Page 14

Titan

A s soon as I hung up the phone, I pumped my fist in victory. After I dropped Bailey off at her car Saturday, I promised myself to start working on a plan to get to know Bailey on a personal level, and if it went well, hopefully on an intimate level as well.

My “business meeting” today was the beginning of my plan.

I had Royce order lunch for two as soon as I hung up the phone.

Since the restaurant was in the lobby of my office building, it didn’t take long for it to arrive.

Shortly after lunch arrived, Lloyd texted me to let me know that he was helping Bailey up to my office.

I was so filled with excitement and before I could stop myself, I was walking toward the elevator to greet her.

I stood there with my hands in my pockets to keep my palms dry and to give the impression that I was nonchalant, but internally I was a nervous wreck.

I had so much nervous energy I began to pace.

I haven’t felt this nervous in a long ass time.

I wasn’t this nervous on my wedding day.

Looking back on that day I was probably so chill because a piece of me knew Eva wasn’t the woman for me, but how I was feeling right now was unlike anything I ever felt.

Eva never made me feel like if I didn’t see or talk to her my day wouldn’t be right.

As soon as I thought about my ex again, I let out a deep breath.

I had to stop comparing Bailey to Eva because they were two different women.

I made a mental note to make an appointment with my therapist, Dr. Wilson, to talk about this shit.

I took a break from pacing and glanced at my watch, wondering what was taking her so long.

I was about to push the call button for the elevator and head to the lobby myself, when the doors finally opened in front of me and anger hit me hard in the chest like someone knocked the wind out of me.

I saw Lloyd with his arms wrapped around Bailey’s waist and she had her arm around his neck.

Suddenly, I was rushing toward him, and when Lloyd looked up and saw the murderous look on my face, he quickly started speaking.

“Mr. Browning, I had to help Ms. Henson up here. She was having a hard time walking, I sent you a message,” his voice was shaking a little when he finished.

“What do you mean she’s having a hard time walking?

” My anger was immediately replaced with concern.

Now that I was looking at them a little more closely, I realized Lloyd’s arms were loosely around Bailey’s waist to help her keep her balance because she was barely standing upright in those high ass heels.

Her smooth face was wrinkled because she was grimacing in pain and biting the corner of her luscious lip, probably to keep from crying out.

“Come here, sweetheart.” I quickly grabbed her out of Lloyd’s arms and gently pulled her toward me, then I took her big ass purse from her shoulder and put it on. “Thanks, Lloyd. I may be calling you in a moment so don’t go too far,” I said, dismissing him.

Bailey tried walking, but those skyscrapers she called shoes were making it difficult.

She was walking too slowly and when I saw that her right ankle was almost triple the size of her left, I reached down and swooped her into my arms and carried her to my office.

When I saw Royce was about to ask a question, I quickly shook my head, and he closed his mouth.

I sat Bailey down on the brown leather sectional in my office before I went back to close my door and hit the switch that frosted the glass windows of my office.

When I turned around, Bailey was taking her right shoe off and I winced when I saw her ankle.

It was more swollen than I thought, and the dark purple and black bruises made my concern skyrocket.

“What the hell happened?” I went back to her and sat on the low coffee table across from her, and when I reached down to gently lift her foot in my lap to get a closer look, my fingertip brushed across something sticky.

I pulled my fingers away and my eyes widened as my chest tightened with panic when I saw blood on them.

“What the hell? Baby, are you bleeding!” My eyes quickly looked over her body, but I couldn’t see where she was bleeding from.

“Not again.” She groaned and reached down to roll her pants leg up, but it didn’t get further than the middle of her calf. But that was high enough for me to see she had both fresh and dried blood on her leg, and now that her shoe was off, I saw two of her toes were swollen too.

“Shit.” She muttered, now reaching for the button on her pants. “I fell before coming into work this morning,” she explained while she undid the zipper of her pants.

All of the thoughts in my head disappeared as I felt my blood rush toward my third leg as I watched with rapt attention as Bailey lifted her hips and pulled her slim fitting black pants down to her knees.

Her red blouse was long enough to cover her lower half, but I could see from the side that she was wearing black lace underwear.

“You have a first aid kit?” Bailey asked, pulling me out of his trance.

Bailey’s scent was filling my nostrils, and it took a herculean effort for me to stand up and walk to the bar cart in the corner of my office.

I grabbed a hand towel that was folded on the cart and put some of the ice from the champagne bucket I was using to keep our bottles of sweet tea cold and made her an ice pack.

I was about to walk to her when I doubled back and grabbed another towel from the cart and a bottled water from the mini fridge next to it.

I opened it and wet the towel before bringing everything back to Bailey.

When I sat down on the table again, I put her foot back in my lap, and immediately realized that was a mistake when I heard her sharp intake of breath.

I thought I might have hurt her by grabbing her ankle too hard until I looked at her and noticed that she was staring at the outline of my erection against my left thigh, which is exactly where her foot was resting.

But when she didn’t move her foot, I chuckled and winked at her.

I gently placed the ice pack on her ankle, and she took the wet towel from me and dabbed at her knee. Thank goodness I didn’t have carpet in my office because her knee was dripping blood onto my luxury vinyl floor.

“Bailey, I think we need to get you to the ER. Your knee may need to be sewn up, and your ankle might be broken or at the very least, badly sprained.” I was amazed at how normal my voice sounded because everything in me wanted to bend her over this couch and go balls deep inside of her.

But I never took a woman against her will, so I ignored the sexual desire her nearness was building inside of me and focused all my brain power on tending to her ankle, which looked to have grown in size since I made the ice pack.

“No, I don’t need the ER, I just need to elevate it and put a band aid on my knee.” That sentence right there just told me how stubborn she was going to be about this, but when she took the wet towel away from her knee, I almost passed out from the amount of blood on it.

“Nope, baby, look at your knee and the size of your ankle. You’re way past elevation and a band aid.

” Before she could protest, I stood up and went to get a dry towel.

When I came back I wrapped it around her knee and helped her stand up.

When she placed her hands on my shoulders to keep her balance, I reached down to pull her pants up.

As I pulled her pants up over her thick thighs, my long fingers brushed against the sides of her soft ass, and I couldn’t stop the pained groan that escaped my mouth because my dick was so hard right now I wouldn’t be surprised if it could break diamonds.

I exhaled a deep breath and yanked her pants up with a little too much force and my hands shook as I quickly buttoned and zipped them.

“Get on my back,” I said, turning around and I smiled when she hopped on without any protest.

Once she was stable on my back, I reached down to grab her heels and big ass purse and texted Lloyd to bring the car to the front of the building.