. When did we reach this point of intimacy?? “You continue to call me a kid…that’s all you do, Terri. Why?”

“Because that’s what you are!”

“Would a kid do this?”

“Wh-“ Before the rest of the word could come out of my mouth, I felt the warmness of his tongue on my collarbone make its way all the way up to the bottom of my left earlobe. He caught the lobe in between his lips and gave it a quick and gently tug. The grip I had on his shirt tightened as a suppressed moan escaped my mouth. Shit…

Right then, I didn’t care about a damn thing. I didn’t care about the agent/client thing. I didn’t care about the consequences. I just didn’t care. All I wanted was him. On top of me. Naked. I could feel myself getting wet and full of desire.  If he gave me that one look, it would all be over.

“I should go” Daniel groaned into my ear. “I didn’t come over here to do this.”

“Finish what you started!”

“No” he pushed himself away and avoided eye contact. I looked down and saw his very large “partner” standing at full attention, pressing against his jeans and begging to be set free. If only I could get some sort of sneak peak… “You have feelings for me, Terri. And that’s why you are trying to get me away from you.”

I grabbed his chin and forced him to look at me. “You sound too sure of yourself. What makes you think I would waste my time on something as juvenile as you?”

He clutched the hand I grabbed his chin with and forcefully moved it away. With his other hand, he lifted my chin up and began to place harder, tender kisses on my neck. My pussy immediately began to tremble as I moaned into the air again. Shit shit shit…

“You’re an open book, ya know?” I could feel him smiling into my neck. “You need affection but you get frightened when someone you share a mutual attraction to starts to give it to you. Why is that?”

“I don’t tell my business to strangers” I could hardly get out.

Daniel moved his sweet kisses up to my chin and stopped before they rested on my lips, which were ready and waiting. “You don’t tell your business to anybody. All of your thoughts, bad and good, are stored up in that brain of yours because you’re too chicken to let them out.”

I pushed him away from me and started to get frustrated.

“What? The truth is hard to hear, huh?”

“I wish you’d stop trying to get a read on me like you’re some psychic!” I yelled in a messy fit.  “You don’t know me and you’ll never know me…” I said in hopes to knock him down a few notches. “Whatever this is needs to stop. It’s inappropriate and I am way too old for you to even begin to handle.”

Within seconds, Daniel snatched me up and sat me on top of the counter. He moved the glass of wine over and pushed me down so that he remained standing between my legs. They were hanging off the countertop as my breath caught in my throat. He pushed the flimsy material of my silk nightshirt aside and began to place more hot kisses along the flatness of my toned stomach. The sound of him suckling and licking turned me on in ways I didn’t know existed. “You underestimate every aspect of me and I think it’s about time you learn your lesson” he huskily whispered against my bare skin.

He took my left hand into his and individually placed each of my fingers into his mouth. As he sucked on them, he looked me deep in the eyes. I could only imagine what else he could do with his mouth. All of this kissing that didn’t involve mouth-to-mouth was torture.

Kiss me already! I wanted to scream.

“I want you to know that I will not stop until I know all there is to know about you, Terri Lawson.”

Right as he bent down to join our lips together, I grabbed him by his shirt and kissed him as hard as my body would allow. The sensation of his soft, welcoming lips made my eyes roll to the back of their sockets. Daniel snatched my body up again and wrapped my legs around his muscular back. He had me pinned up against the nearest wall in no time. I hit it with a loud thud, almost thinking I put a dent or hole in it. A smug grin crossed his face as he took my mouth into his and began to passionately make love to my it. Daniel tasted of mints, like he prepared for this exact moment to happen. Either that, or he had award worthy dental health.

I could hardly keep up with him as he was completely devouring me. My arms were crossed around the back of his neck. If this kiss got any more intense, we’d end up in the bedroom for sure. The whole thing was messy. It was like we couldn’t control ourselves. Like we craved each other. He groaned. I sighed. Without thinking, I began lifting his shirt off. One by one, each of his set of abs became visible, making me bite my bottom lip in anticipation.

Daniel tightly wrapped one of his arms around my back, holding me closer to him while the hand of his other arm came up and cupped my face. “You have the face of an angel…” he murmured. “I want you so bad. You just don’t know…”

Before I could answer, the front door swung open and in walked Laila.

Daniel

The appearance of Laila made both Terri and I sober up. What we just did was something I only dreamt about. I for sure did not expect that to happen. I didn’t even know she fucking wanted me until Laila mentioned it.

Terri’s face immediately became flushed as she squirmed like a baby out of my arms. She pushed me aside and walked towards her best friend who had dropped a brown paper bag on the floor. Laila’s face was stuck in a surprised “O” formation. She tried to speak but nothing came out. I assumed, due to her casual entrance, that she was coming over to speak to Terri about what happened.

“Lay…girl, I can explain. It’s not what it looks like” Terri breathed out. She continued to walk over to Laila with her arms up, palms facing forward. Like she was about to get arrested or something.

Leaning against the wall, I sighed and watched the two ladies. “What do you mean it’s not what it looks like?” she smirked. “Damn. I’d thought you’d never get some. You have been a little on edge lately.”

I widened my eyes and tried not to snicker at her ridiculous reaction. Even if it was just a snippet of something, I made all sorts of assumptions about the little piece of information Laila shared about Terri’s love life. Had it truly been a that long since her last sexual encounter? When was the last time she’s been touched by a man? Could this be the reason to her permanent grouchiness? Mentally shrugging, I thought about how believable that would be. The women acted like a prude. Judging by the way she responded to my touches, it became obvious that she hasn’t been with a man in a long while. Maybe years…

“Oh please” Terri rolled her eyes. “Forget what you just saw okay? Will you do that for me?”

As if I weren’t standing in the room, Terri continued to go on about how insignificant this little rendezvous was to her and how she would never do it again. I watched her closely and noticed her quick breaths. She was panicking. Maybe she was scared.

Laila ignored her requests and walked over to me. “You alright?”

“Yeah” I awkwardly answered. The tension in the room was thicker than a cemented wall. “I think I’ll be leaving now.”

“That would be perfect!” Terri exclaimed. As I passed her, I affectionately rubbed my thumb across her cheek, gave her one last look, and scurried out of the apartment.

Terri

Laila squealed as loud as she could right as the door clicked closed. I looked at her and rolled my eyes once again. She needed to leave before I became even more emotionally vulnerable and told her everything that was on my mind.

Trying to change the subject and ease the tension, I looked her up and down and cocked my right brow up. “Where’d you go dressed like that?” I have always been a bit envious of the little curves she had going on.

Laila took a seat on the sofa and started to play with a brown leather pillow. “Charity Ball. I told you about it, remember?”

“No, I don’t. How did it go?”

“Don’t try to change the subject, Terri” she smirked. “Tell me everything that happened. From start to finish.”

“It’s not of your business” I sighed.

She pushed her bright red bottom lip out and pouted. “Oh c’mon. I’m your best friend and Daniel’s like our little protégé. I need to know what happened!”

“Laila…you know I don’t do this. You know I’m not into sharing my life. And I’m trying to be polite right now because my mind’s all fucked up…so-“

“Please?” she half whined, half begged. “Don’t shut me out, Ter. It’s obvious that you need to talk to someone about this. By now you should trust me. I love you too much to go out and talk shit about you. Girl, you know so much about me because I trust you. I trust you with knowing the fact that I’m not as innocent and angelic as my parents have been led into believing. You know all of my deepest and darkest secrets. From my first crush to when I walked in on my stepmother cheating on my dad.”

I looked into her pleading doe eyes and frowned. She was right; I couldn’t stay like this forever. It wasn’t healthy and after all of these years of trying to protect myself from getting hurt, I realized that I was only hurting myself. Everyone, including my friends and family from Sacramento, has given up on me. Everyone but Laila and I should appreciate her more than I have been. Expressing my feelings was something that didn’t come natural. I had a hard time trying to go into description about my thoughts. Over the years I’ve been contemplating getting a therapist but what could they tell me that I already didn’t know?  It wasn’t like I wasn’t aware of my behavior and how I’ve treated people. It was the burning fact that I couldn’t stop. Damaging people’s egos was something that brought a sick comfort to me.

Deep deep down, I knew that all I wanted was to be listened to and understood. I wanted to be nurtured. It’d be nice if someone could take care of me for once in a while. For someone to bring appreciation and the knowledge of my worth into a relationship with unconditional love would be my ideal affair.

My past wasn’t so dark that I should have justifiable reasons to why I treat everyone like shit, but apparently that didn’t matter to me. I was too far in; too deep. I needed someone to save me.

“Terri? Hellooo?” Laila waved her hand in front of face, carrying a confused expression. “Are you drunk?”

“No, Lay, I’m not drunk.”

She scooted over allowing me to take a seat beside her on the couch. I slid my arm around hers and cuddled closer to her. “Okay, now I know you’re drunk. You only do this when you-“

“Laila…I’m not drunk” I frustratingly groaned. “Maybe a little tipsy…but I’m sure as hell not drunk. I’m definitely going to remember everything in the morning. Unfortunately.”

She pulled me closer to her and smiled. “Aww, is this emotion that I’m seeing?”

“Shut up” I laughed. “I need to get some things off of my chest. Everything’s eating me up inside and if I don’t get it out I just might end up a mental hospital.”