Athena Ramirez
The first thing that pulled me out of my heavy sleep was my pondering head. My body felt like it had been crushed by a truck. My flick my heavy eyelids open and flinch at the glaring morning light. Yellow sunlight is streaming in through the windows. My head pounds, and my mouth is dry and sour and any slight movement I made , made my head throb terribly.
Shit!
I drank past my limit last nightt?
I’m not a heavy drinker. A few glasses of wine to take the edge off after work was about as tipsy as I can or ever get. I don’t have time to go out and party like I did in college. Troy kept me busy for that.
Our client last night didn't want to back down and turning down a drink offered by them would have seemed rude. Eros seemed to have been in the same boat as me...
"Eros, Oh shit"Immediately I mentioned his name memories of last night begins to plague me.
I swivel my head slowly, trying not to piss off the giant hammering away on the inside of my skull.
Eros still lied next to me. He’s not wearing any clothes and he's looking glorious handsome as unbothered, sleeping quite peacefully I might add.
Peaceful isn't the look on my face right now!
Holy shit.
The events of last night filtered into her head, started hazy but it all came rushing to her.. Like something from a half-remembered dream. But it wasn’t a dream. Waking up naked in Ero's bed is proof enough that what happened last night was very real. They'd fucked in her room first and had moved to his bed ..
Oh, shit. We didn’t even use a condom!
I inch my way off the bed, slowly and quietly. I can’t wake him up. I don’t want him to see me like this. It was fine last night, I was tanked up on alcohol and lust, but I can’t handle it in the harsh light of day. Worse, I might see regret in his eyes. I definitely couldn’t handle that right now. My head hurts too much to even think rationally.
I need to get away.
The world spins when I stand up. I freeze and wait for my head to clear. There’s a good chance I’m still not yet sober. Painfully, I locate the first of my discarded clothes. The tattered remnants of my torn panties. The image of Eros tearing them from my hips and flinging them away flashes in my head.
Fuck, that was hot.
I tiptoe out his bedroom into the living area. Gathering my clothes to my chest, I make to my bedroom, and I shut the door behind me quietly. For the first time since I woke up, I felt like I could actually breathe.
I walk to the minibar thinking about what happened last night. I wanted it to happen. I’ve wanted it for so long, but now I kinda regret it. Last night was a mistake. A beautiful, orgasmic and yet chaotic mistake. Eros and I have crossed a line, one I’m not sure we can come back from. Things between us will change, and I can’t be sure it would be a change for the better.
What the actual fuck was I thinking??
If I do lose this job what would be my fate... I was never fully qualified for the job yet I got accepted and still let my personal feelings ruin things... I grab a bottle of water from the fridge, rip the cap off, and down it in one long gulp. It tastes better than anything I’ve ever had in my life. I can almost feel the hydration spread through my parched body. It’s a step in the right direction.
My head still hurts, though, and my eyes still feel sandy.
The whole point of his rule about not hiring attractive women to work for him is that they are too much of a distraction for him. What would he think about me now? If just being around a pretty girl was too much for him, how would he handle a woman he’d slept with? I sit on the bed with a groan. Last night is looking more and more like a terrible mistake.
My brain is too muddled to think this through. Suddenly I wish I had a very close best friends to tell my worries ...
The guilt of fail troy and myself is finally eating me up... Troy loved Canada, he comes home only during the holidays and breaks, his new school has different activities..
Rich people school are always so expensive but they offer the best care especially for traumatized children like Troy. Mrs Cruz was right all he need was time and the right care, he's been seeing a therapist who's been helping him with everything and have seen a positive change about troy since his visit home. .
A boy who did say much and always looked so sad and distraught. Has this new look of anticipation on his face, he couldn't even wait to travel back which was shocking to me. So losing this job might mean Troy might have to drop out and go back to their old ways of life of eating Mac and cheese.
Something she dreads...
Fuck!!!
She really did make a mistake! If she were to be fired or even moved to a new department her Salary might be cut or reduced and every dollar counts, right now rational Athena is thinking and griefing..
If only she had arrived when she was busy giving Eros a blowjob ruining any professional relationship they had!
**
Few hours later ....
I sit in the hotel restaurant and stare at the plate of breakfast in front of me. I don’t even know why I heaped all this food onto my plate from the buffet. I couldn't stay in the hotel room anymore, it felt constricting so eating down here seemed like a better option...
The urge to be so far from Eros before he breaks the news of relieving her from her duties itched at her and she obeyed. My stomach is still churning uneasily. Looks like I have to pass on the eggs and bacon, but the toast is probably safe. Maybe it can soak up some of the alcohol. Although I probably need to eat a whole loaf’s worth of bread to do that.
The moment I take a bite, Eros lowers himself into the seat across from me. The sight of him does nothing to calm my queasy stomach. His hair is wet from his shower, and instead of looking rough, he looks drop-dead gorgeous. My mouth goes dry, making it difficult to chew the toast. His expression is unreadable and I feel my cheeks flush with warmth.
“Good morning, Athena.”
“Morning,” I mutter, feeling extremely self-conscious. I force myself to look at him calmly. I knew I’d have to see him again today, but I hoped to delay it until I felt more like myself. But the dreaded confrontation is happening now. There’s no getting around it. No getting around him. I might as well face him now and find out what the fallout from our drunken tryst would be.
Overwhelmed by his smoldering blue eyes, I swallow my toast and nearly choke. I gulp down some coffee. Last night hasn’t changed anything for me. I still find him incredibly hot, maybe even more so. No matter what happened before or what would happen in the future, he’s still the sexiest freaking man I’ve ever seen. I take a gulp of coffee.
He speaks first, “About last night—”
I swallow the coffee in a rush and interrupt him quicklyI’m too nervous about what he will say. Afraid he will say he wants me gone. “Eros, stop. It’s okay, you don’t have to worry. I just want to forget about last night. We were both very drunk. I can barely remember what we did, anyway. Can we just pretend it never happened? Is that okay?”
Eros gazes at me, confident and unashamed also he looked preplexed. “Is that what you want?”He asks
I can’t tell whether he’s upset or relieved so I plough on, “Yes. It’s what I want.”
“Too bad,” he says firmly.
His answer startles me. “What?”
“I can’t pretend it never happened,” he says. “And I don’t want to forget about it.” He leans forward intently and pins me with his sapphire eyes. “It’s all I’ve been thinking about since I woke up this morning. It’s a shame you were already gone.”
I shake my head. “You don’t think it was a mistake?
But it was!
“The only mistake I made was not seeing how beautiful you are sooner.”
My breath catches in my throat. Does he really mean it? I find it hard to believe. Maybe he’s just trying to smooth things over with me. He regrets what happened, but doesn’t want things to be awkward between us.
I imagine that as soon as we land in New York City, he’ll distance himself from me. Maybe I’ll get transferred to another department in the company. Maybe he’ll fire me. I need to fix this myself before things get out of hand.
“We were drunk. We didn’t know what we were doing.”
“I was drunk, yes. But the most intoxicating thing last night was the touch of your lips on mine.”He says cutting me off
Holy shit.
Am so confused right now!
Warmth floods my body, and butterflies take flight in my stomach. I’m dizzy. My whole world is spinning.
“I knew exactly what I was doing last night,” he says. “And I know exactly what I want to do to you again. I know you want it, too.”
I open my mouth to deny it, but the words don’t come. He’s right. I desperately want him. I could quite easily let him take me right now. But I’m afraid. He awakens feelings inside of me that I can’t control. It’s thrilling and terrifying, all at the same time.
The very thing that makes him so sexy is the same thing that makes him so intimidating. He’s sexy and powerful, dominant and cocky, unstoppable and irresistible. He’s like a force of nature, sweeping me up in his strength. I feel powerless against him. Still, I have to try and resist. “Eros" I say, shaking my head
“I think you were right all along. We shouldn’t have mixed business and pleasure. I don’t know if I can be as professional as I was while we are sleeping together. I’m worried that I’ll screw up and disappoint you. If we put this little hiccup behind us now, maybe then things will to go back to normal between us.”
He laughs humorlessly. “What you call normal between us was based on a lie. Your lie, the lie you made me see and believe.
My eyes widen. “I don’t understand.”
“The day you showed up in my life wearing a costume, you lied about who you were"
I shake my head. “It wasn’t a costume. And my appearance has nothing to do with who I am. I’m still the same woman you hired.”
His eyes become stormy. “That’s where you’re wrong. Your appearance has everything to do with who you are.”
I lean back in my chair and stare at him, disappointed. I can’t believe he could be such a shallow egoist. “Oh, so just because you now think I’m attractive, that somehow changes who I am inside?”
"Damn it woman, you know what I mean You changed who you are inside by changing your appearance. I saw the real you last night with our clients. You weren’t the meek and mousy schoolmarm you’ve been pretending to be. You were sparkling. Those guys were eating from the palm of your hand. That was the real you. The normal you. And that was all because of how you looked. You weren’t hiding behind your dumpy facade. Surely, you noticed the difference inside yourself?”
A part of me knows his right but it still doesn't sit well with me.
"You can't blame me. The dumpy facade I had to play was what you wanted, what you requested and I gave it my all and still proved how good I was at my damn job"I say defending myself even if there was no reason to. Bit still he dosen't need to have the last words..
“You know I’m right,” Eros says.
“So what if you are?”
“So that means last night was the real you. Everything before that was a lie. If you want things to be normal between us, then you need to be the Athena from last night. Not the fake Athena you’ve been for the last two years”
"This pretence has gotten a little too far!"He says
My head pounds away. “Oh and so you want the version of me who sleeps with you?”
He shoots me a cocky grin. “Damn right I do. And not just because you’ve never been sexier, but because the new version of you is a force to be reckoned with. With you at my side, we can take over the whole fucking world.”
As much as I like the sound of that, I’m scared, too. I have to ask him the question burning inside me, “Has sleeping with you become part of my job description now?”
He frowns. “Of course not. It’s not a job requirement. You don’t have to sleep with me. Only if you want to, but I know you do.” Eros leans in close to me so no one else can hear. “In fact, if it wasn’t for this damn conference, I’d take you upstairs right now and fuck you senseless.”
My heart stops beating in my chest. I can’t breathe. Wetness pools between my legs. He’s right. Since the day I started working for him. I've imagined what it would be like to be with him. Idle day dreams turned to sultry fantasies of feeling his strong hands all over my body. None of those fantasies can compare to the real thing. Now that I’ve gotten a taste of him, I need more. I would welcome him into my body anywhere, anytime he chooses to avail himself to me. In fact, my only objection would be to being drunk next time. I want all of my senses sharp, so I can savor the feelings he ignites in me.
"Eros I'm still not sure this is a rational move, we are literally playing with fire"I warn him...
"Well I want the fire you bring Athena. Goddess of beauty"He say as he stares at me...
"You keep calling me that but I don't think in the Greek mythology Athena was the goddess of beauty or was she?"I bite out
"You always want to win every arguement. Well am famished, I better go get some food then,” he says standing up. Before I could even think of a witty reply or anything, he bends down and brushes his lips against mine. As if we are a couple. As if that is the most natural thing in the world for him to do. I watch his tall imposing figure stride away, my heart hammering in my chest.
This man is going to be the death of me!