Are You Ready For This?

Corey sighed and decided to return to the tea table. But as soon as she turned around, she immediately bumped into something. Feeling shocked she took a step back, lost her balance and was ready to fall, but the man's hands managed to catch her around the waist, and he firmly pulled her to him.

The aroma of his cologne instantly penetrated her lungs. This smell was so pleasant that it aroused the desire to move closer to its owner. Corey's face was on the same level as the man's neck. At this point, the girl turned off all the senses, except for one - the sense of smell. She herself did not notice how she began to lean closer to his skin.

Reason, logic, rationality — everything that makes us thinking people — all this has ceased to function. The brain perceived only unconditioned reflexes. And now its main task was to follow the source of an unknown smell, a real smell, which was hidden behind the aromas of cologne. The smell of the man himself.

"Are you alright?" A low male voice unexpectedly interrupted the girl's trance. She looked up and saw a pair of brown eyes staring back at her. Only then did she realize that all this time she was standing in the middle of the room in the arms of this strange man.

Corey immediately bounced off him, feeling scared and shocked. For the umpteenth time, her body acted on its own, completely disregarding the opinion of its owner.

"What do you think you are doing?!" she shouted at Daniel, full of resentment. "Who gave you permission to sneak behind me like some kind of pervert?!"

"Is this me who is a pervert? For your information, I did not even move a muscle. Apparently, you did not notice how you approached me yourself. If I did not manage to catch you, you could fall and hit yourself really hard. If my actions somehow offended you, then I apologize," Daniel replied calmly.

Corey looked around. The man was indeed standing in the same place where she had seen him before. But she herself... 'How did I get here?! I was standing a few steps away from him! What the hell is going on at all?!'

The girl looked at the young man in horror. Daniel was standing opposite her, full of greatness. His gaze caught all her attention. Corey felt like a little defenseless rabbit that met a huge boa. This snake paralyzed her ability to move, and any sudden movement could lead to irreversible consequences.

'You dare to look at me as prey? I'll show you that even defenseless rabbits can bite when they are cornered!' she thought and looked at him maliciously.

Something flashed in the man's eyes; he tilted his head slightly and smiled slyly. "Corey, will you treat me with your cookies that your mom advised me to try?"

The girl silently turned around and went to the kitchen for cookies, which her mother didn't even bother to bring. Returning to the living room, Corey put a baking plate on the table with a bang, showing her guest that he was not welcome here. Then she sat in front of him, folded her arms across her chest, and began looking out the window.

Daniel smiled as he watched the girl's attempts to look inhospitable. He silently poured himself some tea and took the cookies from the table.

"What do you want?" Corey asked, not even looking in his direction.

"Mmmmm, indeed, it is incredibly delicious. Thank you for so much wonderful dessert," he replied in a very mellow voice.

Corey turned her head and was immediately overwhelmed by the man's incredibly charming smile.

"You...you... you're welcome," she replied, faltering. The cheeks of the girl were flushed, 'Are you a fool at all?! What kind of childish reaction is that? As if this is your first compliment', she began to mentally reprimand herself.

"I asked you what you need from my family and from me! Who did come up with this crazy idea at all? We see each other for the first time in our life!"

"In life, there's the first time for everything, Corey. Those people, who you know very well, Corey, were once strangers for you. Therefore, now, at the moment, this is also just our first time. The first time of many of our other first mutual experiments that we can experience if we get to know each other closer," he said slyly.

"What are you hinting at right now?!" she asked angrily.

"Do you want me to hint at anything? If you wish, I can offer it to you straightforwardly," Daniel replied and narrowed his eyes foxily.

'How... how dare he say that ?!' Corey was taking hold of herself, so as not to tell all the bad words she had ever heard in her life straight to his face.

"STOP PLAYING WITH MY ME IN YOUR DIRTY GAMES, MISTER ANDERSON!" The girl shouted and jumped off the couch.

Daniel continued to drink his tea melancholically, biting off another piece of her cookie. "Miss Williams, I don't play dirty games with innocent girls. But you are so cute when you start to get angry that it's hard for me to restrain myself from wanting to tease you."

"So, you are saying that you are treating me like I am a child?" she asked with a displeased voice.

"Ok, do you want me to treat you as an adult?" he answered her question with a question.

Corey thumped back onto the couch and clutched her head, 'God, this is some kind of nightmare. It is simply impossible to talk with this person,' all her thoughts came to a complete stupor. Half an hour had not passed since the beginning of their conversation, but she was already exhausted.

The girl took a deep breath and said in a calm voice, "Daniel, how old are you? About 30, right? We do not have such a big age difference. Therefore, I sincerely ask you, let's seriously discuss our affairs as adults, okay?"

"As adults, you're saying?"

The man put a cup of tea on the table, leaned back on the sofa and stared at the girl. His face became serious and his emotions were completely different from those he had previously demonstrated.

"I prefer not to discuss things as adults, but do them as adults. Are you ready for this?"

"It depends on what you want me to do."

"Hmm, now I like it more already," Daniel grinned and started drinking a new cup of tea. After a couple of sips, he continued, "You know my younger brother, David, don't you?"

"What is it so important?"

"For me it is. You see, Corey, my brother has one thing that I really need. If you help me get this thing, then I can reconsider the agreement with your parents about our marriage," the man's voice was absolutely serious, and it became clear to the girl that this was not a joke.

"Why don't you ask this thing from your brother yourself?"

"It's obvious that if he didn't need it himself, he would have given it to me a long time ago," Daniel smiled and bit off another piece of cookie, "Anyway, your baking skills are above all praise!"

Corey watched as the man was eating his head off, consuming her cookies one after the other, as if deliberately giving her time to think.

"I'm afraid, Mr. Anderson, you are overestimating the extent of my closeness with David. I doubt that he will listen to me," the girl replied.

"He may not be listening to you. But he will listen to another person who is equally close to you and to him," Daniel said and winked cunningly.

Corey thought for a minute, and then her face was covered with a wave of the outbreak, "You are offering me to use my friend as a tool to achieve your goals?!"

"Our goals, Miss Williams. You are also interested in the successful outcome of this case, right?"

Corey did not know what to answer. She did not expect such a scenario at all.

"You are a demon," she said and looked at Daniel with disdain.

"Yes, they often tell me about it. So I consider it a compliment."

Sometime later, the man put an empty cup on the table, got up from the sofa and headed for the exit. "I am glad that we understood each other," he put on his shoes and came closer to the door, "Don't you even want to see me off?"

Corey displeasingly approached the door and as soon as she touched the doorknob, Daniel put his palm on top of her hand, squeezed it tightly, and then held it to his lips and kissed it.

"I was extremely happy to meet you. You know, Corey, you are a very interesting girl."

"And you, Da-ni-el, are not interesting at all," Corey replied sarcastically.

The man grinned and leaned over the girl, whispering in her ear, "And your body does not seem to agree with you, considering how loudly your heart is beating now."

He straightened up and walked out the door with a victorious look on his face, and said, "When you get bored with your boyfriend, find me. I promise you won't be disappointed," Daniel said at last and took off.

Corey only slammed the door in response.