Page 38 of When Hearts Ignite

It wasn’t a fleeting impulse or desire.

It was a desperate need, a sharp craving.

I don’t kiss women. I don’t want the intimacy with any of them. But with her, I found myself hungry for it, the sudden urge flooring me. Even if she’d later curl her lips at the ugliness in my soul, I still wanted to lie bare at her feet.

I wanted desperately to taste those luscious, plump lips, to embed a part of her inside me and to leave a part of me inside her.

It took everything in me to stand still, to not act on this insane desire.

“Steven?”

Glancing up, I catch those inquisitive eyes on me once more. I smile and pull a chair up from the side of the cubicle. Yet another unofficial routine neither of us would admit to. Instead of retreating to my office to begin my workday, I sit with her in her little glass cubicle, surrounded by the peacefulness of the early morning hours, with only the warm glow of her desk lamp illuminating the space.

Wordlessly, like the other days, she takes out her toasted bagel slathered with peanut butter from a Ziploc bag and gives me half. I place the hot coffee I “happened” to have, the drink with brown sugar and oat milk, what she once told me she enjoys on another early morning, and we’d sit down and have breakfast together.

It feels intimate. Better than any dates I’ve been on in the past.

Energy sizzles between us, every cell in my body feeling alive, and I tether down the impulse to touch her, to smell her jasmine scent at the source.

Every day without fail. With both of us acting like each morning was an act of serendipity.

Steven and Grace, two “friends” sharing a meal in the dark.

But friends don’t dream about the taste of the other person’s lips.

Friends don’t jerk off in the morning shower, imagining her in there trembling as I drill my cock inside her. Friends don’t come while growling her name under his breath.

Emotions are liabilities, Steven.

The warnings are faded signs on a chain linked fence, yellowed with age and missing a corner. Trespassers couldn’t care less.

“Any plans for the weekend?” Her eyes glint with laughter as she asks me the same question each day. Like she’s completely invested in whether I have a life outside of work. Like she senses I’m dry drowning in front of everyone.

I swallow a bite of the bagel, which has grown soggy in her commute from home. One day, I’ll have fresh gourmet bagels delivered to her.

“No plans,” I tell her the same answer every morning. “Work and more work.”

My thoughts trail to TransAmerica once more. I want to start a defensive strategy now, but I need board approval. My gut tells me Voss will take their plans up a notch soon. My mind flits to Father, who sounded more exhausted when I spoke with him last night, and the ache resurfaces in my chest.

I should’ve stepped in sooner.

I wish I was the little boy again and I never went downstairs to search for him that night. Perhaps I’d be none the wiser, and his terse nods and deep grunts of approval would be enough.

Perhaps I wouldn’t feel so resentful and yearning for something I’d never receive.

“What are you thinking about?” she whispers.

“A little boy who got his hug stolen by a thief.”

The answer is nonsensical, and yet, an understanding dawns in her eyes. Seconds pass by, us staring at each other in relative silence, and I watch those beautiful eyes darken, a pulse fluttering at her throat.

“Maybe the thief needed that hug more than the little boy. Maybe what the little boy wanted wasn’t hugs, but something far more valuable,” she murmurs, her gaze never leaving mine.

A thickness forms in my throat and I’m rendered mute, wondering how she seems to know everything, even though I haven’t told her anything.

She understands.

She tucks a curl of hair behind her ear. “Maybe the little boy already had what his heart desired, but he just never saw it, because he was too focused on the missing hug. Tunnel vision happens to all of us.”

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