Hard To Love by Tina Rose

seen Carter, making it one long sleepless night after another. She had tossed and turned every night, sleeping with both her cordless home phone, and her cell on her nightstand, hoping he would call, but praying he didn’t. She needed to get Carter Dawson out of her head, and quickly. Almost giving up thinking he was going to call, she was trying her best to put him out of her mind.
    With her umbrella in one hand and her handbag and keys in the other, Ella’s phone rang as she was trying to open her office door. “Dammit! Why can’t people call when I don’t have my hands full,” she said, almost dropping everything. The cold wind and rain were blowing her hair in her eyes and mouth, and about the time she managed to get the door open, a gust of wind caused the door to jerk her forward, tripping over the threshold. Looking like a mad wet cat, she threw everything on her desk, fished the never ending ringing phone from her pocket and answered.
    “Hello!” she screeched, not even looking at the caller id.
    “Well, hello sweetness. Did I catch you at a bad time?” Carter’s smooth voice traveled over the line quickening Ella’s heart rate.
    “You always seem to catch me at a bad time, Carter. What can I do for you?” She asked in a breathy voice, hoping he couldn’t hear her heartbeat rushing through her ears.
    “Did you miss me?” he asked in his sexy, sensual voice.
    “Carter,” she smiled, hoping he couldn’t pick up on the excitement in her voice.
    “What? I’m just asking, did you? Cause I’ve been thinking about you.” Ella could hear his heavy breathing on the other end.
    “Will you stop,” she said, heat rushing up her neck to her cheeks. Was he being serious? As if reading her mind, Carter answered her unspoken question.
    “I’m serious, El. I’ve thought of you all week. I don’t know what it is about you, but I can’t get you out of my head. I can still smell you on my pillows, and it makes my dick hard every night.”
    “Maybe you should wash your sheets,” she tried to say sarcastically through the lump building in her throat. Why was he saying these things to her? He wasn’t just messing with her mind, now he was messing with her heart, which was currently beating at a rapid rate.
    “Nooo. I like it. I like thinking about you, and dreaming about you.”
    Ella couldn’t believe the words she was hearing, as she stood staring out her office window that faced the beach. Angry waves of the ocean crashed on the shoreline and grey skies hovered over it, mimicking the emotions flowing through her body right now. Ella wanted to believe Carter could find her as sexy has she found him, but Derek had left her feeling undesirable, and she found it very hard to believe Carter would be so attracted to someone older than him. She wasn’t sure what to say him.
    “I like that you like thinking about me,” she said so low, she wasn’t sure he heard her.
    “Go to Tennessee with me,” he said more as a demand than a question.
    “Yeah, right,” she laughed.
    “I’m serious!”
    “I can’t go to Tennessee with you,” she gasped. What was he thinking?
    “Why not?” he pushed.
    “Carter, I have a business to run. What are you going to Tennessee for anyway?” she asked, curiosity taking over.
    “They want me to do a trial run on recording a song. I’ll be there for three days, and I don’t want to go that long without seeing you again. It’s already been too long.”
    “Three days?” she laughed nervously. “Carter, I’m flattered, but I can’t leave for that long.”
    “Yes you can, and you will. Besides, maybe you can make some contacts there yourself. You are in the entertainment business, aren’t you?”
    Carter did make a good point, she could make some good contacts. But could she really leave for three days? And how would that work? Would they share a room? She certainly couldn’t afford a trip like this. But this might just be the break she had been looking for, Ella