Miss Independent
Page 27
Maurice smiled wide.
“I’m in there, too.” He motioned toward her heart. “It may be a smaller piece than Nathan’s, but it’s there.”
He kissed her again and she still couldn’t stop herself from kissing him back. As their tongues intertwined, she trailed her fingers up and down his spine and the back of his neck. She started lifting her leg without thinking, sliding it around his waist. Her dress fell back and she was fully exposed, but didn’t care. He pressed his entire body against hers, forcing her to feel how much he had craved her all these years. He rested his hands at her throat, then slid them down the front of her body, relaxing them at her stomach. He thrust his tongue even deeper into her mouth before yanking himself away for the second time. Vanessa was out of breath. She could hardly remember her own name, what day of the week or time it was, or what had just happened prior to her getting home.
Maurice licked her from his mouth, watching with glee as she tried regaining composure.
“I want to be your friend, Vanessa…. But I also want to make love to you for the rest of my life. I want to wake up to you every morning and hold you every night as you sleep in my arms. You need to accept that these feelings are never going away for me. They’ve only gotten stronger over time and will get even more intense the longer you deny what this is. If I have to accept Nathan as part of your life, you need to accept your feelings for me as part of it too.”
He bent down, kissing and nibbling the side of her neck. She rolled her eyes into her head and turned her face toward his, hoping for another kiss, but he moved away.
“I’m in there,” he told her again.
He was in there, a lot more than she was willing to admit.
“I’m not looking for an answer tonight. But when I said that no matter how hard you try to push me away, I’m gonna keep coming back until you say yes, I meant it. And now that I’m certain I have a chance with you, I’m not giving up so easily this time.”
He walked away from her, a confident grin spreading across his face as he moved up every step leading to his bedroom.
Vanessa was in a state of shock. The kiss was so intense, it practically burned her lips.
As she shut her eyes recalling the taste of it, she realized she had almost had sex with one man in her office and nearly gave herself to another in her own home barely an hour later, and with no time to breathe in between. After everything she had said about Sheila and to Nikki, she was starting to wonder who in the hell she was becoming herself. Nathan was taken, but might have called off the wedding if she gave into temptation. Maurice was her best friend, which would change in an instant if she had given into him.
Her head was spinning. At this point she didn’t know if she was coming or going. But one thing was for certain, she knew that after tonight, there was no turning back, for any of them.