Page 8 of Power of the Mind
At my office.
What was he doing here?
My heart jackrabbited, and I sat straighter, skin on fire, hands instantly clammy. I fumbled my pen.
“Hey, Guns.”
Words escaped me, and all I could do was blink and stare as a million different reasons for his visit shook my brain to a pulp. I wasn’t conversational or dialogically proficient on a good daywith a regular person, but Tallus Domingo? The man’s presence crippled me in ways that were embarrassing and impossible to explain. No one made me feel more inferior.
I’d spent ten months trying to shake him from my system.
Ten. Fucking. Months.
And I’d failed. Miserably.
“What… Why are you here?” I managed to eke out after a prolonged silence where Tallus seemed to revel in my suffering if the wide smile on his too-perfect face said anything.
“Isn’t it obvious?” He swayed once, struck a pose, and touched the side of his dark frames. “I wore my glasses. I know they give you a raging hard-on. Thought maybe you’d wanna fuck.” He arched a brow in question. “Isn’t that how things go between us?”
Heat climbed my neck, and I didn’t know where to look. He was joking. Iknewhe was joking, likely making fun of my perpetual ineptitude, but I couldn’t control my reaction.
Squirming, I tried and failed to say something in return, something smart and witty and worthy of Tallus’s spark of a personality, but all I managed to do was gawp like a fish before growling under my breath.
Tallus chuckled. “Oh babe, you are so uncomfortable right now. It’s painful to watch. By the way,” he said, thumbing over his shoulder and changing the subject faster than I could keep up. “Why is your sign halfway down the hall?”
I glanced at the door. “It fell.”
Tallus’s brows rose. “And ran away?” He made the motion with his fingers, propped his hands on his hips, head cocked to the side before adding, “Were you yelling at it again?”
“Yes… because it wouldn’t stay on the fucking wall.”
“It’s the door slamming, sweetie.”
“I know.”
“Too much hostility.”
“I know.”
“You should take it down a notch.”
I stayed quiet.
“It’s concerning when inanimate objects retreat for the good of their health.” He puckered his lips to the side with a quizzical expression. “Huh. I wonder what that says about me?”
I didn’t understand the question, so I sat—awkwardly—and waited for him to clarify, doing all I could not to stare at his mouth.
He didn’t explain. Tallus was a runaway train, leaving me floundering to keep up. I was convinced he did it to keep me on my toes.
The suave younger man strutted across the room like a runway model and planted his far-too-perfect ass on the edge of the desk—onmy sideof the desk. In my space. Too close. Always too close.
I scooted back a few inches. The wheels on the chair squeaked and protested. But Tallus was having none of it. He hooked an ankle around the arm of the chair and dragged me back. “Nuh-uh. Don’t run away.”
“What do you want?” I swallowed a tight lump. “Why are you here?”
“I told you. To fuck.”
I held my breath, and a second later, Tallus laughed.