Chapter 3

|| One Year Prior To The Present ||

Feeling the uncomfortable and seemingly neverending strain in his pants, Gabriel Nicholas Reid stood stiffly in front of the bulletproof, two-way floor to ceiling mirror glass doors standing between him and his personal office balcony, which overlooked the entire city of Vancouver, British Columbia.

Trying awfully hard, but to no avail, he struggled to divert his attention from his carnal thoughts and on to the beautiful and vast view of the city displaying right before his very eyes. With the mountains to the North, the Pacific Oceans to the West and the huge Stanley Park right downtown, Vancouver was well known for its jaw-droppingly beauteous landscapes.

And from where Gabriel currently stood, he could see the boundless space of the blue ocean lined with different sizes of ferryboats and yachts mooring by the docks. He could also see the lines and lines of smaller buildings stretching across the city as well as the bridge that connected his side of Vancouver to the other side divided by a small space of the ocean.

Regardless of how magnificent and captivating this whole view was, it still wasn't enough to grasp an iota of Gabriel's attention. His eyes followed every moving vehicle but his mind was far, far away from his body and the consequence of that action reflected quite enormously by the bulge in his pants.

At such random times and more often than he'd like (sometimes being triggered and sometimes not), a certain image from two years ago would always pop up in Gabriel's head without so much of a warning or any sort of prelude. During meetings with business partners or associates or while having dinner with his family, even more times than he could count, the naked image of a certain woman would suddenly flash across his mind and have him disoriented for the rest of the day.

The same thing had happened today while he was busy sorting through some very important files and without even having to conjure the image, he had felt himself begin to harden ever so slightly until he couldn't ignore it anymore. Now, he stood before his glass doors of magnificent view, hoping for some sort of distraction but like always, still to no avail.

At first, when thoughts and dreams of her had persisted in the subsequent weeks after that night, Gabriel had thought nothing of it—pegging the random memory flashes of her low, husky moans or the blissful expression she made during her orgasmic haze or how snugly she fit around his member when he'd dipped into her warmth, to his approbation of her expertly aiding their mind-blowing sex.

She lingered in his mind and wet dreams only because she'd been his best fuck in weeks (maybe even months) prior to that night.

Or so he'd thought...

Two years after that night and the mysterious Jos was still invading his mind, bringing his previously very active sex life to a painful halt. Gabriel had tried all he could to shake off everything about her from that night—her scent, her taste, her warmth, her moans, her writhes, everything and he was almost successful; he could no longer remember what she smelled like nor could he recall her actual taste. 

However, every other thing remained ingrained in his memory, such that during the times—rare times—Gabriel had tried to have sex just to take her completely off his mind, he'd only ended up comparing other women to her. 

Other women hadn't given him the high and heady feeling the taste of her had. Other women hadn't been able to have his cock leaking precum at the sound of her husky moans or the sinuous movements of her writhing body beneath his towering one. Other women hadn't aroused primal male satisfaction she had when she'd climaxed, her beautiful face an epitome of vulnerable, pleasurable bliss. Other women hadn't fit him perfectly as if two puzzle pieces were finally connecting.

Everything about the other women had been either too little or too much, too loud or too low; simply too imperfect for the perfection that she was.

He was what his friends had called: pussy-whipped—the worst case of it ever recorded, yet he, himself, couldn't dispute their words because he felt as though truly, the enigmatic Jos had entranced him with her siren of a pussy, slowly but surely luring him to his demise.

Since that night, he could count on one hand how many times he'd bedded women but on the other hand, with relieving himself, he could count his fingers and toes and they still won't be enough.

It was official; she'd ruined him for every other woman out there...

Even his girlfriend.

Speaking of; his office door swung open and he could hear someone waltzing in, announced. There were only a selected few granted the privilege to barge into his office and from the confident click-clack of heels and the familiar apple-scented perfume wafting into his nostrils, Gabriel knew it was his girlfriend, Sigourney Lapointe.

He turned around just as she reached him. Flashing him her signature wide grin, she wrapped her arms around his neck, tiptoeing even in her heels, to place a sounding peck on his lips. “Hi, babe.”

“Hey.” Gabriel forced a smile as she pulled away a little to look at him. He hoped she couldn't see the turmoil eating him up through his eyes, but when her grin faded and she tilted her head to perhaps examine him better, Gabriel's gut tightened with a familiar feeling—guilt.

Like always, he'd been thinking about another woman when he ought to be physically and emotionally loyal to his own girlfriend.

Sigourney Lapointe was a beautiful woman and with her French roots, she could easily be passed off as a model—shoulder-length strawberry blonde hair, baby blue eyes, thin lips, a very French nose and a svelte figure. She was tall (taller than Jos if his blurry, vague memories served him right) enough to have her head reach his nose and now that she donned heels, they were almost eye to eye. 

Almost.

Relief momentarily clouded his guilt when she spoke. “You look awfully stressed.” Her slender hands crawled to his shoulders, applying a gentle pressure there for a few seconds before snaking down his chest. Her gaze turned titillating as she took an impossible step closer, arching her body into his as her hands inched southward.  

“Do you need help de-stressing?” she said, her voice now low, tempting. “You know I'm always down for it.” Leaning up, she brushed her lips across his jawline, allowing her tongue to peek out and steal teasing licks here and there. Just as her fingers brushed his belt buckle, Gabriel held her elbows gently, bringing her actions to a halt.

“As much as I'd love to unwind down your warm, little throat.” He smirked briefly at her deceivingly bashful giggle. “I have a lunch meeting to attend in a few and I gotta get going.”

Due to his earlier predicament, Gabriel had been close to cancelling the meeting but fortunately and unfortunately, now that there was another woman (a woman that wasn't Jos) trying to fondle him, the organ in his pants had gone quite limp, stilling its stirrings and torment. 

His cock seemed to have only the enigmatic woman from two years ago on its radar, not caring that he had a girlfriend, Sigourney, who should be the only woman he ought to want. 

Guilt singed Gabriel's guts as they always did whenever he recalled the reason he'd began to date Sigourney in the first place. She'd been the first woman to bring him to orgasm without having to picture a certain woman's face in place of hers since his attempts with other women after that night had failed. It had come with difficulty but she'd achieved it through a blowjob.

It had left a niggling guilt and uncomfortable crawl on his skin after they'd done it because it felt almost forced, it had felt... wrong but Gabriel had tossed the thought aside. He'd been elated, thinking that she was the woman he needed, that she'd cured him of whatever Jos's pussy had done to him. During his orgasmic haze, he had asked her to be his girlfriend, to which she'd agreed. 

She'd brought him to climax two to three times after that and the man had been on cloud nine, soaring through the skies, until one day he'd been brought back down to Earth when Jos's image had flashed through his mind when he and Sigourney were about to have sex the third time. 

All over again, he'd been demoted from grace to grass. Gabriel had tried, stubbornly trying to kick her out of his mind so he could feel and imagine his girlfriend's hands roaming his mind, feel the heat from his girlfriend's mouth wrapped around him; so he could only feel Sigourney Lapointe.

But the more he tried to do that, the more he began to subconsciously wish it was Jos instead; the more the emotional gap between he and Sigourney (though from his end only) grew. 

He knew he'd been depriving her of sex and although she'd made no complaints yet, allowing him to use several excuses to slip away, he knew it was only a matter of time before she'd know something was wrong and then, confront him. But Gabriel would rather deprive the both of them of sex than picture her as someone else just to bring himself to that heaven on earth feeling he'd been craving for weeks now.

He appreciated and respected her too much to do that. 

Sigourney pouted, disappointment swirling in her eyes. “Aww. I was hoping for a quickie against your work desk or office door.”

Gabriel exhaled a wistful sigh when a GIF sort of image of him doing exactly that to Jos, filled his mind. He shook his head; there was no end to his torment. He could only hope that wherever Jos was, she was also experiencing what he was, because if it turned out that he was the only one living this torture, he wouldn't know what to do. It was only fair that he'd left the same lasting impression on her as she had left on him.

“Me too, baby,” he lied through his teeth, angling his neck to peck her lips, hoping to pacify her. “But I've been postponing this meeting for weeks now and I'm certain my potential associates won't take the last minute postponement or tardiness in stride.”

Sigourney sighed. “I understand.” She placed one last kiss on his lips before pulling away completely. “I actually also have somewhere to be but I just thought a few minutes with you wouldn't hurt.” 

“Hmm,” Gabriel hummed, moving to tidy his glass desk as Sigourney grabbed her bag. “Let's leave the building together.”

She smiled in return and laced her fingers through his before they both strode out of the office. Gabriel's personal assistant stood from his seat, ready to follow them at the signal of his boss, which was given in form of a curt nod.

They were all in the elevator car, descending when Sigourney spoke again. “Oh, I almost forgot. Josy is finally on leave for the year. You can finally meet her.” Her excitement was palpable through the glint in her eyes; Gabriel could almost see her struggling to contain a squeal.

During the past three months that they'd been dating, Sigourney had, more often than not, been mentioning a certain best friend of hers. Josy this, Josy that. Gabriel could quite say he knew everything about this Josy without having even met her yet.

“Really? I look forward to finally meeting this woman I've been competing against for your attention,” he teased.

Sigourney's joyous laugh rang through the elevator car.

Only... Gabriel was about to have the shock of his life.