Because Of Love

Elbows on the desk, thumbs at her temple and her other fingers intertwined over the forehead of her bowed head, covering her shame-filled face she said, “Carrie, I’m losing my mind.” She chuckled dryly. “No,” she continued, “I already lost it.”

“Where? I’ll help you look for it,” she sniggered.

Talia knew Carrie was trying to be funny but there was nothing the least bit funny about what had happened last night. Hot, mind blowing, and a little embarrassing, but not funny.

“DeLuca’s office floor.”

The sniggering stopped and Talia could almost hear Carrie’s mind work as what she’d said churned in her head, processing those three words and reading in between the lines. She felt a hand wrap around her wrist and begin to pull. Talia tensed her muscles, refusing to budge.

“I’m sorry. I don’t think I heard you right!” Carrie yelled in a shrill voice.

Talia’s head shot up to face her with a glare. “Sshh! Are you trying to get the entire office’s attention?”

She lowered herself so she was hidden by the cubicle walls and whispered harshly, “Well, you have mine! Do those words mean what I think they meant?”

Talia placed her head back in the position of shame. “Yes,” she whispered, too embarrassed to say it any louder.

“Oh… my… god!” she cackled, slapping her hands together repeatedly. “You got stuffed with Italian sausage.”

“Carrie!” Talia rebuked.

Carrie grabbed her arm and shook her hard. “Was it good? He’s Italian, I’m sure it was. How did it taste? I bet it was big, damn sure it was! You probably felt like he was breaking you in half when he put it in you! Did your toes curl up? Did you scream? Did you black out from the mind blowing pleasure?”

“Carrie, will you stop it!” Talia forcefully extracted herself from her crazy friend’s grip. She knew telling Carrie would invoke some slutty reaction but this excitement was way over the top. The woman watched too much porn.

To answer a few of her non-gross questions, Talia had to admit, it was good – no, it was out of this world damn good. It definitely didn’t compare to her one sexual encounter before and yet they hadn’t really done the deed.

“Talia, answer me!” Carrie shrieked, in half a whisper, thankfully, as she grabbed her arm again and shook her.

Talia slapped her hands off and said, “Sorry to burst your porno bubble but all clothes under the waist stayed on.”

“Huh?”Ccontent © exclusive by Nô/vel(D)ra/ma.Org.

With pinched brow, head rearing back, Talia could hear the disappointment in that one sound she made.

“So what, you dry humped?”

Talia felt her face begin to burn. “Yes.”

“No penetration?”

“Carrie!”

The confused look slowly gave way to a cheeky smile. “But he still rocked your world?”

Okay, Talia was done. She needed to go back to work before someone eavesdropped on this rather inappropriate conversation. Why had she even begun it in the first place? Oh right, she’d lost her mind.

“Storytime is over,” she said, powering up her desktop.

“Yeah sure, for now,” with a sing-song voice Carrie added, “until the sequel that is.”

“There will be no sequel,” Talia stated firmly.

“You trying to convince me or yourself of that?” she said with a bratty laugh. Then Carrie went back to her seat. “I’ll tell you now, he’s not going to want to end it with just a preview.”

Talia tried to ignore Carrie’s words but she’d also been contemplating the same thing since she took off and left him calling after her the night before. Preview? That happened on the yacht when he kissed her. The memory of how he’d tugged on those shorts on the yacht filled her mind and slowly moved to him searching and failing to find her trousers inner zipper on his office floor. He’d pulled at them hard at some point, tearing a hem she noticed, when she’d sent them out to the dry cleaners that morning. She wasn’t sure she would be able to look at that particular outfit the same way again. And the bra, it was stuffed way in the back of her closet. It was her favorite one too, and now it was exiled because of the memories and body reactions it invoked every time she looked at it.

Talia had to admit Carrie was right, damn her. It wasn’t going to end there. He wouldn’t let it end there and if she was being truly honest with herself, denying it was the biggest bluff she’d ever pulled. She remembered for a moment, as she was coming down from the high and was contemplating taking another ride on the wild roller-coaster ride of lust, he’d asked her where the buttons or zipper to her trousers were and her mind kicked into gear and began to work again. Without a word, she’d made a mad dash out of that office without a backwards glance. That should never have happened, and much less in the office, for crying out loud. She stared blindly at the desktop screen, her hands fisting at the sides of the keyboard. She was close to graduating to Triple-D status!

Becky would be so proud! At least for a second before she skinned me for trespassing on her territory. She sighed at the self-depreciating thought.

She was a hypocrite. After running Becky off, she went and did the exact same thing she’d been angling to do. She was a slutty hypocrite, and one that needed to avoid Rafe – no, DeLuca, like the plague. But that wouldn’t be so easy. Yet again she’d left her phone in his office and she still needed to get her signed proposal from him. But… what if she sent Carrie for them, or asked Enzo to hand them over? Yeah right, Enzo doing her a favor. She would have to ask Carrie, but arrgh, the brat was enjoying this too much to say yes.

“Miss McKenna.”

Talia jumped in her seat with a gasp, startled. She looked up with a hand pressed over her racing heart to find Enzo standing over her with a school ma’am look on his face.

“Damn Enzo, make some noise next time,” Carrie said from behind her. Clearly Talia wasn’t the only one who’d had ten years of her life stolen from her.

“It’s Signore Romano to you,” he stated arrogantly, his pinched mouth pushing his nose up.

Talia rolled her lips into her mouth to hide her smile. Lightning was about to strike.

“Stick that nose any higher and you’ll catch more than you bargained for,” Carrie warned in a veiled threat. If there was one thing she hated, it was a man looking down on her as if she was beneath him, and Enzo fit the criteria of getting punched in the face.

Before it escalated to bloody noses and pink slips, Talia said, “Signore Romano, how may I help you?”

With a dismissive sigh, he turned to Talia. Quickly she pushed her seat back against Carrie’s to trap her against her desk. As fun as it might be to watch Miss Unfilter and Mr Rude go at it, she cared too much about her friend to let her end up in jail with assault charges.

“He wants to see you.”