The second floor of the hotel was empty, therefore we could make noise in that hallway without having to worry about any complaints.
Ariana was sitting on the bellhop's luggage trolley, ready for me to run through the corridor with it and her on it.
"I have always wanted to do this." She said amused.
"So have I! Do you know how tempting it is to have this thing in front of you and you can't do anything about it?" I suddenly realised that was pretty much the situation I was in, not with the trolley but with Ariana. Well, I could do something about it...
"Oh I do." I suddenly wondered if she was still talking about the trolley or if she had the same idea as me.
Time. To. Shut. Up. Mind.
I found myself dumbstruck just looking at her. I have had such an urge to kiss her since yesterday evening. But she said it, it was going way too fast. I already felt so lucky being able to have these moments with her as a friend that I did not want to jeopardise this with a kiss.
"Are you ready?" She pulled me out of my thoughts. I could only smile at her to try and mask where my mind had just gone.
"Ready for luggage delivery Ms Grande?" I said as I gripped my hand on the brass bars of the trolley and started running forward down the corridor.
She laughed with excitement, like a child would laugh in a tickle fight. This is what I wanted to be able to do everyday, make her laugh, make her smile, make her happy.
My feelings were growing and getting harder to avoid or deny.
We reached the end of the very long corridor in under a minute, passing by some rooms and some event spaces. At the end of the corridor was a big round room designed for event purposes. I steered the trolley into the room and proceed to run around in circles inside of the room.
We were both just laughing and being silly for a few more minutes until Ariana asked me to stop.
"Oh my fucking God, I'm so fucking dizzy." Ariana said still laughing.
"Why hello there, fellow sailor." I joked which made her laugh more.
She got off the trolley and stumbled a bit side to side from being dizzy. I laughed at her cuteness, it felt as though for this split second, everything she was sad or worried about was just gone.
She ended up bumping into me and my arms instinctively reached out for her, in case she was going to fall. I found myself holding on to Ariana's waist. Her laughing slowly died down as she replaced it by staring at me again. She noticed our proximity and the position we were in which caused her to blush. I was still holding on with my arms around her waist but she was not trying to get away.
I felt her lean into me slowly and my body reacted the same. I could now feel her breath close to me and my heart started to race out of control.
Her lips crashed onto mine as she closed her eyes immediately once the kiss began. We were moving our lips in perfect synchronicity. I felt the passion in her kiss and pulled her closer. As our lips kept moving together, I felt her arms come up and wrapped themselves around my neck pulling me deeper into the kiss.
Feeling her lips on me and her body pressed again mine was the most wholesome feeling I had felt in years.
After what felt like hours, we both pulled away needing to catch our breath. Ariana's cheeks had become so flushed and I felt my cheeks also burning.
"Wow." Was all I could say and Ariana smiled.
"I know right." Her arms were still wrapped around my neck and she had started to play with what she could reach of my hair. I was also very much aware of the fact that I was still holding her tight.
We suddenly heard coughing from the entrance of the event room which caused us to separate from each other and turn our attention to whoever was interrupting our moment.
"My sister has a thing for girls! Welcome to the fun side!" Frankie said clapping in delight of what he had just witnessed. He made his way to us.
"What are you doing up?" Ariana asked confused as to how he had found us.
"Oh please bitch, your little trolley race could be heard all throughout the hotel. I tried going to your room but your security told me you weren't there. Loud noise plus you out of your room, I put two and two together and followed the clues, Sherlock." He made his way to me.
"So who is the lucky girl?" He asked me the question.
"My name is Y/N. I work here." I did not know how else to introduce myself. I guest today was meeting the family day.
"I know, you got the god awful uptight uniform on." He joked and I laughed, mentally agreeing with him.
"Frankie! Behave please." Ariana laughed shoving her brother away jokingly.
"Yeah Yeah. So what are you bitches up to except for playing tongue hockey." He asked. I couldn't help but blush.
"What happened to you?" He said, interrupting his own questions, pointing at the result of Pete's punch.
"Pete. Pete happened." Ariana replied instead of me.
"Don't tell me that fucker was around here. If he shows his ugly ass face around here again, I'm making sure he'll need facial reconstruction." Frankie said. I mentally laughed at his overprotective brother attitude.
"Okayyyy, Frankie, please remind me not to annoy you." I said as Ariana joined in the laughing.
"As long as you treat my sister right, nothing will happen to you." I blushed furiously as I let a quick nervous laugh.
"Cute." I heard Ariana say from the side and Frankie laughed at my blushing. That did not help my blushing.
"Well, I was going to take this trolley back to where it belongs before it ends up waking the rest of the hotel." I said, trying to change the topic quickly - walking over to the trolley and rolling it out of the room. Frankie and Ariana followed behind me. I believe they were talking to each other but I couldn't hear over the noise of the trolleys wheel against the wooden floor.
We reached reception and I put it back at its place. Ariana made herself at home and just walked into the back office and Frankie followed.
"Oh wow, this is what you have to survive your night shifts in?" Frankie commented on the state of the back office. In hotels, back offices are like a storage room, offices, bar and mail room all at once. Full of glasses that no one cleared up after their shifts, lost and found items that were promised to be picked up but ended up forgotten on shelves, papers laying around everywhere and chairs that did not make it back to rooms or wherever they were taken out from.
"Yeah, I only work with boys. Cleanliness is not in their vocabulary. I end up having to clean after them. I just came back from some days off, hence the state." I explained a bit ashamed having them to see this room in this state, although Ariana had already seen it and it didn't seem to bother her.
"Well, dish the story of how you two started talking and how you managed to get my sister to kiss a girl that's someone else than her best friend." Frankie said throwing himself on the office chair and placing both of his feet up on the desk. Ariana sat on an office chair that I usually sit in and I sat on one of the other rolling office chairs and rolled my way closer to them.
We had talked for a little over an hour about everything and nothing. Frankie was funny and despite his extravagant behavior, he was a really sweet guy who loved his family so much. He had told us all about being in reality tv shows and about his love life. Occasionally he and Ariana told me stories of their childhood and common memories about certain parts of their lives. It was such a genuine moment.
Soon enough, it was a little over 3am and Frankie was getting tired and left to go to bed.
Ariana yawned a few times but she assured me that she was alright and good to go on for a bit more hours.
"Working on more songs tonight?" I asked a bit intrigued.
"I may. It's been nice to be able to write again. Lately I've been feeling so inspired." She said enthusiastically and I remembered Joan saying the same thing on the first day.
"Do you have work to do now?" She asked me in return.
"No just have to run the night audit and then I'm done so I might just do that now and then write a bit." I told her while sliding over to the computer to close my shift and run the reports.
"Yeah I remember you mentioning that and I didn't get to ask about it. Do you think I could have a look at it?" She almost begged.
"It's not like proper writing, more like an accumulation of thoughts. Small sentences or thoughts that run through my mind."
To be honest, I had lately written some of my thoughts down about Ariana and I was terrified of her reading them. This girl was tugging on my heartstrings and she had found a way into my writing.
Against my better judgment I reached into my backpacks that was close by, pulled out my black Moleskin notebook in which all of my writings were in. I rolled over with the office chair I was sitting in to where she was sitting and handed it to her. She proceeded into taking it as if I had given her the Holy Grail. A could see a faint smile on her face.
"Are you sure I can look through it?" She checked again. "I know how intimate and personal it can be sharing your words with other people." She held the book tightly against her chest.
I simply nodded. I was trying to think through everything I had written in that book. Some of it was dark, some of it was a bit more humorous and then there was the lovey dovey notes. I was just afraid she might think I was too much.
Carefully, she opened the book and flipped through the pages.
"You have a gorgeous handwriting." She said, almost whispered, as she was enthralled by my writing.
A few moments of silence followed as I was becoming more of a nervous wreck. I saw some parts of my writing where her brows furrowed, some where she smiled and some where she genuinely seemed sad.
"Your writing is absolutely beautiful. Poetic twist to some of them too. I love it." She was still reading through. I had almost filled that notebook with writing.
"I have come to realise that you do not get to decide who you fall in love with in this life. But you sure as hell get to decide if they are worth the fight or not." She read out loud my own writing. Once she finished the sentence she looked up at me and gave me a big smile. I'm not sure if that was hinting at anything.
"I love that one." She told me. "You writing is beautiful, you should write for me." She laughed and my heart skipped a beat at that amazing sound.
"Thank you Ari." I simply replied. I was a bit at a loss for words. It was one thing writing it but having someone else read it; especially someone of her caliber and who meant so much.
"I actually have never let anyone read my writing before." I said as I took the notebook she was handing back to me.
"Well I'm really flattered that you let me read it." She got up and took a bottle of water that was in the back office fridge.
I watched her be, so effortlessly, perfect. The way she held herself, the way her movements were so graceful. At that instance, she was the definition of perfect and I felt myself getting lost in her more and more.
She must have noticed my staring as she looked towards me. She giggled and made her way to me.
I think at this point my blood pressure had been permanently raised since the day she walked into the hotel.
She straddled me so that she was facing me and wrapped her arms around my neck. The heat on my face was instant. I struggled as my brain had been temporarily disabled. I managed to wrap my arms around her waist, also providing her support.
"You're so fucking cute when you blush."
And before I had the time to say anything back or even process what she told me, she slowly leaned in, cupped my face with her hands and kissed me. Feeling her lips on mine was definitely something I could get used to. She simply drank some water earlier but her lips still tasted sweet for some reason. Her perfume also quickly overtook the air around us.
"I just couldn't wait to kiss you again." She said breaking our lips for a split second and smiled before kissing me again.
This time I could feel her kiss deepen, with more passion and strength. One of her hand went to cup my face before slowly going down along my neck and rest on my chest. This kiss was starting to get me aroused and felt like it was doing the same to her as she had difficulties sitting still.
My hands now had a mind of their own and as one was still around Ariana's waist, the other decided to trail down to her outer thigh. As per her signature outfit, in between the oversized sweater and the boots, there was a bit of bareness. I brushed my hand up and down her exposed thigh. She moaned in pleasure and if her voice was angelic...her moan was divine.
She was driving me wild.
Suddenly, I felt the warmth pull away from from my lips and I groaned in contest. I opened my eyes to see her fully flushed face and noticed her shortness of breath from our kiss.
"As much as I want to keep going, I don't think here and now is a good place."
I noticed I was also short of breath and I could even hear my own heartbeat. She was right, this was not the place and I could not allow for her sake and mine to continue. As much as I was dying to.
"What happened to you wanting me to be more rebellious?" I provoked her a bit. I surprised myself a bit at my gain of confidence.
She laughed as she got up from my lap and lightly stroked my cheek with her hand.
"Then save the bad girl attitude for when we'll be in the bedroom, babe." She winked. I gulped at her answer taken aback at the statement.
And as if she hadn't just told me that, she casually made her way to the desk across from where I was sitting and sat down, took the pen in her hand and started to write on the blank piece of paper.
What a tease.
I know we said we would take it slow, but we were burning all the red lights in our way and no one could stop us.
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A/N: Happy (late..very late) New Year!
The reads keep climbing for this book and I could not be any happier! Thank you as usual for the reads, votes and comments! I love reading your comments, they are literally the best part of writing this story! :D
Hope you're enjoying it so far, going to be bringing a bit more cuteness, drama and maybe smut (but you'll have to hang on for that until a few more chapters! :P)
I've also just recently published a 3rd story: "Heavenfaced".
I promise that "The Perfect Drug" and "Heavenfaced" will not affect the dedication I have towards "Meridian" and will only publish when I feel I've work hard enough on it :D