|•| DESIRÉE DOYLE |•|I grabbed a large slice of pizza from the box, taking a huge bite, and munching on it while savouring the taste of the heavily marinated flour-based goodness. I took a sip from my glass of unsweetened Greek yoghurt afterwards. I was almost home before I remembered that I was going to starve through the night if I didn't get takeout. I made a mental note to go grocery shopping tomorrow.'No, you won't. You always forget.' The tiny voice nagging at the back of my mind slithered to the surface to announce its never-ending presence.Shut up.After stuffing myself with some pizza, I put the food away and began typing on my system, letting my thoughts lead me. It was very seamless and that was a huge relief that I didn't have to worry about the perfect words coming together. I let loose and allowed myself to write.I was halfway through the next hooking paragraph when my doorbell cut through my train of thoughts, halting them. And just like that, I was back to square
|•| DESIRÉE DOYLE |•|This man would be my ruin. A perfect ruin at that, and I knew that if he was hell, I wouldn't hesitate to burn for him. That was how deep my feelings for him ran. That was how hard he had his claws sunk into the very core of my soul.I didn't know what made this moment more intense. If it was the feathery touches that breezed through my skin now and then, or if it was the uneven breaths that emitted us as our noses and lips brushed against each other, now and then, achingly. It was a sick form of tease. We both wanted each other but we were still holding back, clinging onto the waning restraint that hung between us while I straddled him.A consuming heat danced across my skin as a result of how emotions seemed to have shrunk the room into the size of a matchbox, the air rippling with so much sexual tension that I could barely breathe. It was so frustrating but I loved every bit of it.André held me around my waist in a way that was so soft, yet possessive, his
|•| DESIRÉE DOYLE |•|I turned on my side, causing the covers to roll off my body. The chilly breeze that swept through the contours of my skin made me shiver softly and my eyes fluttered open. On reflex, my palm reached for the space beside me, feeling it up, and hoping to glide back and forth on a taut, masculine body but all that greeted me was a cold space. A weird sense of awareness kicked in, alerting my brain and I jolted upright. Every ounce of sleepiness cleared off my face. My eyes flitted through the room frantically, my heart picking up a faster pace."No," I whisperedHe promised to stay. He said he wasn't going to leave. I could see it in his eyes that he meant it. With my clammy hands, I threw the covers off my body and slipped on my huge tee that was lying on the floor.I checked the bathroom. He wasn't there.Racked with panic, and with wobbly legs, I bolted out of the room. However, I didn't get too far when the neatness of the living room grabbed my attention, cau
|•| ANDRÉ BAUDELAIRE |•|The absorption of the sun by the horizon unfurled a splash of red, orange, and yellow on the face of the earth. The blend bestowed a golden hue on the woods, indicating that it was already dusk.I was plagued by an intense separation anxiety that made me yearn for when I could get to be with her again. Left to me, I wanted to keep her all to myself, in a place where only I could have access to her at any time I wanted. Earlier, she didn't have to tell me before I knew how crestfallen she was that I had to leave.But I made a promise to her—one I intend to keep—that I was going to come back. These past few days without her before we reconciled felt like an eternity where I had to watch myself alienate from humanity. She kept me sane, just as much as she accelerated my pulse.She was a drug, an intoxicating addiction.She was a pesky little inconvenience that I was beginning to embrace. She was the closest thing to redemption I had felt in two centuries becaus
|•| DESIRÉE DOYLE |•|"Were you just smiling?" Iris' teasing voice made me look up from the jotter I was scribbling on. Our gazes locked and the fascination etched in her taunting brownish-green eyes threw my cheeks into action. They flat-out betrayed me by growing red beneath her gaze."What? No!" I denied it immediately, unable to get my cheeks back to its normal colour. I was biting down on my lips to hold back a smile."Yes, you were!" she wagged her finger at me from where she stood beside Mama Marie who was checking the sauce on the gas cooker.The older woman chuckled."Iris, leave the girl alone." Mama Marie chided her playfully."And why would I do that?" the taller girl cocker a brow, tossing the napkin in her hands somewhere before she began making her way towards me where I was seated in front of the kitchen island."Is there anything you are not telling me?" her teasing smile still played on her lips as she sunk her fingers into her curls that were let down in their natur
|•| DESIRÉE DOYLE |•|I think longing has to be one of the most underrated emotions. We tend to overlook just how much it could munch at one's soul and make you feel incomplete. That emotion and separation anxiety was a volatile combination. And I think what made it more dangerous was how it ate at you slowly, almost unnoticeable at first until that voidness is all you can think of.I was happy. I was happy that the kind of love I wanted, I finally had it and I was sane enough to know that it was real. I knew I only just met him, but his presence had sort of eradicated any thought of being with any other person and thinking of them as an endgame for me. I knew without a doubt that he was an endgame for me. What I had with him, I didn't want it with anyone else.But then, doubts had begun creeping in because I hadn't seen him since the moment we shared that morning in my kitchen. It had lodged a lot of questions within me, stirring my insecurities like a pot of arsenic that poisone
|•| DESIRÉE DOYLE |•|I stared at the red thong in my hands, a naughty smirk creeping up to my lips. I shoved it into the drawer, deciding not to wear it. I looked up to behold my reflection in the mirror.I looked different. The good kind of different. I was more of a jeans and sweaters kind of girl but staring at myself in the mirror, it felt like another personality of mine had just been unlocked. The cup of the padded red maxi dress cupped my boobs, showing the swells of my breasts and cleavage so small, yet enticing. It had straps in the form of ropes running from its neck to my back in loops that formed intersections on my bare back. The silk material pooled at my feet but it had a dangerous slit running up to my thigh, exposing a great deal of my thigh.André struck me as an aristocratic of some sort, but I didn't know his taste was this impeccable. The man had a good eye. However, looking at it now, it appeared to me like he bought his doom with his money because I looked lik
|•| DESIRÉE DOYLE |•|A light giggle escaped my lips when he dropped me on the surface of the couch and proceeded to help me get off my slippers. The cold temperature of his fingers skimming the skin of my feet made me suck in a shiver. He pressed a tender kiss to my feet before helping me into a comfortable position."Thank you." I blushed."So, do you want to unbox your gifts?" he wiggled his eyebrows at me comically and I laughed, nodding.He grabbed one of the boxes swiftly and handed it to me. It was the biggest one because my tiny hands were barely keeping it in place. He had a lazy, urging smile that I found sexy playing on his lips. I looked away from him and unknotted the ribbons. I pried the cover open and my eyes nearly popped out of their sockets as I retrieved the first book."André!" I whisper-yelled, my voice laced with awe. Being a bibliophile had its perks because as I looked through the four books, with somewhat modern yet vintage covers in mature colours, alongside