Page 124 of Blossoms of the Heart
My thoughts, my fears. Everything froze right the hell up.
All I wanted was to be with him.
I wanted him again, wanted to be with him, and all the reasons why I shouldn’t faded from my mind.
It was just us in there. The first thing he did was walk up to me and kiss me.
“Why did you leave?” he asked against my lips.
I opened my mouth to answer but couldn’t. He stepped back, looked at me, looked me over, and frowned
“Tai…”
He held up his hand to stop me. He looked like he knew what I was going to say, but there was the look of that sexy arrogance on his face that I liked and found irresistible.
“No.”
“No what?”
“I don’t know what the hell happened but you look like you’re going to tell me we should stop. That we shouldn’t continue seeing each other.” A panicked look washed over his face.
“I… um I didn’t want to distract from all the work we have to do.” That was such a shit excuse, and even as he looked at me I knew he knew I was talking shit.
“Take work out of the equation. Do you want me?” He spread his arms out wide, displaying himself before me.
He moved closer, cupped my face and kissed me. I fell into the kiss, absorbing it, absorbing him. “Phoebe, do you want me? Baby, it’s a simple yes-or-no question,” he asked against my lips.
“Yes. I want you, Tai,” I confessed. There was no way I could lie about that. He’d know. “There’s stuff I…”
“No. There is nothing more, but I’ll tell you what. I’ll give you some space to think.… I have a meeting. If you want me, meet me downstairs at twelve and we’ll continue this. If you change your mind and don’t show, I’ll leave you alone and we’ll pretend none of this ever happened. If you do show up, and I hope you do, you’ll have to accept that this is how we’ll be for the whole time that you’re in Japan, because I won’t be able to keep away from you.”
He bowed his head in the customary respectful way. The action gripped my heart because it showed he respected whatever decision I chose. Then he kissed my forehead and walked out of the office.
I watched the empty trail he left behind, wondering what I should do. The responsible part of my brain that held me back and placed a rein on my feelings told me I shouldn’t go. But the part of me that wanted him said this was an obvious no brainer.
I battled with myself for the next few hours.
At ten minutes to twelve I lifted my head from the journal. I’d been on the same page for the last two hours, not really doing anything more than gazing at the jumbled characters.
I wasn’t concentrating. It all looked like gibberish to me.
Weeks ago I’d started the translation process. I’m made quite good progress but I’d reached the part I was stuck on previously. The samurai was talking about his voyage and the size of his boat, but then appeared the Arabic words forpast the symbol. Right there in the middle of the sentence.
At five minutes to twelve I stopped and looked down at Tai’s empty desk, then over to Scott and Kenny’s. They were filling out reports.
When I looked at Tai’s desk I thought about how he made me feel. Like I was complete and had everything.
Tears tugged at my eyes as fear seeped into my heart.
Fear…
For the last God knew how long I’d lived in fear.
Ever since I was told the effects of my accident and what it would mean for me.
Fear ruled my life since then.
It ruled me.
