“God, what a morning,” Alicia screamed as she raced through her house searching for her car keys. She had been up most of the night thinking about Brad and her growing feelings for him. Now, she couldn’t figure out why her car keys weren’t in her purse. She always tossed them back into the side pocket after coming into the house.
Shit! I’m running late and I would kill for a cup of coffee.
Picking up her purse off the couch, Alicia dumped the contents out of it on the table and searched through it again for the missing keys and came up empty again. Damn it!
“Great! How in the hell can I get to work without my car keys?” Today was the first day she was going to start outlining the ground work for her Drace brothers’ story. What kind of first impression would she be giving off by showing up late?
She didn’t have time to stay at home looking for them. Alicia tossed all of her stuff back into her purse. She had to go. Maybe if she hurried up she would be able to catch the bus that was about two blocks from her house. It had been such a long time since she had ridden it, so she prayed that the schedule was still the same. But before she left she would take one last look in her bedroom and check there for the keys.
Alicia got off the couch and headed for her bedroom at the end of the hallway. What had she done to make her day start off so badly? She never imagined when she woke up this morning things would go so downhill. She was in the middle of the hallway when the doorbell rang, stopping her. Spinning back around, she hurried back to the front door and flung it open.
“What are you doing here?” Alicia asked eyeing the delicious man standing on the porch with a bag in his hand along with two cups of coffee in a cardboard holder.
“I came here to see you. Do you want to eat breakfast with me? I have donuts and coffee. I hope you have a little time before work.” Brad grinned at her as he waved the bag in front of her face. “You know that you want to invite me inside. I know how much you love coffee and donuts.”
Alicia couldn’t deny the truth. She did adore coffee and donuts, so her diet was going to get tossed out of the window. She was dying to have something sweet and fattening this morning. She had to do something to fix the horrible way her day was starting off.
“Come on in. I need something good to move this dark cloud over my head.” Moving to the side, Alicia waved Brad to come inside. She would just apologize for being late. Maybe after she got some food in her stomach, she would be able to think more clearly and spending time with Brad might help settle her nervous too.
“What’s wrong?” Brad asked the second he came inside and she closed the door. “I know that you usually like to get to work early. So, I was on my way to see you at the station, but when I drove by your house I noticed your car was still in the driveway. I was surprised to see you were still here.”
“You know my schedule,” Alicia said, clearly surprised that Brad knew so much about her.
“Sweetheart, I care about you. I want to know about you. I’m hoping that you will let me in so I can learn even more.” Brad placed the food down on the living room table. “Now, are you going to tell me why you’re still here and very upset?”
“I lost my keys and I’ve been looking for them for over ten minutes. I called and told Tiffany that I was going to be late for our meeting about the ground work for the special. It’s a good thing that I wasn’t scheduled to be on television this morning.”
“Why don’t you take the food into the kitchen and let me call Tiffany to see if I can get her to cancel your meeting with her. I was going to take you by Lee’s house, so you can talk to him. He doesn’t have any clients until late today. ”
She loved the idea and doubted that Tiffany would have any problems with it, but more than getting to interview Lee, she was actually excited about spending this morning with Brad. He was constantly surprising her with his knowledge of her and she liked it.
“Do you need me to give you Tiffany’s number?” Alicia asked as she picked up their food.
“No, I got it from Lee. He still had a copy of it at his office. I’ll be there in a minute.”
Alicia looked at Brad one last time before she headed in the direction of the kitchen. Inside the kitchen, she placed everything on the table and grabbed one of the coffees. Wrapping her hand around the container, Alicia took a sip of the warm liquid allowing it to ease some of the stress from her body.
How did Brad know this is what she had been missing this morning? She never talked about a lot of personal stuff when they were together, yet he seemed to know so much about her likes and dislikes.
Brad’s kindness touched a part of her that she didn’t know was there. Brad relied on his feelings and instincts more than any other man that she had ever known in her life. Her past boyfriends had been extremely private and secretive about everything going on with them. Which made it extremely hard to get to know them any deeper than what they decided to tell her about themselves.
Subconsciously, Alicia was beginning to think some of their qualities started to rub off on her and that was one of the reasons she avoided any deeper emotional attachments. It worked out for her better than the other option. The one thing she hated was to feel vulnerable.
She was absolutely fearful of being hurt or humiliated by a man who she would give her everything to.
“Gorgeous, what has you in such deep thought that you haven’t touched the breakfast I bought for you?”
Glancing over her shoulder, Alicia watched as Brad shoved his cell phone back onto the pocket of his dark gray slacks. She never knew a man could look so good in a suit until Brad. He had the perfect body to fill it out.
“Oh, I was just thinking,” she answered. “What took you so long on the phone with Tiffany?”
Damn, why had she said anything? Her comment made her come across as jealous and insecure neither a problem she suffered from.
“Did you miss me?” Brad asked as he sauntered up to her. Taking the cup out of her hand, he placed it on the countertop behind them and pulled her into his arms.
“I was only wondering what took you so long on the phone with my boss,” Alicia replied as Brad removed her glasses placing them next to her coffee cup.
“Sure,” he whispered as he ran his thumb over her bottom lip. “Did you think about our kiss after I left last night? It stayed on my mind all the way home and I replayed it over and over while I was alone in my big, empty bed.”
Alicia noticed that Brad was watching her intently. She fought down the overwhelming need to push him away like she usually did. She was going to be honest with him. Remembering the steamy kiss is what had kept her up half the night and was the reason she was so out of sorts this morning.
“Yes, I did. How could I forget it? I stayed up half the night replaying it over in my head.”
Moving closer to her, Brad pressed her body against the counter and the warmth from his muscular body eased into hers. She could feel the sexual magnetism that made him so self-confident.
“Did you fantasize about how unbelievable it would have felt if I had gotten to go any further?” he asked as his fingers traced the skin down the side of her neck.
“Yes.” She watched as Brad’s dark blue eyes darkened to a smoldering intensity at her confession.
“Confess your thoughts to me.” The words were spoken so low and sensually that it shot a ripple of awareness through her.
“I’ve nothing to confess. I was just having thoughts.” Alicia placed her hands against Brad’s chest and was shocked to feel how fast his heart was pounding. It was like he had just run a marathon.
“How about I go first?” he suggested.
“Hmmm…aren’t we going to be late for our appointment with Lee? I don’t want to get on his bad side worse than I already am.”
Removing her hands from his chest, Brad took a step back from her. She watched as the teasing light went out of his eyes and the hurt she felt turned her stomach. What in the hell happened?
“Sorry, I forgot how important your career is to you. So, we better hurry up. I wouldn’t want to be the reason Lee cancelled his interview time with you.” Turning away from her, Brad walked away without even making sure that she was behind him because he automatically assumed she would follow him.
“Brad, wait!” Alicia yelled running after him.
Spinning back around, Brad stopped and suddenly yanked her against his powerful body. Alicia gasped as her breasts pressed into his hard chest. “Alicia, I’m going to tell you something and this is the last time I will tell you this. I’m in love with you. I’ve been since I first laid eyes on you in that pink tennis outfit, but I will only take so much of you shoving me away.”
“Brad…”
Brad placed his finger over her mouth. “No, I don’t want to hear you say something that you might be able to take back. Whatever has you scared to commit to me, I want to help you work through. However, I can’t keep falling more in love with you if you know there isn’t going to be a future between us. I’ll give you to the end of this project about my family to make your decision.”
Removing his finger off her mouth, Brad gave her a quick kiss and then left the room leaving her speechless.