massaging my scalp. Oh Lord—the man was good with his hands.
By the time I finally found my voice again, I answered his question. “Not at all, I just want everything to be up to my standards.”
“Yeah I get that, but it’s not like I’m running some dinky ass lemonade stand, Danielle. I worked damn hard to get where I am and everyone working for me knows their shit. What about your employees, are they going to be up to par with our expectations?” The irritation he obviously felt was quickly rubbing off on me.
I whipped around to face him. “My workers are great, okay? And I’m not saying anything bad about Sanders, I’m just asking a simple question!” My biggest weakness was that I became defensive when questioned about anything that I was personally invested in. “I’ve just never seen your employees work, but if me asking a simple question is going to cause such problems, then I’ll just find another bar to team up with. It’s my Inn now and what I say goes.” I may have seemed angry but there was no real emotion behind my words. There was no way I wanted to work with another bar but I couldn’t stop the fight from surfacing.
While I let my hair soak in the conditioner, I picked up my loofa sponge and squirted body wash onto it. Corey wasn’t expecting me to use it on him but the soft groan that escaped his lips, told me it was a welcome act. I worked the sponge in a slow circular path around his pecks, biceps and down the front of his body. Our conversation was getting tense but I felt the overwhelming need to calm it down. I wanted him to see this wasn’t a personal frustration—just business.
My ‘healing powers’ seemed to be working, as he let out a sigh and softened his tone. “Would it make you feel better to do some sort of test run with him, before the actual event?” I finished lathering his hard body, before dipping my hair under the shower head. After the soapy suds were out, I glanced up at Corey with my answer, and had to smile when I noticed he was lost in a trance on my chest.
“Yes, I would like that.”
Instead of waiting for me to step away so he could rise off the body wash, he moved in closer so I couldn’t get around him. My fingers didn’t hesitate to run along him and ‘help’ clear the soap from his skin. “Fine—why don’t you come over Friday and we’ll do a little testing?”
“Deal.” To seal the deal Corey’s lips crashed against mine, while his hands slowly roamed down my body until he reached my ass.
“Again?” I teased against his lips, as if I wasn’t craving it just as much as he was.
Corey smiled and placed a few kisses along my neck before answering. “You seriously can’t expect me to control myself when I have to stand here watching you lather your body, looking sexy as hell and dripping wet.”
There were about a million retorts that came to mind that I could have used to make light of the situation, but all I could think about was how turned on I was by this god-like man in front of me. I knew I was a goner. So in the weirdest shower of all time, we finished our business talk then dove back into a passionate and extremely steamy round two.
* * * * I stood sideways looking at my reflection in the full-length mirror. Moments before I had been in the process of getting dressed for work; instead, I only managed to get my black and nude lace bra on and pull my black hiphugging pants into place. That was when I stopped to look at my bare stomach in the mirror. It didn’t appear to hang over my pants however, maybe I just wasn’t seeing myself clearly. Alternating between standing straight up to slouching over; I decided I needed a second opinion.
“Corey!” I called out, my eyes never left the mirror. Corey had kept a bag of clothes in his car for whenever he worked out and needed to change. After our shower he dressed and then remained somewhere around the house.
Corey appeared at the door and snickered as he watched my bizarre movements.
“What the hell are you doing, Danielle?”
“Okay, I just—someone made a comment and I just—am I chubby?” I blew out a defeated sigh at admitting the