CHAPTER580
The shower didn’t lead to sex, he was a complete gentleman who stood behind me, washed my hair and my body, and cuddled me a lot. He didn’t even initiate anything and neither did I.
Too drained, too all over the place due to being exhausted, still maybe in shock and all the Paris stuff rolling around in my head. We had the quickest shower ever and wrapped in towels I am now lying on the bed while he crawls up beside me wearing a towel around his waist and lays by my side to stroke the hair from my face.
“I’ve missed you in this bed.” He says unguardedly, leaning in to kiss me chastely on the lips. I don’t kiss him back, but I don’t reject him either. I want us to be okay, yet I have a right to still be mad at him and he knows it.
“I’ve missed this place. Missed New York.” I answer tiredly, rolling onto my back to stare at the ceiling and feel the peace that being back here brings me. Completely different being here, as though somehow the air around me is changing how I feel, absorbing me back into the place I belong.
“Didn’t miss me, huh?” He nudges me slightly and then leans close to pull a strand of my hair between his fingers and starts slowly wrapping it around his pointer finger.
“Not so much lately.” I add haughtily and catch him frowning at me.
“I know your mad at me, Sophs. I know I am an ass hole of epic proportions, but I had no choice. The takeover is huge, and things have been getting pushed fast and hard to see an end before the year is out. Every day in this hold up is bad for business and we are hemorrhaging money while this goes on. We’re inheriting a huge corporation who single handily rivalled our own for years, and now we will own both. I should be there right now, day two of paperwork and negotiation. Hence why we were all here last night cramming through last minute changes for today. We inherited like forty thousand new employees and everyone’s working around the clock on this.” He watches me closely, but I only keep my eyes fixed on the ceiling and sigh heavily.
“I’m tired… I need to sleep, I haven’t since the day before the show… Go to work. I don’t want you to miss what you are meant to be doing.” I close my eyes as if to dismiss him, but his mouth on mine makes me flutter them open again and look at him as he pulls back.
“I love that you like to punish me when I screw up, I love that you have never been easy to win round. I love you and everything about you; but I don’t love the fact you seem to want me to go away when I just want to be here. I’ve missed you, whether you are mad at me or not. I’m not moving. I deserve to be late, or not show at all, for once, seeing as for the past year they have ruled my life and almost ruined ours.” He sighs too and lays down next to me, sliding an arm over my waist and pulls me snugly against him.
“You said it yourself, you should be there right now.” I remind him with a nudge.
“I do but having the love of your life walk into your home and break in front of you in the worst kind of way sort of puts everything in perspective. I need to be here with you more. When you break, it breaks me. I need to fix it.”
Arry’s words make me bleed inside. A warmth flowing through my heart and soul and I cannot deny him this, especially when he says it with such conviction. My eyes well up again and I push myself into him to snuggle closer.
He smells like everything I love about him, feels the way I can’t resist, and I know I am weakening. I want to feel better and after the shock of thinking he was with someone else; I want to feel that connection to him once more that soothes it all away.
“Make love to me.” I whisper almost randomly and catch the way he lifts his head suddenly, out of the corner of my eye. He’s confused at my request, given that I am not exactly falling over him with affection since we got in here.
“You don’t seem like you really want that, baby.” He smooths his hand across my mouth softly and it pulls my head back to that creep in Paris and all the things I still have to tell him. I shudder inwardly, even more determined to only have his touch on my skin and drown the rest out.
“I do… Make love to me. I want to feel better.” I answer numbly and tense when he leans up and over me to get a good look at my face. He scrutinizes me for a moment and brushes a thumb over my lips once more, gently soothing before he dips and kisses me a little more surely.
“Aren’t you the one that says sex isn’t the way to fix things.” He smiles softly, reciting my own words to me and out of nowhere the emotions from the past week hit me like a thunderbolt. So wound up inside, low down and then boom. I burst into erratic tears and screw my eyes shut. I have no idea where it even comes from, it’s like he found the right trigger words and my box snapped open.
“Baby, don’t. Is this because of me, because of what you think I did? Don’t do that. I swear we really are okay. I wouldn’t ever do that to you. If making love will make you feel more secure, then I will. I want to make love to you,” Arry is all over me, pulling me in close and wrapping himself around me but I only shake my head and bury my face in the hollow of his neck.
“My tutor made a pass at me…I don’t want to go back.” I blurt it out amid gulps and sobs and feel him tense instantly.
“What?” He draws back and looks me dead in the eye, that serious frown face that makes him look creepily like his father and brother, in one go. Enraged and silent, a hint of ‘I am going to kill me some creepy little French fucker’ angry.
“He put his hands on me, and his mouth, after he told me that they wanted to offer me another year ... with strings attached.” I cry some more, and yet, he doesn’t move. Only that look on his face gets scarier, and he starts to almost snarl.
“He? … That fucking… This happened at your show?” His tone is no longer husky, but a growl and his hazel eyes are growing greener by the second. My boy is mad as hell and growing more so by the second."
