Page 16 of A Grinchmas Delight

Maia answers on the first ring. “Spill. Now!” she demands.

I do just that. I tell her how the THD has been tormenting me and about the moment we had under the stairwell, about him getting drunk and everything that’s happened since I last talked to her.

“You had amoment?!” She squeaks the last word.

“I don’t know what it was. But it was fucking hot and it shouldn’t have been.”

“Bestie! I thought we hated him. We do hate him, right?”

I sigh. “Right.” But even as I say the word, I know that it’s a lie, at least in some form or fashion. You can’t hate someone that elicits these types of feelings, can you? My brain is a mess of mush by the time I pull into my driveway.

Reese Piecie greets me at the front door as if I weren’t here a few hours earlier snuggling with her and watching Christmas movies. I smile and give her pets as she wags her tail standing on the arm of the couch. She stands on her hind legs and nuzzles her face beneath my chin, my sweet snuggly girl.

I forget about the war going on inside of my mind as I change clothes and crawl back into bed. I press play for the last twenty minutes of the movie I was watching and doze off before it’s over.

The morning comes quickly, and it takes everything in me not to snooze my alarm. I shower and half-ass blow dry my hair, pulling it into a clip for the day. I put on a small bit of makeup, some eyeliner and mascara and a tinted chapstick so that I look presentable. I opt to wear a grey sweater dress with a pair of black leggings and boots. It’s snowing outside and Reese hates the snow even more than I do. She takes forever as I yell for her to hurry up from the porch.

She comes barreling inside, shivering and shaking off snow on her way through the door. Brat. I quickly mop the melted snow and grab a towel to dry off her tiny paws. I take off her sweater and toss it into the washing machine by the back door before heading out to work.

My stomach is in knots as I drive to the office. I don’t know how Zane is going to be today. Is he going to be angry that he was drunk and take it out on me? Is he going to ignore me? Do I even care? Yes. That was rhetorical. I do care. I don’t know why I want his approval, or attention, or whatever it is that I find myself longing for. But, I want it more than almost anything.

Maybe I should just suggest we have a hate-fuck session and get it out of our system. No. That’s ridiculous. I shake my head as if that will shake the thought from my mind, but it’s too late. That image is seared into my brain. The fantasy of Zane bending me over his desk flutters through my mind like a butterflythrough a garden. I’m hyper-fixated on the scene that is ever-changing. In my mind, we go from me being bent over to me riding him in his office chair. I clench my thighs together tightly, instantly wet for him. I try and escape fantasy land in my mind, but it has me in a chokehold. I want his body so bad. I want to feel him beneath me, powerless as I make him feel things he didn’t know he could feel.

I sit in my parking spot in the parking lot at work and try and control my emotions. Is sexual arousal an emotion? I take a deep breath and exit my car, shutting the door behind me a little harder than normal. I trudge through the snow and am freezing by the time I sit down at my desk. I turn on the small heater at my feet and put my hands down closer to it to warm them before getting my day started.

I hide away in my office all day, nervous as to how seeing Zane is going to go. I’m so caught up in focusing on my work that I worked through lunch and didn’t realize it. It isn’t until almost three o’clock that I notice I’m starving. I had so much to finalize for our marketing campaign for this month that I forgot about everything, which worked out well since now I have a knot in my stomach all over again.

I open my office door and peek out, like a teenager trying to sneak out of her parents house and not get caught. It’s a little ridiculous, if we’re being honest.

The coast is clear and I opt to take the back way out, to avoid running into anyone coming in the front entrance. I pull open the door to the stairwell and walk down the stairs gently. I’m almost safe when the door at the bottom of the stairs opens and it’s Zane walking through the door. His eyes lock on mine, stopping me in my tracks.

We stare at each other for a moment in silence, both of us standing right where we were when we locked eyes. Neither of us moving toward the other. I break the eye contact and walk therest of the way down the stairs. Zane is standing at the foot of the stairs and doesn’t move when I stop on the bottom step.

The air is charged with electricity, and I swear we could create our own electrical storm.

“Avoiding people?” I ask.

“Are you?”

I shrug. “I’m fond of the stairwell.”

His eyes darken at my words and he steps closer to me.

“So am I,” he whispers.

Without warning, he grabs me by the throat and kisses me. I moan at the feel of his hand around my neck and his lips on mine. They’re so soft and gentle as our kiss deepens. Our tongues dance together, and he lifts me by the waist. I wrap my legs around him and my hands fist in his hair. He walks us underneath the stairwell, back in the same spot from yesterday.

Zane pins me against the wall, his body weight holding me in place. He grips either side of my face, kissing me like I’m the only thing he’s ever needed in his life.

He breaks our kiss, trailing kisses down my jaw, to my neck.

“I’ve been wanting to do this since the fucking day I met you,” he whispers, flicking his tongue across my neck then sucking it gently.

I exhale in a pant beneath his touch, aching for him.

“You hate me,” I moan softly. It isn’t a question as much as it is a statement.

He grabs the collar of my dress and pulls it to the side, exposing my collarbone and shoulder to him. He nips at my shoulder near my neck.

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