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“Yours!”
“Fuck!” I roar to the ceiling, losing my mind.
“And, while we’re at it,” she goes on, unaffected by the psycho before her ready to tear up his office.While we’re at it?“I’ve just had the pleasure of listening to three women compare notes on your sexual abilities.” Her eyes harbor an array of emotions—anger, pain, and disbelief. And there we have the true crux of the problem. My past. “That, I really enjoyed.” She laughs. It’s a demented laugh. She’s on the edge with me. “Oh, and Zoe kindly informed me of your busy bed habits,” she adds, gasping for more air. “And who the hell was that woman?”
Deep breaths, deep breaths, deep breaths.We need only one unstable person in this relationship at any one time, because two could be seriously damaging. I need to calm things down. Ava knows they mean nothing to me. She fucking knows. “You know I have a history, Ava,” I say quietly, going to her. Touch her. Let her feel that she’s all that matters to me.Remindher.
“Yes, but have you fucked every female member of The Manor?”
“Watch your fucking mouth.”
“No,” she retorts, pacing to the cabinet and swiping up a bottle. She pours it into a glass with shaking hands, and my eyes fix on it, watching as she takes it to her lips and downs it. Neat. No mixer, no ice. She may as well have swigged it out of the bottle like I do.
Did.
Why? Why would she do that?
Frustration. Hurt. Despair.
And I’m causing it all. I remain quiet behind her, unsure what my next move should be. Worried that if I don’t judge this right, it could be the end. She can’t deal with this. She can’t deal with me, my manor, my history. It’s too much for her.I’mtoo much for her. And I can’t possibly be mad with her because I’d be so much worse if her sexual history was as colorful as mine. And, worse, that the men she’d been with flaunted that.
I look at my shoes, wondering how we get past that.Ifwe can.
Her empty glass hits the wood with force, and I lift my eyes, waiting for her to pour another. She’s already had way too much to drink. I’ve let it slide, hoped it would loosen her up a bit, make her feel more comfortable about being here.
Epic fail.
Ava draws breath, pulling my eyes up her backless dress. “How would you feel if another man laid his eyes all over my naked body while I was handcuffed to a bed?” She sounds calm. It’s an act. Her arms are still shaking, even though she has them braced against the wood.
“Murderous,” I grate, my eyes narrowing on the back of her head.
She nods. “How would you feel listening to someone voice their opinions on my bedroom manner?” she asks, and my body starts to shake along with hers, the mere thought pushing dangerous buttons. “Saying they were not going to give up trying to get me in bed.”
“Don’t,” I warn, and she turns to face me, taking me in, observing the reaction her questions are getting. Two wrongs donotmake a right.
“My work here is done.” She picks up the bottom of her dress and walks toward the door, and I move two steps to my right, putting myself in front of her, blocking her way, not that she could go anywhere anyway. We arenotdone. We willneverbe done. She stops and looks up at me, and I positively hate the resolution I see in her eyes. “You should know, I’m not leaving, but only because I can’t. I’m going out there and I’m going to have a drink, and tomorrow night I’m going out with Kate. And you are not going to stop me.”
She’s a fucking joke. So now she’s going to punish me for something that is way out of my control? No. I am not succumbing to that kind of retaliation. “We’ll see about that.”
“Yes, we will.”
I keep my eyes on hers, begging her to be reasonable. “I can’t change my past, Ava.”
“I know,” she says, simple and accepting, but not accepting. “And it doesn’t look like I’m going to be able to forget about it either.” She swallows.
She can’t forget it. She can’t forget about the women who all camebeforeher. She just can’t. And there’s still the one situation thatdidn’thappen before I met Ava. Jesus Christ, if this reaction is a measure, I’m truly fucked.
“Will you move the cabinet, please?”
“I love you.” My voice is thick, my throat tight.
“Move the cabinet, please.”
No acknowledgment. Nothing. “We need to make friends,” I say quietly, unprepared to leave this office until we fix this.
“No.”
She won’t let me touch her because she knows that reaffirms our physical connection, our love, and she needs to stay mad with me. Why? She’s made her point. I get it, but as I’ve told her, I can’t change my past. Just like I can’t change hers. I can’t change that she wants to work, drink, drive me fucking insane either. I can’t change the fact that she once loved another man. But would I ever leave her? No. I want her forever. “I’ll trample, Ava,” I say, moving in as she moves back. “Are you going to deny me?” She retreats some more, until she can retreat no more, her arse against a cabinet. I think she knows she’s being excessive, but will she ever admit it? No.Stubborn. I dip, getting my face close, resting my hands over hers.
