Back Together – Guest Post with Marquessa Matthews

Photo credit: Cristian V. / Foter / CC BY-ND

Recently I got in touch with Marquessa Matthews because she was after people who were willing to collaborate with her on guest posts, essentially to share a piece of writing with each other’s bloggies. It’s been a total pleasure talking with Marquessa and you should look up her blog to see what sh’e up to. Anyway, enough of me rambling on – here is Marquessa’s piece Back Together.

I could kill her.

I couldn’t take it anymore and it was killing me.

“When are you going to stop this?”

It had been four days since Delaney had gotten back and I had seen her a grand total of twice. The first time I saw her, it was from a distance across the lobby. She had disappeared so fast that I was convinced that she had seen me first and had stayed clear.  And yesterday, she had the nerve to give me an icy “hello” when we passed each other outside of the office cafeteria with some of her colleagues.

Just thinking about that incident infuriated me all over again. She was purposely acting like we didn’t even know each other and we were far from being strangers. 

My mind momentarily drifted back to that night on her couch when we had watched Fitz pull Olivia into a utility closet on Scandal. If there had been a closet nearby, I might have tried to the same thing with her, minus the sex of course and just to talk to her alone. I’m not saying that sex wouldn’t have been a bonus but we hadn’t even gotten near that point before she had taken off.

Instead, there I was, forced to stalk her in the hallway after one of her meetings. When I grabbed her gently by the elbow and nonchalantly pulled her aside to not attract attention, Delaney gave me a look that said everything.

“At least tell me what I did Delaney.”

I tried to keep my voice low but I was bubbling with frustrated anger. Being this close to her, instead of her trademark Mademoiselle perfume, I could smell hints of vanilla mixed with coconut on her skin that had taken on a darker glow from all the sun she had taken in. I had the sudden urge to run my hand along her smooth skin from where I held her elbow down to her hand but I didn’t. 

 

She changed her perfume. What else had she changed?  

When she glared up at me with coldness in her eyes, I immediately let her elbow go. Her eyes were unflinching and silent. It was a silence that my own anger just couldn’t handle.

“It was one thing for you to have accepted  that assignment without talking to me first but…”

I stopped in my tracks when Delaney’s mouth dropped. “Look, I didn’t mean it in that way. You know that’s not what I meant.”

“When it comes to you Tyler, I don’t know anything,” she hissed quietly, looking around as others passed us in the hallway. She was just as pissed as I was. And all I wanted was to know why.

“Come on Delaney, just talk to me!”

I wasn’t used to begging anyone for anything. But she had the ability to make me do this type of shit.

“There’s nothing to talk about. We’re finished here. I’m done talking to you.”

Delaney dismissed me and strode off the short distance down the hall to her office. I kept pace behind her. When Delaney turned to close her office door, she was so startled that I was right behind her that she ended up backing into her office. I closed the door, locked and leaned my back against with crossed arms in defiance. 

I watched as Delaney crossed her own arms in response to mine. If I hadn’t been so mad, I would have laughed at the two of us in such a stand-off.

Fire against fire.

And one thing was for sure, when Delaney was angry, I found her even more hot and irresistible than she already was. Or maybe it was because I had missed her so much. My thoughts were scrambled. I had to focus.

“Delaney, we aren’t done talking. And neither of us is leaving this office until we do.”

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