As though sensing her fear, he broke the kiss to gaze at her, his hand gliding to her cheek where he softly caressed her. He gently repositioned her face, causing their eyes to make that hypnotic connection again, and rendering her utterly powerless against him. There, in those eyes, she saw an emotion that was foreign to her. It caused her already exhilarated heart to skip a beat and at the same time relaxed her. Without removing his eyes from her face, Koen carefully spread her legs farther apart. In one smooth thrust, he entered her from beneath. The move was so fluid she felt nothing but pleasure as he delicately stretched her channel.
Slowly, he began to move within her, never breaking eye contact. The intensity of his stare thrilled her. Each slow methodical stroke brought her closer and closer to that place she had been only moments before. Is this what it’s like to make love? she wondered. Then a wave hit her. Grabbing her hips with both hands, he pushed deeper into her as her body convulsed and wiggled on top of him. Her cries were gathered into his open mouth as he closed it over her swollen lips, never breaking his rhythm. He paused momentarily when she collapsed on top of him, allowing her to catch her breath. Without pulling out, he reversed their positions and started her on her way toward another wave.
Chapter 13
During her short life, Delona had been called many things, including cynical, cerebral, and even bratty on occasion. Today she could add another title to that short list… a runner. Dawn had just broken when she left Koen sleeping off his booze/sexually-induced coma. So much for alcohol inhibiting sexual performance, she thought. The man had been relentless with his lovemaking and she acknowledged that it would be a bold face lie to say she hadn’t enjoyed every moment of it. No one had ever made her feel that good, let alone that many times in one night.
Her mind went back to how natural it had felt to wake up in the warmth of Koen’s embrace with him snoring in her ear, his luscious lips slightly parted. She smiled. Oddly enough, the same snoring that had lulled her to sleep sometime in the wee hours of the night had woken her up with a start bright and early that morning. Once the reality of what she had done over and over again the previous night hit her, she had sprung from the bed like a jackrabbit on fire. It didn’t take her long to get dressed. However, she did take time to thoroughly search the house for any trace of alcohol. When she was satisfied there was none, she had snuck out.
Anyone bearing witness to her departure would have thought her nuts as she speed-walked like an Olympic athlete down the streets of suburban L.A., begging the cab company to please come and find her — Okay, so she wasn’t quite speed walking. She was a little too sore for that. She knew she looked quite out of place boldly trekking through the pristine neighborhood wearing her favorite pink sweatpants and matching Big Dogs sweatshirt. Without the benefit of having worn a night scarf or the availability of a scrunchie, she had been forced to leave the beautiful beach home with her untamed hair flailing wildly about her head. She was too overwhelmed to care or to remember Koen’s address at the moment. Desperation was running the show as she strived to put distance between herself and the beautiful home where her shameful deed had taken place.
Once enough distance lay between her and the man who had ravished her all night, she finally stopped walking. She looked at the street sign and the number of the house she was in front of and gave the cab dispatcher an honest address. Heated stares coming from the home’s residents scorched her back as she waited at the end of their driveway. But at this point in her plight, she was well beyond being polite and chose to ignore them.
***
The cab ride home did little to ease her discomfort. She swore the cabdriver was judging her as though he could tell what and whom she had spent the night doing. To make matters worse, she walked into what she thought would be the sanctity of her apartment, only to find her meddlesome roommate waiting for her on the couch. Cara was in her pajamas, tightly clutching a pillow. Delona could only gawk, wondering how her roommate always managed to keep her makeup looking so fresh.
“Delona!” Cara started sternly. “Where have you been? Please don’t tell me you’ve been out all night with that bozo.” Cara shook her head in disappointment.
Delona’s cheeks heated. She exhaled loudly before plopping down heavily on one of the breakfast bar stools. Roger had totally slipped her mind. “No, I wasn’t with Roger,” she answered, absentmindedly picking at her thumb nail with her index finger. Reluctantly, she pulled her cell phone out of the pocket of her sweatshirt. There were seven missed calls and messages from him. Shame fell over her for having stood him up, knowing for whom and why. Cara’s throat clearing interrupted her private reprimand.
“So if you weren’t out with Roger, who…” Delona’s inability to meet her eyes gave Cara reason to pause. Suddenly, Cara sat up straighter. An excited gasp escaped her. “You were with Koen, weren’t you?” she inquired. Her beautiful blue eyes were wild with anticipation of Delona’s answer, but it was evidently Delona’s silence that told all.
“Yes!” Cara shouted, thrusting two victorious V’s toward the heavens. “Am I good or what? I told you that man was in love with you.”
“Come on, Cara. What’s Roger going to think of me when he finds out I stood him up for another man?” Delona asked, disconcerted. “I don’t know what to tell him.” She stopped and thought about that for a moment. “Perhaps I should go for complete honesty… But the part of me that doesn’t want to hurt him is suggesting I fib. Maybe I should just pretend I was under the weather,” Delona contemplated.
“Or you could go for a combination of the two and confess you spent the night using Koen’s dick as a thermometer.” Delona’s sharp intake of breath caused Cara to roll on the couch in laughter. “Judging from the amount of time you spent with him, I take it you repeated the act every few hours as needed.” She broke out into another full-belly round of laughter.
Delona couldn’t help but chuckle at her friend’s amusement. “My goodness, woman! What in the world has gotten into you? I’ve never heard you talk so crudely before.”
“I don’t know… Maybe I’ve been getting my own temperature checked,” Cara stated saucily.
“Oooh, by who?”
“Oh, no you don’t. Don’t even try to turn this conversation on me. My love life is all set. You’re the one trying to juggle two men.”
“Please…don’t remind me,” Delona said with a roll of her eyes.
“You know, when you think about it, you haven’t actually gone out with Roger. I believe the ‘they’ of the dating world would say you really don’t owe him a detailed explanation, if anything. Just tell him you’re involved with someone else.” Cara shrugged her shoulders for emphasis.
“I wouldn’t exactly say that Koen and I are involved.”
“Oh God, here we go again!” Cara exclaimed, throwing the pillow she had been snuggling with across the couch. “Are you serious?” she asked, placing her balled-up fists on her hips in frustration.
“It was a mistake!” Delona protested.
“A mistake is something you make when you turn on the dryer while playing outer space with your little brother!”
“What?”
“Never mind that!” Cara said. She waved her hand in the air as though waving off the memory associated with her last words. “I’ve seen how you are together, Dee, and I know how you feel about him. If you two ended up in bed together, trust me…it was no mistake.”
Delona was silent. With all her heart, she wanted nothing more than to believe what her roommate was telling her. The way he had touched her last night supported Cara’s theory, but she wasn’t sure if it had been her he was making love to or his deceased wife. She didn’t want to share the fact that he had been drunk at the time or that he had been drinking at the office with anyone, not even her roommate. As far as she was concerned, that tidbit would remain their little secret.
“I’m going to shower,” she said, standing up from her seat at the bar to go do so.
�
��Coward!” Cara taunted.
“Yeah, whatever!”
Chapter 14
If Friday had come too slowly, Monday had come all too soon for Delona. If only for a brief moment she had hoped with all her heart that Koen would show up on her doorstep over the weekend and declare his undying love for her. By Sunday night the cynic in her had taken control again, and she wasn’t surprised that he hadn’t. It didn’t shock her that she was now left to deal with that disappointment and the added shame of having to lie to Roger for having stood him up. To make matters worse, she wasn’t quite sure how she would handle it when she had to face Koen again. The feeling of him inside her had lingered all weekend and carried over into work with her this morning, interfering with her ability to concentrate. So far, she had managed to make it through most of the day without incident, but her coworkers had made it known that they felt something was off about her.
Before she could fully prepare for it, it happened. She felt his energy before she lifted her eyes from her computer screen to see him. What surprised her was how calm and collected Koen appeared, as though nothing had happened between them. This didn’t sit well with her and served to reinforce her theory he had been thinking of his wife the whole time he was making love to her.
“What are you doing for lunch, love?” he asked, beaming. His smile fell when she failed to return it with one of her own.
For once, Delona gave him a serious look. “I think we need to talk,” was her response to his inquiry.
Koen stepped inside her office and closed the door behind him. He seated himself on the edge of her desk, giving her his undivided attention. “What’s on your mind, love?”
She shifted her gaze from his gorgeous face to a spot on the wall behind him. This was going to be harder than she’d thought. She managed to swallow past the lump that had suddenly formed in her throat. “I understand that what happened Friday night…was… unintentional.” She swallowed again, trying to keep the hurt out of her voice. “Please forgive me. I feel I took advantage of you. I shouldn’t have let it happen.”
*
A mistake? Koen heard what Delona had said, but he couldn’t quite get the words to register. The lack of comprehension still didn’t keep her words from causing his love-swollen heart to shatter. He kept replaying them over and over against the words he had hoped she would say. After waking up and finding her gone, he figured she needed time and space to come to terms with what had happened. Perhaps that had been the mistake.
All he needed from her was some indication that she loved him. If she had said those three simple words to him, or had at least hinted she had no regrets about what they’d shared Friday night, he would have forsaken his own sense of inadequacy and fought for them. He would have buried Roger’s words and forced himself to concentrate on giving her the man and the life she deserved. Instead, he now sat there feeling like a complete idiot and trying his damnedest to figure this whole mess out. Before he could gather his wits about him, a knock at the door disrupted the tension in the room.
Roger poked his head in. “Hey, Koen,” he acknowledged respectfully. However, Koen didn’t miss the flash of disdain that crossed his python-like features. It did Koen’s heart some good to see he could make the proud man jealous. Roger was slick enough to replace that nasty glare with a wide smile before Delona caught it. “Hey, beautiful, I was in the neighborhood and thought we could grab lunch. That is if you’re feeling better,” he added, with an air of concern in his voice.
Delona’s eyes shifted to Koen, begging him to keep their secret. He knew more needed to be said but also knew it would be unwise to say it in front of Roger, or anyone else for that matter. She remained seated as though she were silently asking to be excused.
This was Koen’s chance to lay all the cards on the table. His first inclination was to walk around the desk, grab her up in his arms, and kiss the hell out of her just to piss off the smug bastard. Such a proclamation might be all that was needed to send the devious prick packing. However, he knew in his heart he would do anything for her, even if it meant handing her over to the man of her choice. He nodded once, signaling to her that their secret was safe with him and thus giving her permission to leave the room. He watched her as she quickly grabbed her light blue suit jacket and joined Roger at the door. She cast a quick thank-you glance over her shoulder before preceding Roger out the door.
Roger remained in the doorway for another moment, a complacent grin on his face. “Enjoy the rest of your lunch.” Lifting his right hand to his brow, he gave a stern salute as if to say “game over” and then followed Delona down the hall.
Koen hung back, stewing in a mixture of anger and self-pity. He wanted so badly to run after the pretentious bastard and knock that smug look off his face, but Delona would probably never forgive him if he did. His other thought was to call his uncle, who was also his AA supporter, but he didn’t have time to fill him in on all the details of this mess. Heading home to regroup before having to face Delona again briefly crossed his mind, but there was no time for it. Unfortunately, he knew he had to face her again. To make matters worse, the day was far from over.
***
“…and the models want to know if they can claim a bad weave as a wardrobe malfunction,” Renee read in conclusion of the meeting’s agenda. It was a gathering of the usual executives and the company PR rep.
“Seriously?” Danny asked with nothing short of amazement in his voice.
“Yeah. The skinny bitches have been watching too much reality TV in the break room again,” Renee volunteered. “This is their attempt to get a full-time beautician in-house.”
“Now, Renee, what have I told you about calling them that?” Myron chastised. “They’re just young.”
“And hungry,” Cara chimed in, smiling like a Cheshire cat. Delona didn’t like that look at all. It gave heed that the blue-eyed beauty was up to something.
“Says you!” Renee retorted in response to Myron’s words. “You don’t have to put up with their freaking drama on a daily basis.” A slight, uncharacteristic frown marred her elderly face as she turned her attention to the smartphone she had retrieved off the table in front of her and began doing whatever she wanted with it. It was apparent she had worked for Myron and Danny for so long that she obviously felt more than comfortable speaking her mind and doing whatever she pleased around them.
Delona wondered why she got away with such behavior, mentally noting that each year of employment served to loosen the bold woman’s tongue even more.
“I suppose you’re right.” Myron snickered, not seeming to care that his assistant appeared to have moved on to better things.
The meeting continued with discussions on issues, statistics, and the status of various projects. Myron and Danny kept giving Delona strange looks as though they were trying to read her mind. Delona wasn’t in the mood for their foolishness. She shrugged their chaste glances off, while secretly concluding they had been spending too much time with their assistant and were starting to pick up some of her strange habits. She was sitting beside Cara, using her as a barrier between her and Koen, instead of sitting next to him in their usual fashion. She knew that things appeared to be weird between them, especially considering the way her brother’s eyes kept shifting back and forth between the two of them. Things only got weirder when it was time for Koen’s weekly update.
“The last of the eligible bachelors have declined to go out with Delona since the incident with Edward Rainer,” Koen informed them. He kept his eyes on his notes, avoiding the inquisitive glances his bosses kept throwing his way.
“They were probably afraid of what they’d have to face if they did. I know I’d think twice about dating someone if it meant potentially getting my ass kicked,” Renee offered from behind her cell phone.
“In my opinion, it just goes to show how spineless they were in the first place,” Cara said. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I don’t want to see her with anyone like that. She shou
ld be with someone willing to step forward and knock a jerk like that on his ass for threatening her, to hell with the consequences.” She smirked when Delona stiffened beside her.
“You’re right as usual, Cara. But what’s going on with Roger?” Myron queried. “I thought the two of you went out last Friday.”
“Yeah, the proverbial ‘they’ are saying he’s the one,” Danny added. “Didn’t you have lunch with him today?”
Delona didn’t answer right away. She was too busy choking back the awkwardness of the situation. “Yes… we had lunch,” she managed to get out. “But we didn’t meet on Friday. I wasn’t feeling well.” She herself was surprised at how unbelievable the lie sounded. She knew her brother could read her like a book, and from the bizarre way he was staring at her, he knew something was up. Lucky for her, he granted her the dignity of not calling her out on it in front of everyone.
Cara, however, was a different story. “You still seem a little under the weather to me. Perhaps we should have Koen take your temperature. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.” She tried to hide her smile behind her water bottle when Delona started gasping for air.
Koen’s cheeks reddened as though he were privy to their little inside joke. “Well, it does appear that Roger meets the criteria of the men Delona stated do not exist. Of course, if he’s the one, she has six more weeks before she has to make an announcement on Sonny’s morning show,” he said, a bit more sternly than usual.
“Maybe he should be the one since some of us seem to have trouble moving on,” Delona retorted defensively. She stared at the clock positioned above Danny’s head, unable to meet the faces of the others in the room. She could feel her face contorting into a grimace, providing evidence of her sarcasm.
“Maybe some of us would be more willing to let go of the past if we knew we had a future,” Koen responded. He chanced a look in her direction while Cara, Myron, and Danny looked between them as though they were engaged in a tennis match.
Finding Love for a Cynic Page 9
