Page 39 of Rude Boss 2

“Where’s your car?” she asks.

“It’s right here,” I say, gesturing to it as we come to a stop.

“Ooh, shoot. You drove the Ferrari today. I don’t think I’ve seen this one.”

“I have others you haven’t seen. I need to get you over to the house one day so you can see them all.”

“To your house? Yeah, right.”

“I’m not following.”

She says, “There’s a rumor going around the office that you don’t allow women at your house—only at yourcondo.”

“You shouldn’t believe everything you hear, Tessie.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Really.” I take a step closer to her to close the distance between us.

“Then answer this—do you own a condo in Panama City Beach?”

“I do,” I respond, then stroke the side of her face with my index finger. She closes her eyes to my sheer satisfaction and opens them to find that I’ve drifted even closer. I concentrate on lips I desperately need to touch. To kiss. But I admire her first – how her curly, black hair tumbles around a most precious face and how her eyes – those deep dark brown eyes – take me in rapture to their abyss – into a place only I could go with her. A place meant for us. A place we were destined to discover again.

I love this woman.

Probably more than I should.

More than humanly possible.

Love her more than I could ever love myself.

She is my forever.

She needs to know who I am.

Soon.

But, not now. Not at this moment. Nothing will ruin this but she must know. Her father told me that she’s waiting on me – onStewart– for her happily ever after. I desperately want to give that to her.

Licking my lips, I lower them to hers, kissing the goodness that is her. Tasting thereallife I could never grasp until now. Forget the money, cars, the houses, the yacht.She’smy life – everything I’ll ever need. I can confirm that by the nerve endings in my body creating little explosions in my chest before they ignite and set me ablaze. All of it electrocutes me – shocks me into submission. With her, I’m not Essex DePaul, the powerhouse. She reduces me to the simplest of men, brings me to my knees and reminds me that men, no matter how powerful they are – are nothing without that queen standing behind them. Quintessa is my queen.

I deepen the kiss and lose my senses in the recesses of her mouth. I kiss her for all the times I couldn’t before, taking my time sending soft strokes to every corner of her mouth, leaving nothing untouched. I can already envision our lives together like I’ve visioned so many times before. So many times…

I don’t remember us moving since it felt like I could temporarily feel the earth’s rotation, but somehow I managed to walk her backward until she was against my car, but that didn’t make me want to stop kissing her – it only drove me madder. Gave me a reason to kiss her harder, so that’s what I do. I summon all the passion that has been building in me over the years and give it to her. I kiss her for all the sleepless nights when my body ached for her – when I dreamed of the day we’d find each other again.

Feeling her desire to breathe coupled with my urge to open my eyes and see the expression on her face, I release her lips and with my forehead pressed to hers, I say, “I mean it. I want you to take the rest of the week off. Okay.”

“Okay. And thank you for everything.”

“You’re welcome, my sweet angel.”

She frowns.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“Uh…um…n-nothing,” she says, fumbling over her words. “You just reminded me of someone.”

“Oh.”I have a feeling who that someone is.

I place a kiss on her forehead and say, “I’ll see you later.”

“Yeah. Later.”

Reluctantly, I get inside my car, feeling a sense of loss as I prepare to leave without her. She waves at me before walking back toward the entrance. I drive away and don’t look back. I don’t want to have the image in my head of the distance growing between us as she gets smaller and smaller in my rearview mirror.

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