Fighting Seduction (2 page)

“Shut it down,” I said sharply.

Tom huffed and puffed some words that faintly
resembled coherence, but my attention drifted away from the problem at hand as
I saw Aria Roberts walk into the building and towards the teller’s booth. She
had a fascinating body. Not stunning in any traditional sense. I had fucked far
too many supermodels to be excited by infinite legs and plastic breasts. Aria
was what could only be defined as cute. Cute in the sexiest way possible. She
had a petite figure and couldn’t be much taller than 5’3, if that, and it
suited her heart-shaped face and bright brown eyes. Her long red hair covered
half of her tiny body, ending slightly above her lower back. Her breasts were
on the smaller side, but all I needed was a mouthful. There was a mouthful
there for sure, and plenty to spare. What really stood out was her perfectly
round ass. It was bigger than most of her and I wasn’t sure how she could fit that
curve in her small body and still walk with a stride. I was getting hard just
looking at her through my glass door.

“
Zay
? You there?”

I snapped out of it. “What? Uh… I don’t
wanna
hear it Tom, I don’t
wanna
hear any of it. Just shut it down, alright?”

My eyes drifted towards Aria again. When would I get
the opportunity to throw that little body into the air and fuck her brains out?
Would I ever? The fact that I had to ask myself that question surprised me.
Never before had it been a question of if but when, with any woman: actresses,
models, athletes—they all gave in eventually. But I couldn’t seduce a teller in
my own bank! They usually begged me to take them any way I liked, anywhere I
liked. Some just gave in right after their first interview here – they never
actually made it to work afterwards, though. I didn’t do repeats and I didn’t
like the idea of employing girls that would be too distracted fantasizing about
me to get their jobs done. I usually sent them to work for a business-partner
or another shareholder with the highest recommendations, so I wasn’t exactly
making them suffer. That would be Aria’s fate too, and perhaps the knowledge of
that made her shy away from me.

Or maybe she really, truly, genuinely had no
interest in sleeping with me. The way she shrugged off all my advances with
confident scorn and polite laughter surely suggested that was the case. That
fascinated me endlessly. She had told me she was single, yet she seemed to turn
men down right and left. I knew she was a junior in college. Perhaps between
the coursework and working almost full-time hours at the bank she simply did
not have time for some fun. Maybe if I gave her the right kind of incentive and
somehow assured her that she will be compensated for her company more generously
than she was for her job…

But I realized I had already tried that and she was
still not interested. I was back at square one, at a complete loss. I had
unions to deal with, people to fire, emails to respond to, but all I could
focus on was a twenty-year-old girl’s ass. All I cared about was finding a way
to get her into my bed.

I was hovering on dangerous territory, but I loved a
good challenge. I picked up the phone again and watched her answer from the
teller’s booth.

“South National Bank, how may I help you?”

She was looking towards me. She knew.

“I can think of so many ways.” I grinned. “None that
would require your clothes, though.”

She chuckled, flashing her dimples. It was a nervous
laugh. I made everyone around me nervous; it was the natural reaction I had
come to expect from people over the years. The reaction coming from her was a
source of thrill because she hadn’t gave into me yet.

“Did you need something, Mr. Sinclair?”

“Well, first of all, I need you to call me Zayden.
Zay
is fine too. Can you do that for me?”

“Okay Zayden,” she sighed heavily. “You’re watching,
so you know that took everything out of me. I like to be professional.”

Mrs. Brian, the other teller on duty, looked at Aria
disapprovingly. She had worked for this bank for many years, and had seen my
shenanigans with many different women.

“I could take so many things out of you, Aria.” My
face was serious now. Wanting. “Just give me a chance to show you. I’ll make
you feel things you never thought you were capable of feeling.”

She looked away. I was beginning to get irritated
that I couldn’t get through to her.

“Thank you for the very generous offer, Mr.
Sinclair, but I think I’ll pass for now. Please let me know if you need
anything.” She paused for a second. “Anything else, I mean.”

She hung up, leaving me more ridden with desire than
before.

CHAPTER
3

ARIA

My roommates Nick and Stacey were having the hardest
time deciding on the kind of pizza to order, as the three of us curled up on
our living room couch watching Friends.

“God Stacey, you’re such a Monica!” Nick exclaimed.

“Well excuse me for not wanting to give us all
cancer,” Stacey snapped back.

“Get off WebMD,
Stace
.
Pizza crust cannot give you cancer.”

“You would be surprised by the kinds of things
gluten could do to you if you took some time out of playing space games to
actually read about important things on the internet.”

Nick sighed and looked at me as I began to cover my
face with my palms.

“I am not going to play judge to yet another pseudo
court-drama about the importance of video games in your burgeoning career as a
programmer,” I mumbled. “Deal with your girlfriend yourself.”

Stacey gasped. “Traitor! You’re supposed to be my
best friend!”

“I am. Which is why I am staying out of this.”

They both looked confused and annoyed, as though
they were completely clueless about where to go from here. It was comical. Nick
and Stacey were the best couple I had ever seen: they were best friends first,
and argued over everything from Nick’s video games to Stacey’s Cosmo-inspired
women’s blog to pizza and gluten. I also happened to secretly know that they
were both working extra shifts – Nick at the Southern Eastern University’s IT
help desk, and Stacey at the library – to save money so they could surprise
each other on their three-year-anniversary.

Stacey had been my best friend since 9th grade, and
when she had met Nick – a freshman in college at the time – we were in our
senior year of high-school. At first I was worried sick that we would grow
apart after she had found a boyfriend, but it turned out that Nick was
incredibly cool and we got along well. So much so that when Stacey and I joined
him for college at SEU two years ago, moving into his two-bedroom apartment
seemed the natural thing to do. Most people seemed surprised to learn that I
lived with a couple, but to us it was just three best friends being roommates
and goofing around the house. And my room was far enough away from theirs for
me to not hear things I wouldn’t want to hear. I was going to miss them when we
all graduated and they moved on to get married, have babies, and do other
things couples do. I was a tad envious of what they had. They really were
perfect for each other.

Watching their relationship had been one of the
reasons I had grown to become ridiculously picky about men. The other reason
was a guy I had dated my freshman year who cheated on me with a sorority girl.
Rick – a Dick if there ever was one – was my first boyfriend, and things seemed
to be going great as our first anniversary was approaching. I was going to lose
my virginity to him that night. Everything was planned. Nick and Stacey were on
a weekend getaway, I had cleaned and double-cleaned the apartment, bought
candles and incense and all kinds of other romantic crap. I had cut my shift
short so I could set everything up, but when I got home I caught him in bed, in
my bed, with a blonde girl I had never seen.

I ended up getting drunk to try and wipe away the
sadness, and that led to having sex with another bar-goer. When I woke up and
saw my mistake next to me, I pledged that I would not casually date men, I
would not settle for anything less than what Nick and Stacey had. One year
later, I was still going strong on the pledge. Except for the part where I
often dreamed of my boss’s naked body. These dreams were sporadic at first, but
were occurring more and more frequently. I was still very firmly set on never
acting on my feelings or falling for his advances.

I turned my attention back to Nick and Stacey’s
bickering and gave up. “Guys, just get a medium pizza with rice-crust and a
medium regular. Problem solved.”

After a short pause, I looked at Stacey with
amusement. “I’ll be eating the regular,
Stace
, but I
am still morally on your side.”

She threw a pillow at me and we burst into
simultaneous giggles.

Half an hour later the doorbell rang.

“That should be the pizza,” Nick said, popping up.

“God I am starving. I hope they sent the extra
pepper flakes. They always mess that up,” I said.

“I don’t understand your inability to consume any
kind of food that doesn’t burn your soul.”

“It doesn’t burn, that’s the point. Not in a bad
way, at least. Spice makes me appreciate the flavor more.”

“Weirdo.”

“Says the girl who refuses to eat regular pizza
because she read something on The Great Internets.”

She scowled. “God, you’re starting to sound just
like Nick.”

“Where did he disappear to anyway? It shouldn’t take
this long to-” she stopped as Nick showed up looking utterly confused.

Instead of two pizzas, however, he was holding a
giant bouquet of red roses.

“When I said I wanted gluten free, that’s not what I
had in mind,” Stacey said. “But how sweet, Nick!”

His eyes widened. “No! No
no
.
Shit. I can order you some flowers if you want! Sorry, baby. These are for
Aria. From someone named Zayden.”

Stacey gasped loudly, covering her mouth. “Zayden as
in-“

“As in her boss Zayden,” Nick finished her sentence,
looking equally confused.

They were both looking at me sharply as though I
would know what to say. As though I had been expecting flowers from my boss,
who very likely had his assistant Lana order them for every teller he hadn’t
yet gotten his hands on.

Nick handed me the flowers after picking out the
note.

“Hey!” I shouted trying to reach for it. Nick was
6’5. I wasn’t going to win.

“Dear Aria,” he read out loud in a dramatic voice,
his right arm over his chest. “I hope you enjoy the roses. One rose for each
day until I change your mind.”

Nick gasped as Stacey counted: “Thirty roses!”

I felt myself get hot in the face with
embarrassment, but a tiny bit of me fluttered in excitement. What the hell was
wrong with me?

“There’s a P.S.” Nick announced. “P.S. I picked out
the roses myself, so don’t bother thanking Lana tomorrow.”

“Have they developed technology to intercept
brain-waves yet?” I looked at Stacey.

“No Aria, he can’t read your mind.” She flashed a huge
grin. “You have a lover!”

“What?” I said louder than perhaps necessary. “I do
not have a lover. Zayden –
Mr.Sinclair
– is not my
lover.”

“Looks like he will be in about,” Nick surveyed the
roses, “thirty days.”

I sighed. “No he won’t. I’ll return the roses.”

“No you won’t!” Stacey yelled, looking like I had
just said I would amputate her imaginary puppy. “He’s a multi-
squillionaire
. And so handsome. So, so handsome. Are you
stupid?”

“That’s not the point-” I stopped myself
mid-sentence and gave her a suspicious look. “How do you know he’s handsome?”

“What?” she said defensively. “I read ZEN Magazine.”

Oh right. That. I had a copy of the issue with
Zayden’s interview under my bed.

“I found it under your bed,” Stacy added. “You’re
already kind of sleeping with him.”

“Shut up,
Stace
! Let’s
just eat the pizza, watch some T.V., and never speak of this again.”

“Sure, if by never you mean thirty days,” Nick
butted in.

“Thanks for the unsolicited opinion, Nicholas,” I
said turning up the volume on the T.V. and getting under a blanket.

They continued to offer what they thought were
clever comments but I tuned them out, focusing instead on the giant bouquet of
red roses. Was I in trouble? Would he manage to get what he wanted in thirty
days? He couldn’t take what I didn’t want to give. I felt a strange pang in my
chest. The problem was, I was not entirely sure I didn’t want to give in. My
cellphone rang, breaking the dangerous train of thoughts.

“Hi mom! How are you feeling?” I answered the phone.

“Hi sweetheart. I am doing much better. The doctors
said I’ll be running around by the end of the month.”

I smiled. “I am so happy to hear that, mom.”