#AskEmma

Chapter 14

'I cannot believe you harbour doubts about me being faithful to you,' she leaned over him, her elbows on either side of his head, her eyes searching his teasingly.

He had the grace to looked embarrassed, the tell tales sign of the muscle spasm on his cheek haranguing his misjudgement.  He hid his eyes, too ashamed to meet hers. But his fingers gently raked through her mane of glossy curls that fell over his face.  He made no attempt to move her hair away.  She smiled, pressed her lips to his.  His palm mapped her naked body, measuring the curvature of her shapely waist.  Finally he smiled back and met her eyes.

'When you look at me like that, agápi mou, I feel no insecurity,' his thumb caressed her cheek, 'but what can I say, I'm a possessive man with a giant size ego.'

She laughed softly, pressing her cheek into the palm of his hand.  'I assure you, you have no need to mistrust me,' she pledged.

He pulled her down, his arms fiercely wrapping around her body.  She could feel his heart throbbing against her breast violently.  She just relaxed in his arms, letting her body communicate to him, her basic need for his comfort, his strength and his protection, and the throbbing in his body gradually subsided.

It was morning, she stirred and realized that she hadn't moved and had slept in the crook of his arms the entire night. 

'Hi,' she murmured sleepily.

'Morning agápi mou,' he announced smilingly with all the abounding energy of an electrical substation.

She groaned, dropped her head back onto his chest, burrowed her face into his neck.  'Tell me it's not morning already,' she moaned.

He chuckled, pressed a kiss to her shoulder, 'I won't then, but I do need to wake up.'

'So must I Xanthus.  It's a work day,' she stated in a husky, sleep deprived tone.

She was showered and ready for work.  Xanthus was fixing his tie at the mirror.  She placed a coffee on her dressing table for him.

'Thank you,' he gulped half his cup of coffee.  'Would you like to join me tonight agápi mou?  I'm entertaining some clients.'

'Where?' She asked slipping on her coat.

He mentioned the hotel.  'Shall I send my driver?'

She shook her head.  'I'll meet you there.  It's not far from my office.'

Through the mirror, she watched Xanthus, as his eyes raked over her. It lingered appreciatively on her long slender legs.  The dress was short, high above the knee.  The matching coat just touched the hem of her dress

'You look sexy,' he growled.

'Finish your coffee. We have to go.'

He smiled. 'Till tonight,' his eyes held promise.

She held her breadth.  She didn't want to look into his eyes, but she couldn't resist the magnetic pull.  No doubt what it took for spontaneous combustion to occur, they had it in spades between them, but she had priorities, a one hour radio slot to get to and work beckoned.  She kissed him on the mouth and dragged him out of her apartment.

         Haley exhaled deeply, still feeling the heaviness after the last traumatic call from a twelve year old girl.  There had been a valid reason why she had had to go to work.   The young girl had threatened to jump from the roof of the eight storey building she lived in.  Her step-father has sexually abused her.  He was a law enforcement officer.  He threatened to kill her mother if the young girl exposed him.  Haley's cool professionalism had intuitively taken over at the time.  Silent trauma situations required calm.  A victim did not necessarily want to die.  It was a transient and treatable state.  Haley understood the tools and techniques required to talk down the attempted suicide.  And as Haley talked; the show's producers had called 9-1-1 Dispatch Centre.  She had to break the Separation Theory the girl was battling between her real self and her anti-self.  One part of the girl hated herself.  Thought she was to blame for what her step-father had done to her.  Haley dismantled the sense of hopelessness, and isolation; patiently and steadily talked to the real self, the life-affirming part of the girl, convinced her that she had a right to live, that she was not to blame, that her mother did not want her young daughter to end her life.  The young girl had sobbed and pleaded with Haley to save her.