Intoxicated

Six

They took separate cars from the office. Not by choice. Well... not by Mercuri's choice. He'd offered to drive them both and told Tee it was no problem to drive her back anywhere she wanted to go. She'd refused, firmly decided on driving herself and relying on her GPS to get her there.

Mercuri offered no argument. He was just glad she'd accepted his offer to see the house. He could've cared less about the house. She could've been on her way to suggesting he repaint the entire place pink and cover it in sparkles and he doubted he would have cared. As long as it meant she would be there with him.

God where had all this come from? She wasn't the first beauty-tiny or otherwise- to catch his eye. She certainly wasn't the first black woman he'd taken to his bed or even fantasized about taking to bed. That she was haunted though...that nudged at him. Haunted- yes he'd caught that right away. As a man with his own share of ghosts, he recognized someone in that state when he saw them.

He checked the rearview of his F150, not really expecting to see the luxurious, navy blue crossover she drove. Chances were, the GPS would take her in another direction anyway.

What the hell are you doin', Merc? The question had been floating around the back of his mind and he'd been doing his best to avoid it. What he'd done was to invite a woman he very much wanted to know more about, to his home. That it was under the guise of him seeking her opinions for improving his home, was beside the point.

She might not think so. She might think it was exactly the point and then so much for getting to know her better. He checked the rearview mirror and smiled. He'd worry about ethics later.

~~~

They arrived within seconds of each other. Tee followed Mercuri who stopped at a small stone cottage she assumed housed his security personnel. She told herself there was no turning back now and watched as Mercuri spoke with the two men inside the construction. Soon, he was sending her a wave from his truck's driver's side window to beckon that she follow.

She got no frustrated vibes from him when she'd insisted on driving her car to his place. That she'd even accepted his offer was a big step all its own. Moreover, she'd sensed that he'd somehow understood that she needed to get there under her own steam. That had her reflecting on what she'd already sensed about him. He'd lived a life where the need often rose to shed the easy manner he gave off. Was it possible that he sensed she too had led such a life?

Whatever the reason, Tee was happy that Mercuri hadn't made a big deal of it. She was happier still that she'd accepted his offer. She never accepted. Men made their offers anyway. Whatever scars she still carried from that night, hadn't been ones that kept men from making their offers. Until that day, she'd refused them all.

Eventually, Tee was chalking it all up to plain 'ol sexual frustration. Sexual madness was perhaps better phrasing in light of the man she'd just met. Not accepting his offer for a ride had been about her own trauma-induced anxieties yes, but there'd been more to it.

She'd felt loopy, drugged, too... mellow from the moment she walked into her office and found him there. The sensation wasn't an uncomfortable one. Rather... it was as she'd observed earlier. It was intoxicating. He was intoxicating and though the looks were... godlike, it all went so far beyond them. That she couldn't actually put words to what 'it' was, merely enhanced the intoxication.

Oh what the hell are you doing here, Tee? Given the way she felt, she'd be asking him to show her to his bedroom the second she cleared the front door.

Mercuri left the muscular black truck and was opening Tee's side door after she'd parked alongside him on a horseshoe driveway of the same black brick that constructed the expansive house awaiting her inspection. He held the driver's door, but stepped behind it, once she left the shiny Infiniti as though he meant to give her as much space as he could.