Cliché of Love

Chapter 2 – Tal Jones

Half an hour later Tal Jones knocked on the door to room 1005 and was braced to be yelled at. When he’d forgotten to verify this woman’s reservation, he had been running late, again, for a date with his now-ex-girlfriend Chloe. It had turned out that when Chloe said single she actually meant married with three children. Tal didn’t mess with other men’s women. He sighed deeply. At least the hotel hadn’t been booked out because then he could’ve been in real trouble; like having-to-make-a-home-out-of-a-cardboard-box-because-he-couldn’t-keep-up-the-payments-on-his-condo-because-he-didn’t-have-a-job-any-more type of trouble.

After his extremely long hyphenated sentence a tall, gorgeous woman opened the door and beckoned him inside. He wandered in, mesmerised, thinking that he might be in real trouble anyway considering the way he couldn’t take his eyes of her.

“Please, sit,” she said in a voice as luscious as her curves.

He sat in the chair she had indicated and reclined back, lacing his fingers behind his head, trying to rein-in some control and manage his base reaction of “I want her: now!”. He slapped himself mentally. That was not why he was here.

“I take it you’re the one that buggered up my reservation, Tal?” she asked bluntly, not noticing his inner battle.

He stared at her dumbly for a few seconds, taken aback by her frank way of speaking, then replied, “Yeah, I suppose I am,” he extended a hand to shake hers; smiling and turning on the charm that had most women turning to pools of jelly at his feet. “Tal Jones to be precise.”

The woman shook his hand firmly, smiling slightly, but it didn’t reach her eyes: it seemed as though his whiles wouldn’t work on this woman. “I’m Reina Ashford. I would say I’m pleased to meet you but that wouldn’t really work under the circumstances, would it?”

“No, not really,” Tal answered cheerfully.

Reina only gave another wry smile in reply.

Reina wasn’t sure what to make of Tal. She had expected someone good looking for what Fiona had said to be true, but she hadn’t expected to be as affected as she was by the 6’3” hunk of man sitting in front of her. She could see his muscles flex and relax as he shifted in his chair and she’d seen his bicep bulge when he’d shaken her hand. All-in-all, he looked exactly like the type of man to roam the seas of women’s beds all across the globe and never be tied down at any single port: to use Fiona’s comparison. Exactly the type Reina didn’t want to get involved with. Even though she knew it was terribly cliché, she wanted a man that would be hers forever. And Tal Jones did not come even close to appearing as a man who had any thoughts of that four-letter word that started with ‘l-o’ and ended with ‘v-e’.

Why was she even considering this? He was not what she was looking and she was sure she was not what he was looking for. There was no way a man like him would go for a woman like her…was there? No. Absolutely not. But she couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like if he could, would or even did go for her type. He looked like the sort of person who was kind to strangers and certainly had the physique to turn a woman into a small pile of quivering goo at his feet. She winced inwardly at her analogy: not the sexiest thing she had ever thought up.

Tal watched Reina’s face as she summed him up and wondered what she thought of him. He knew he’d turned out pretty good in the looks department, but his ego wasn’t so big that he didn’t realise that his attitude needed a bit of work. He enjoyed women; a lot. And he was not the type to settle down and have a bunch of kids; he’d rather be moving onto the next woman to command and conquer, so-to-speak. He sighed inwardly, but jerked his head up when he registered that she’d said something.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?” He asked politely.

“I was just musing what it would be like if you were the type of man I usually went for,” she said with a small smile. Well, that had certainly grabbed his attention. She watched his face as it went from surprise, to pleasure and then to heat: lots of heat.

He smiled brilliantly. “Oh, yeah? And what do you think it would be like?” His question held an undercurrent of pure lust.

She hummed thoughtfully deep in her throat. “I think I might leave that to your imagination, Mr Jones.”

“Tal, please,” he said automatically. He hated it when people called him ‘Mr Jones’; it was just too formal for his piece of mind. As for leaving the thought of being the type of man she went for to his imagination, he was sure he would have no problem in that department. Wait, hang on a sec. He’d just realised… “You mean I’m not the type you usually go for?” he was a bit confused by this.

She laughed throatily at that. “No, I’m afraid to say you’re not.” Her eyes glinted with laughter.

“Oh…are you sure?” Even to his ears he sounded desperately hopeful, not at all his usual style.

She shook her head. “No…if you persist, though, I may be forced to change my mind.” Her charming smile vanished and she put a blank expression on her face. “Thank you for your time, Mr Jones. I hope you’ll be more careful when making reservations for people from now on.” She held out her hand again.

Tal stood and shook it, still slightly stunned from what she’d said: If you persist I may be forced to change my mind. You couldn’t get any clearer than that right? But now she was throwing him out of her room…which, to him, didn’t make any sense. He’d be damned if he ever completely understood women.

Reina walked Tal to the door, thanked him again for his time when he was outside, and then closed it behind him.

Had she seriously just said that? She shook her head at herself. She’d never been very upfront when it came to men, but she’d had a feeling that baiting Tal would be fun and almost too easy: she’d been right, of course, but that didn’t stop her from feeling slightly guilty at pretty much throwing him out her room after almost down-right suggesting they sleep togther. Never mind, she thought with a grin, I’m sure we’ll meet again.