by TN King
So what? He chastised himself in frustration. Even if it were his money that impressed her, he’d still be able to seal the deal with her and have her in his bed tomorrow night at the latest. Especially with his rearranging his schedule and the way, he was so heavily considering doing. Then he could go back to focusing on business. Morgan returned his thoughts to his plans for his date with Ellie. The necessary step to getting Ellie off of his mind and out of his life.
It would only be a matter of time, for now he needed to mentally plan his day out with Ellie and then finish the meeting here so that he could actually put those plans into action.
Ellie
He was so close that she could see his smile, his grey eyes flashing provocatively at her from beneath those thick, fanning, black eye lashes. He was prettier than most women and it should have been a sin. Her skin broke out in warm tingles and she felt more beautiful than she ever had previously in her life. Her heartbeat stuttered, standing in front of Morgan wearing not a stitch of clothing.
She couldn’t help following him with her eyes as he circled her, coming to a stop just behind her and standing close enough that she could feel the body heat emanating off of him, but not close enough for her to actually be able to feel him against her. Her breath escalated, pupils dilating and then contracting when his hands closed around her ass cheeks. He grabbed the both of them and closed his fingers, tightening them around the swell of the muscle until she felt like she was about to come from that alone.
It was almost too much, his musky, woodsy scent filling her senses and pushing her just that much further over the edge. A little moan was trapped just behind her lips, her hands fighting diligently to stay down by her sides.
Something made all the more difficult when he lifted his hands, reaching around her and repeating that same motion he had against her ass on her breasts. Only this time it was gentler. More teasing as his fingers kneaded at the flesh, working his fingers up towards the peak of her nipples and rolling those too between the pads of his fingers.
She could feel the wet heat suffusing her thighs, and he had only just started.
“Do you want me,” he whispered in her ear, his voice low and gravelly.
“Yes,” she replied without hesitation. She didn’t know if he was testing her or if he was just asking. She didn’t know anything, she wasn’t even sure that she could use her own feet with the desire that was coursing through her.
Something that he must’ve anticipated, taking her by the arm and leading her over to his bed where he laid her down. She didn’t fight it, didn’t bat an eyelash as scooting back up over the mattress and allowing her thighs to fall open to his gaze.
She was too wanton, too excited, looking up so that she could see him without his suit. She had imagined him naked a million different times, in a million different settings, and she had yet to be able to see the real thing. She couldn’t even remember how they had gotten here to the point of her being naked without him having lost a single stitch of clothing himself… but again the details were irrelevant. She was so close to having him, to fulfilling that desire that had been plaguing her every waking moment, and every sleeping one too.
Blinking up though all she saw was that some silhouette the day he’d saved her, a dark shape against the light that illuminated him and obscured his face. She blinked again thinking that it might be the angle that she was looking at him with or maybe even the light from the drawn shades further into the room, but nothing changed, his shadowed form shifting slightly above her as if suddenly hesitant. What the…?
“I’m sorry but I cannot stay,” he said, his voice far off and distant sounding.
Without warning flames sprung up behind him, the blue heat flickering just beyond the shape of him that she could make out. Her whole chest seized, watching the tongues of the flame dance up and over the end of the bed, closer to the both of them.
Panicked, she tried to warn him of the flames at his back, but he never saw them. And she couldn’t get the words to leave her mouth, opening it and no sound escaping as if she were suddenly mute.
As if they were alive, the flames roared up and covered him, hungrily licking against his form until there was naught else left of it but a burning, smoking shape writing away from her.
“NO!” Ellie screamed as she bolted up in her bed, in her apartment. Both facts that she verified quickly, hands moving out to the side of her to smooth down the all too familiar bedspread. Each exhale was shaking her chest and it took only moments to verify the stickiness between her thighs. She could almost swear that she could still smell the smoke that had been infesting his room in her dream.
She knew that it had been a dream yet still her heart pounded heavily within her chest. A wet dream and fire? Him catching fire? Why? It didn’t make sense. He had been nothing but kind, had saved her life twice now, and had gone out of his way to show her compassion and support that he didn’t necessarily have to. The whole time she had spent lusting after him and exalting his wealth in her own head. Was this guilt then? Something more? She couldn’t psychoanalyze herself, she could barely come up with semi-intelligent reasons for having such dreams in the first place.
“Dammit!” she screeched, throwing her head back and pounding the sides of her bed in frustration. It was too damn early for this and she was too overwrought.
She kicked the covers off of her resolutely, fighting her way out of the sheets and nearly tumbling over the one side of her bed. She stood jerkily, throwing the sheets that had stuck to her sweat drenched form back over the bed and just only keeping from stomping her foot in further frustration.
She stood there in the center of her room panting, her eyes moving wildly around the space as she fought for some sort of composure. A fantasy turned nightmare. From lace to flames, and not the kind that were ignited by any sort of sordid fantasy either. She headed to her shower resolutely, hoping to wash away the stickiness coating the insides of her thighs. And hoping that somehow, she could also erase the feeling that she shouldn’t have been lusting after Morgan at all. The guilt gnawed persistently at her gut even as she turned the shower on full blast.
She needed a job, and she needed one fast. If she didn’t do something soon the thought of Morgan was going to eat her up alive. She already felt like a husk of her former self, if she continued down that path, she’d be nothing more than a wisp of a woman left rotting.
Ellie had been enjoying one of the few, rare, deep sleeps that even dreams didn’t dare interfere with when her phone went off. Well, at least she assumed it was her phone at first, hands slapping about the top of the mattress in a lame, desperate attempt at finding it.
When she did, it was more of a hasty pressing of buttons and luck that answered the phone than any real grace on her part.
Even her groggy, “Hello?” sounded half assed in what she could hear from the reverb.
“Ellie! Oh, thank God! Look,” Joanna’s familiar voice sounded from the other end, the sound of heavy machinery and banging in the background nearly drowning out her voice. “I wanted you to be the first to know that construction is about wrapping up here! You should be able to come back to work any day now.”
Ellie, for her part, felt stunned. The damage had looked so extensive that she had been expecting weeks, even months, of repairs before she was allowed to come back to work. Apparently, the damage wasn’t as bad as it had looked though, and that thought alone was almost worth cheering over. She couldn’t speak for a moment, a dopey grin breaking out over her features.
“Ellie? If you’re not available we can wait, I just thought with you being my best girl and all…” Joanna couldn’t even finish that sentence, Ellie’s near shriek cutting her off before she could continue.
“I’d love to come back,” she hurriedly assured her, the words almost running over one another in their haste to leave her mouth. “Joanna, I can be back whenever, whatever you need.”
The laugh that met her statement was pleased, Ellie’s own gri
n near tearing her face in two. She almost couldn’t breathe from it.
She couldn’t wait for it, the return to work, or the distraction from the thoughts that had been plaguing her nonstop since her date with Morgan. She couldn’t stop thinking of him, thinking about all the different ways that things could have gone or the ways that she could attempt seeking him out again. She was like a thirty year alcoholic faced with their favorite bottle across the room. Willing to surpass whatever obstacles possible in order to find her way to it.
It didn’t help anything that her job search had turned up nothing. Temporary or otherwise, in any of the industries that she had fallen to looking into. She’d even looked at janitorial positions, not that she had the experience. Which was exactly what the countless businesses she had called concerning their ads had told her. She was lacking experience in all fields save for waitressing and there were hardly any openings for that at all.
With the lack of work, her bills were piling up even further than the intrusive thoughts concerning Morgan. She didn’t just want to get back to work…she needed to.
“If you can come over right now and help set up, I’ll even be able to pay you your usual hourly rate for the day,” Joanna promised. “I could really use the help honey, you know I wouldn’t ask but-”
“Yes!” Ellie again yelled into her phone as she shot up from the tangle of her covers. “No, Joanna I could really use coming in as well. Thank you!”
Again, Joanna laughed. “Alright, alright sugar calm down. The back part with your lockers is still undergoing repairs but the front is in good working order. We should be open by Friday, but there’s still a ton to set up around here.”
“I’ll be there,” Ellie promised. “But how did you manage to make all of the repairs so quickly? I thought an insurance adjuster had to come first and appraise the damages and it hasn’t even been a week.”
“Some anonymous philanthropist donated the materials and labor out of the blue,” Joanna answered, still sounding shocked at the outcome herself.
“Really?” Ellie asked, surprise coloring her voice despite her attempts at covering it.
“Yeah,” Joanna affirmed enthused. “A work crew showed up here yesterday and started working. I didn’t ask too many questions and just let them work. It would have taken the insurance company weeks probably, to sort everything out and cut a check. Now it’s some rich guy’s tax write-off and I can bypass all that insurance nonsense. Isn’t that great?”
Hmm. What Joanna was describing didn’t even sound possible. Who was she to question it though? Joanna wasn’t blind, and Ellie very much doubted that some large gangster type had come in and paid for the repairs. They were in Philly, sure, but they weren’t in the part of Philly where that was as prevalent. At least, that was what she told herself. Just because it happened over on the north side didn’t mean it would happen at the diner as well…
“Yeah,” she agreed, even if somewhat reluctantly. Barring any illegal or scary nonsense it really was. “That’s awesome Joanna. I’ll see you as soon as I can get the bus down there, alright?” Listening again as the sound of something slamming in the background on Joanna’s end.
“Awesome, thank you so much Ellie, we’ll see you here in a bit then,” Joanna rushed, obviously trying to multitask.
Ellie grinned, Joanna’s goodbye cut off by the sound of the end call button she probably hadn’t even meant to press yet. The diner was, undoubtedly, busy enough for her to be distracted. Overseeing setting things back to rights and finishing the construction was probably taking its toll on her. Ellie shook her head, still smiling, as she ended the phone call on her end as well.
She lay there for too long of a moment afterwards, smiling at the ceiling, before rolling off of the bed entirely. She needed to get moving. She had been moping about for days now and had yet to get out of her pajamas even at a quarter ‘til noon.
It was beyond time to snap out of it. She had things to do, work to get to. She shook herself off, jumping up and down a few times in a few short jumping jacks to try and pull herself out of it. She couldn’t go into work sluggish and moping. Today had to be a good day, she had work again. She just needed to get in the right frame of mind. That was all… She shook off again, forcing her feet to move and carry her towards the shower resolutely. She couldn’t just sit around fantasizing about Morgan swooping in and taking her off on another date, or better still off to some exotic location where he realized he was in love with her and wanted to take her away from it all.
She couldn’t allow it to ruin her actual life. With the dreams always came the nightmare though. The same one, every single time. With the flames and the desiccation… with the death and emptiness that followed. She didn’t even know how to make sense of all of it. Morgan was a great guy - sexy and wonderful- but he had left. He was gone, and that would be the last that she would ever see of him again. Which shouldn’t matter, she needed to acknowledge that and let it go. She had a life to continue, a job to work at, and friends that she needed to be paying better attention to.
All things she was trying to make sense of in the middle of her shower, scrubbing away at the grime from the days in her apartment and rushing through the routine as fast as she could. Even getting dressed in her old t-shirt and jeans was rushed, the ponytail that she threw her hair into a loose mess on the top of her head. She was anything but put together, even if she attempted to come across as so, lacing up her sneakers and finding her bus change in record time. She just needed to catch the bus to Center City where the Liberty Bell Diner was located.
It just meant a lot of quick thinking on her part, running and jumping her way down the stairs and to her regular stop in order to make it in time to not have to wait another hour or more for the next bus. She almost didn’t make it even still, tripping her way up the steps onto the bus and into the nearest empty seat with a heavy sigh.
She didn’t even know how she had managed it, finally relaxing back into the seat and rearranging her purse to her side. Of course, she hadn’t factored in the route to her work taking her by the Hunt Hotel. Which meant that when it did so she had to see it for the first time since her breakfast with Morgan. More reminders of all of those things she was trying to escape and use work to deal with. Time to move on. Get with the way it really was and try to smile while doing it. Other people had it worse than she did and self pity would get you nothing but more pity. Another thing her dad used to say. She needed to buck it up and keep trying.
She needed to stop being so pathetic.
Something that apparently, might take longer to work on than she was readily willing to admit. Even if the next stop was hers, having to get off so close to the Hunt Hotel was suddenly heavy on her mind. She’d never been so aware of its presence before. Why would she be? It’s not like she could afford to even breathe the air inside of the place in the first place. She needed to stop thinking about it. Thinking about it only led to thinking about him. And she was already fighting off looking at Morgan’s balcony when she got off of the bus as it was.
She drew another deep breath, letting it out in a heavy sigh as she shook her head. She needed to forget him. Forget his balcony. Forget his smile, his beautiful face, and even his body. She needed to let go and move on. Today was just the first step in doing so. She just needed to remind herself as much. A lot more than she had been expecting to have to.
As she drew closer to the diner, she realized that the hotel’s towering silhouette would forever remind her of Morgan. Which just meant she would have to continue fighting thinking about him at all every time she went to work at all.
“Crap!” She cursed, closing her eyes and again shaking her head. At this rate, she was going to rattle her whole brain before the night even fell.
It didn’t matter, because she was being silly. It’s not like there had been anything between them. It was all in her head. He was just a nice guy that treated her to breakfast—and saved her life—twice.
“Dammit!” Sh
e enthused, pushing a stray hair back up on her forehead. So much for this being a great day. She was ruining it all on her own. A trap, one she kept desperately falling into. A circle of his presence making her life brighter, like she needed him for sunlight or some silly notion.
Now she would be moody and depressed when she got to the diner. Despite her best intentions. Just what Joanna needed…a moody employee to offset all of the construction and general chaos that her diner had become. She tried to shake off the bad vibes because she was rapidly beginning to feel like she should have just stayed home, when she really needed to get back to work.
She drew one last, fortifying breath as she rounded the entrance to the diner’s corner, catching sight of Joanna and going to wave. She only stopped when she saw the tall, sharply dressed man that was between them with his back to her, her hand falling idly back to her side. She didn’t want to interrupt what would doubtless be an insurance guy or even the company owner who had been helping with the repairs and what not.
She couldn’t make sense of why she couldn’t tear her eyes off of him though, or why her heartbeat near tripled in rate as she drew closer. When she drew within just feet of the pair of them though—she knew.
It was Morgan.
Her heart near stopped in her chest entirely, her footsteps faltering if not completely stopping. It took only a few more feet before she could hear the two of them- or more specifically, Morgan’s voice as he spoke to Joanna.
“The crew assured me that they should be done no later than tomorrow. You should be good to go for Friday as planned,” he said, that familiar baritone washing over her skin and leaving it covered in gooseflesh.
Joanna’s whole face was split into a smile though, nodding with both hands held over her heart in obvious excitement. Excitement that didn’t even pale as she caught sight of Ellie, waving her over the instant that she did. “Ellie, come here! I want you to meet our anonymous donor.”
