Even soaking wet and with her makeup running down her face the way it was now, she was so beautiful that it was actually painful.
“Can I come in?” asked Zoe in a whisper. “Just for a moment?”
Eric stood there staring at her.
“God, I’m a disaster!” she said, sounding mortified and pulling her jacket around her. “The rain turned into a sort of monsoon as I stepped out of the cab.” She was wearing a black dress that covered her down to below the knee but which showed off every curve of her body.
Eric couldn’t utter a word. Within him, contrasting emotions raged: disbelief, anger, hope, confusion.
Had he drunk so much that he was actually having hallucinations? What the hell was Zoe doing at his place?
A small part of him was glad to see her, but the other part – still angry at having waited in vain in the restaurant like an idiot – almost wanted to shut the door on her.
Yet another deafening roll of thunder, loud enough to rattle the windows, echoed around the room, and suddenly the power went off, plunging the apartment into almost total darkness. It took their eyes a moment to adjust to the unexpected lack of light, and when he managed to make out Zoe’s wet, weary face again, Eric silently cursed himself, took her by the arm and dragged her inside.
“Sit down, or don’t. Suit yourself,” he said flatly, heading into the kitchen. There, he filled a glass with the wine that he had left on the table before leaving: he didn’t know whether he wanted to use the alcohol to clear his thoughts or to dull them sufficiently to stop thinking altogether.
“Listen, I’m sorry for just turning up here without warning,” said Zoe from behind him.
“So why did you, then?”
“Actually, I don’t really know. It was a last minute impulse.” Zoe looked at him, slightly uncomfortable. “Am I disturbing you?”
“Want some wine?” Without waiting for an answer, Eric gave her a glass and, with a trembling hand, filled it, and then – the way illuminated by a continuous succession of flashes of lightning outside the large windows – walked off back into the living room, leaving her there alone.
“Are you okay?” asked a perplexed Zoe as she followed him in.
“Does it matter?” he snorted. He collapsed onto the sofa as though his legs were suddenly unable to support his weight, and stared at his glass.
Confused, Zoe sat down beside him. “Are you angry?”
In response, he laughed. A laugh so completely devoid of mirth that she raised her eyebrows in surprise.
“Oh, yes. I am very angry”
“What happened? Don’t tell me your better half managed to get you mad on Valentine’s Day…”
Eric ignored Zoe’s slightly sarcastic tone but began to seriously reflect on her words.
“My better half… Is she really better? She’s not sweet at all, that’s for sure.”
“Do you want to talk?”
“No.”
Zoe sighed. “It’s obvious that I’ve picked the wrong time – your head’s elsewhere, you haven’t got time for me. I’d better go.”
Eric saw her stand up and straighten out her dress and then take a step towards the door. At that point he took hold of her hand to restrain her. He’d be damned if he was going to let her just walk out like that on top of everything else!
“Forgive me for not jumping to attention and being ready to sit and hear whatever pops into your pretty little head. But tonight I’m not really in the mood for listening to bullshit.”
Zoe went pale in the shadows, shocked by his tone and especially by the anger in his voice, and her eyes grew sad. She sat down next to him and brushed the hair from his forehead.
“God, you’re so right… I’ve been unloading all my bullshit onto you for too long. But it won’t happen again. I promise,” she murmured, stroking his cheek. “I don’t know what happened tonight, but whoever got you into this state doesn’t deserve you, believe me.”
“You’re right, she doesn’t deserve me… But my stupid heart doesn’t care, unfortunately” replied Eric.
Then, to her complete surprise, he ran his hand through her hair, grasped her neck and pulled her towards him, putting his mouth against hers.
When she’d rung the doorbell of Eric’s apartment, that turn of events was the last thing she would have expected. She had climbed into a taxi two hours earlier, braving the storm in the hope of spending a fun evening. She had decided to go on the blind date with her mysterious suitor simply to have something to do other than staying at home watching a tearjerker on TV, but she hadn’t been particularly optimistic about it. What would it be but dinner with a man that meant nothing to her, pretending for a few hours that she wasn’t alone and desperate: the usual.
While the taxi was making its way at a snail’s pace through the traffic, trying to get out of the congestion it found itself in, she had watched the rain beating on the windshield with unparalleled violence and wondered if it really was worth it. The chill of the evening had penetrated her to the bone through the seductive dress she had worn more out of habit than any real intention of seducing anyone, and suddenly she had found herself asking the taxi driver to turn down a side street and drive in the other direction until she told him to stop. The man had seemed sympathetic and, for nearly an hour, had driven aimlessly around the city.
Zoe had thought long and hard and decided that she was going to stop. No more blind dates with dinner in the company of strangers; she didn’t want any more relationships that served only to give her the illusion of having a man beside her. If it was real love she wanted, it was time to start acting as though she deserved it.
And then, on an impulse, she had asked the taxi driver to head for the East Side.
She needed her best friend. On a night like that, she felt the need to be comforted by the only person who was able to give her security.
Only it was not her usual sweet, tender Eric who opened the door, but a cold, angry and half drunk man.
A man who was kissing her with barely restrained lust.
Taken totally off guard, Zoe froze. Eric’s lips were hard and the kiss he was giving had nothing in common with the fairy tale one she had dreamed of months before. On the contrary, it seemed almost like a punishment. But why?
Was it some other woman he was actually trying to punish…?
She stiffened in anger and pushed him away. “How much have you drunk? Hey, I’m not Stephanie!”
“I know damn well you’re not. And don’t worry, I’m not so drunk that I don’t know what I’m doing – the way you did on New Year’s Eve.”
The way you did on New Year’s Eve?!
That must mean that…?
Zoe had no time to reply or to think, though, because Eric’s mouth was once again pressed against hers, this time with less coldness but with the same forcefulness, and her mind began to cloud over. She kept superimposing the image of that night in Times Square over what was happening now until the two kisses eventually began to merge into one.
So it was all true… She hadn’t dreamed any of it…
Something inside her seemed to swell and then suddenly explode into dozens of small pieces, each of which seemed to find its proper place. She felt a heavy weight slipping from her shoulders, all her doubts vanishing, while only one desire began to fill her heart: she wanted to kiss Eric Morgan, and this time she wanted to remember it perfectly.
She put her hot, trembling hands to his face and returned his kiss as gently as she could. She felt the tension in Eric’s body evaporate and his lips soften, and at that point she felt as though she could recognize him again. He no longer seemed angry or determined to take revenge. He just seemed to want to devour her.
It would really be a pain in the ass if she fainted with joy right now.
She felt as light headed as if she had been inhaling helium – she couldn’t think straight, all her senses were focused on the contact with those soft lips, and her own reaction surprised her more than a little. Her heart was pounding in her chest as violently as the storm outside, the blood was flowing in her veins like a raging torrent and her skin was getting hot at an alarming rate.
Was it really Eric who was kissing her? Her best friend? The shy, intelligent and surprisingly sexy guy she worked with?
A lovely feeling of finding herself face to face with a stranger swept over her. Eric’s familiar scent was comforting, his passion was turning her on, and the whole situation was complete insanity. But it was an insanity that she was in no hurry to recover from.
She put her hand into his wet hair and pulled him to her, but at that moment the sudden, blinding return of the electric power made them both freeze.
Zoe opened her eyes to find Eric’s profound, clear eyes staring back at her. They were so close that their noses were touching and only an inch or so separated their lips. On his face was an expression so intense that it made her feel dizzy.
“Bad timing,” he murmured, with a hoarse and sensual voice that lit a thousand sparks on her skin.
He was right, the lights had come back on at a very inconvenient time. Had it been fate putting a providential stop to this madness or just a coincidence?
She had to make a decision: to go back to what they had been doing or to move away before it was too late.
Kissing Eric could be dangerous, especially given the strange emotions that he had somehow been arousing in her lately. And moreover, he was with another girl…
The thought struck her like a baseball bat, but for none of the right reasons. She should immediately extract herself from that triangle and feel guilty about what she was doing to another unsuspecting girl. Instead all she could do was feel fierce jealousy.
This was her Eric, and she wasn’t planning on sharing him with anyone.
Looking into his slightly misty eyes, Zoe sent her better judgment to hell and bent over to turn off the lamp next to the couch.
“Are you turning off the light to forget who you’ve got in front of you?” he asked.
“I’m turning off the light to avoid you getting distracted,” whispered Zoe.
With the room once again immersed in twilight, she put her arms around his neck and kissed him, sighing with pleasure when she felt Eric’s lips surrender to hers with no trace of hesitation.
The abruptness of the first kiss was inexorably replaced by a languid passion. Eric didn’t seem to be in any kind of rush, and he savored her so slowly and so deeply that it took her breath away. His hands on her body were delicate, but they knew exactly how to touch the right spots. In a state of stunned euphoria, Zoe felt as though she had been plunged into some parallel reality from which she had absolutely no desire to return.
He had always been there, right beside her. How many other times could she have enjoyed these wonderful feelings, if only she had been able to imagine them?
Had Eric always thought of her that way, or was it just a momentary impulse inspired by the wine?
A thousand thoughts flowed through her mind, some wonderful and some horrible. Maybe they should break off that wonderful kiss and have a talk to try and work out what was really going on…
But Eric drew her to him, pulling her onto his lap, his hands moving lazily under her dress, touching her thighs where her stockings ended and pushing higher and higher, his caresses becoming more and more daring.
Zoe put all thoughts of talking things through out of her mind.
All in all, the explanations could wait.