He sure as hell isn’t a dream, and this, whatever it is, sure as hell happened after one too many drinks last night. His deep breathing next to me makes my own breaths shake. The heat of him is so close it consumes me. My heart hammers, as I hold my breath and listen to see if he’s awake. An even, deep snore fills the room, and I exhale relief, knowing I’m in the clear. There’s still a chance for an escape.
Slowly rolling out of bed, I look around the dark hotel room and try to remember where my clothes may have been thrown. Tracing back over the night, I remember barely making it through the door before Rex’s hands were on my body, ridding me of everything between us. I smile before I can tell myself not to as my mind recalls the memory of last night.
Standing naked in the middle of the room we shared, I become instantly aroused as I remember the way he ripped my panties off my body the second we walked through the door, dropped to his knees and thoroughly devoured me. Rex fucked me so good I swear I saw heaven and hell before being brought back to life not once, not twice, but three damn unforgettable times.
The warmth between my legs pulses at the memory. My hands rise up my bare stomach towards my chest, I harshly grip my tits from the memory of how he worked my body like he’d been spending the last decade perfecting his skills in the chance that he’d one day be able to show me what I’d been missing.
Staring down at Rex, naked and covered only by the white hotel sheet lying across his southern half, I have to stop myself from mounting him like I’m craving. The delicious morning wood I can make out through the thin fabric has my mouth watering. God, he hasn’t lost his touch, that’s for damn sure. If anything, what was mind-blowing before is now earth-shattering as we came together over and over again last night.
Slipping my dress back over my head, I find my undergarments, and discard the torn lace fabric of my underwear in a nearby trash can. Grabbing my heels, I notice my purse sitting on the chair across the room. Quietly, I tiptoe towards it. Grabbing it quickly, I pick up my carry-on seated on the floor next to the chair. I’m almost in the clear before my phone starts to ring inside my clutch.
Quickly snatching it out, I push ignore and curse myself silently as I stand still in the middle of the room and hope Rex sleeps through it. He rotates on the bed, and I count to five before I make my next move. Once I’m sure he’s passed back out, I tiptoe across the space and slowly open the door. The hallway is empty. I take my time slowly letting the door to the hotel room inch back closed as I make my escape.
When it clicks shut, a small piece of my heart is left scattered across the hotel bed where Rex still sleeps. I place my palm on the door and hold it there momentarily. I know it’s stupid, but it’s almost as if not turning and walking away immediately keeps me with him, keeps us together.
My phone begins to ring again, and if I don’t want to be caught outside the door doing the walk of shame, I know I have to leave. Turning quickly, I make it around the corner, and I’m almost to the elevator before I pull the phone out of my clutch and notice who’s calling. Great. Figures it would be my boss. Even though I left a very detailed voicemail last night on my way to the hotel, saying I was being delayed and would not make it back in time for the meeting, she must not have received the message.
It was a message that was cut short while Rex’s fingers grazed up my inner thigh in the back of a cab, his lips brushed against my neck, and he nipped and sucked his way to my earlobe.
“Tell me, Gwen, do you still taste as good as you used to?” he teased, lifting my skirt and trailing his fingertips across my dampened center. I watched his eyes as they hooded over with desire before his fingers pulled aside my panties, and he gently felt up my slick, throbbing slit. My eyes fluttered shut while I willed myself to concentrate on the voicemail I was leaving as he pressed his fingers inside me and kissed a trail down my neck to my breasts.
Then again, maybe the message wasn’t as detailed as I thought. Attempting to shake last night’s memory from my thoughts, I answer my phone as I enter the elevator and push the button, signaling for it to take me to the lobby.
“Melissa, I was just about to call you. I hope you got my message from last night. I am just on my way to the airport and…”
“Save it,” my boss cuts me off harshly. “Plans changed. Since you missed the meeting, I have no choice but to give the Harrison account to Paul.” I start to rebuttal, knowing I worked my ass off to land that account, but I’m quickly cut off yet again. “I need you on another project, and if you do well on this one, you might just land yourself the VP position after all.”
I come to a halt exiting the elevator on the lobby floor. A smile spreads across my face knowing that I didn’t screw this up too badly. The VP position? Shit, that is everything I have been after since I graduated college. Missing that plane looks like it was not such a disaster after all.
“Where and what is this next project?” I ask, trying to sound as cool as possible as I walk towards the exit and a future I never expected.
“Lots of the specifics are still being worked out,” she says. “I will have more information for you in a few days. In the meantime, you have enough time to return to the West Coast and pack. The company will take care of all of your moving expenses.”
“Moving expenses?” I ask, hailing a nearby cab and stepping onto the curb as he pulls up alongside me.
This is new. I have taken on big projects before, but have yet to have to relocate for any of them.
“The company is going in a new direction,” Melissa says, as the office chatter grows loudly in the background. “We are expanding and want to offer our marketing services on the East Coast. Tell me, Gwen, have you ever been to New Orleans?”
2
Gwen
“Girl, I am telling you, if you have not tried crawfish étouffée, you have yet to live,” Aaliyah exclaims as we cross the French Market and make our way back to our office down the street. We have just come from a lunch of alligator gumbo followed by some traditional bread pudding.
Crossing over Decatur Street, the humidity is light even with the hot sun, and a breeze blows in from the Mississippi River located just on the other side of a small hill to our right. I have been in New Orleans for only two days now, and all I have learned is my marketing firm landed a big new client whom we were hired to help open a new nightclub in the Big Easy near the French Quarter.
Having little knowledge of anything in New Orleans, Aaliyah has stuck by my side and been my guide since I showed up. My office set me up with a one-bedroom apartment in her complex, and we bonded my first night in town over a bottle of wine and some good New Orleans jazz floating up through an open window from the street below. When we got hungry, we walked down the road, and she quickly began introducing me to many Southern Creole and Cajun dishes that made my mouth water and stomach full of some of the best flavors I have ever tasted.
A strong African-American woman, I admired Aaliyah’s strength the first day I met her. Seeing Eva is now married and still on her honeymoon, it has been nice to bond with another strong woman and make a new friend in a new world I never saw myself being a part of. If I was shocked to find myself in Kentucky, moving to New Orleans shortly after was never part of my plan. But yet, here I am. And if I’m being honest with myself, strangely — it kinda suits me.
“So, what do you know about this new client?” I ask Aaliyah as we wait for a few cars to pass before walking up another block.
“Honey, I know nothin’,” she says, taking a sip of her sweet tea. We reach our office door, and I pull it open and welcome the cool air that hits us as Aaliyah enters, and I step inside after her. “They have been super quiet about this one. Makes me wonder what all the fuss is about?”
“Me too, I wonder what they are hiding?” I ask once we have reached my private office. Setting my drink and purse down on my desk, I shake my mouse, and my computer comes to life. Leaning forward, I check a few emails that have come in since we were out at lunch.
“Mhm, your guess is as good as mine,” she says, slumping down in one of the chairs across from my desk.
