Conditioned...

12 - Tea Party

     What was the sense of fighting him? Ivan had said it well enough in her dreams; he always takes what he wants. Presently, that meant that he wanted inside her home and there he was pushing his way by her and into the foyer. Despite Lilith’s insistence that she was not letting him in and she wanted him to leave, he had pushed by her as if she had never spoken, hung his coat on the coat rack and told her to lead the way. As if he had not already been impolite by inviting himself in, he wanted to be ushered in now. Lilith sighed in defeat and secured her door. She was not going to make him leave because she said as much. With all her ire in tack but expression cold she stared up at him and narrowed her gaze. Only half of it was because she had a slight headache and needed her glasses. Stupid hangover.

“Why  are you here Ivan? How did you even find my apartment?” She wasn’t about to show him the same formalities as she had back in Kris’ office; he had forfeited that.

“Perhaps we could discuss this over coffee…”

It should have been a suggestion but it sounded too heavily like a command. Lilith heaved a sigh of trepidation but walked by him with her bare feet making minimal smacks against the wood flooring. She felt him moving behind her like a menacing presence and couldn’t wait to have him seated where she could see him.

“I do not drink coffee…”

“What? How have you survived?” His mock horror was not lost on her but rather had her rolling her eyes in annoyance.

“Well if it’s that important to you, the nearest Starbucks is a few blocks away…”

“No thank you.”

“I wasn’t offering to take you.” She mumbled as he brushed by her and took a seat in her favorite arm chair. Lilith had to take a deep breath before she exploded about something too mediocre to merit her temper.

Under other circumstance, had the evening ended on a lighter note-that is with her desires being granted, she would be ecstatic about having Ivan in her home. However, the evening had not followed those guidelines and the man she had wanted more than her high school crush had failed to meet her expectations and turned out to be and arrogant pretentious dick. Her fault; nobody else’s…except Kris. She was going to lug some of the blame around whether she liked it or not.

“You are going to stare holes into me Lilith…” He teased as he studied the little figurines on the side table to his left.

“I’m counting on it.” She retorted dryly. Besides the slow pang of her head ache, Lilith was thirsty, groggy and very miserable. She hated to be awakened suddenly and Ivan didn’t help her ache along when he did so.

He rolled his eyes up at her and she hated that the slight lift to the left corner of his mouth excited her lower regions. She refused to allow him the pleasure of seeing just how much.

“Aren’t you going to sit Lilith?”

Damn that delicious accent rolling from that equally scrumptious tongue. Damn it to hell.

“No. I really don’t have the tolerance for this right now Ivan. Whatever game this is-”

“You will play it until I am sufficed. Now, sit.”

Lilith’s knees were to blame. She was fatigue, they were weak so they quivered, she lost balance, the planets aligned, there was an earth quake in her neighborhood and damn it that was the only reason she was sitting in the grey corner sofa. Certainly not because he told her so.

She hated her knees…

But if she was really honest with herself, she had sat because he made her with that softly spoken but steely command. She craved shit like that and he had figured that out faster than she wanted; at least now that she had given up hopes of wanting him.