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“Hmm?” He rolled onto his back. “Hey, babe. Is Theo okay?”
“‘Hey, babe’?” She stared at him, lips slightly parted. “Joel, it’s past midnight, and the TV’s watching you. Did you plan to sleep down here?”
He yawned. “Maybe.”
Her eyes watered, and fuck, did it hurt to see.
“You’ve been ignoring me since we left the museum. Why? I thought the four of us had a good time.”
With Sydney, he almost always said the wrong thing. Enough “wrong things,” and who was to say he wouldn’t eventually lose his family? Sure, she liked him now, but the future had blindsided him once before. If she told him that she still had feelings for Adrían, he would one hundred percent say thewrong fucking thing.
She sat on the edge of the seat cushion near his chest. Had he treated her better at any point that afternoon, it would have been the perfect position for her to play with his hair while he looked up at her with a million ways going through his mind about how to make their relationship last. This particular stint of difficult, closed-off behavior didn’t exactly make the cut.
“Okay, fine.” She smacked her palms on her thighs. “Don’t tell me. Don’t talk to me, if that’s what you need right now.”
Her hair wasn’t wrapped in a scarf, which meant she’d had no intention of going to sleep without him.
“But don’t do this. Joel, if we argue, come to bed. If we disagree on something, come to bed. I want you there, I need you there, and I love having you there, but you’re ignoring me, turning away from me. This is about me, not something else.”
He changed to a seated position and gave her enough space to kneel on the cushions beside him. As he went to reach for her, she pulled away, and he felt what he’d done to her all day.
“No, Joel. You don’t get to treat me like this,” she pressed her lips together, and he spotted a slight quiver, “and then expect to hold me.”
“I’m sorry that I’ve been ignoring you,” he said. “I really am. We talked about this, and I still hurt you.”
“I don’t…” Her eyes filled, and a tear fell onto her cheek that she immediately wiped away before curling her fingers into loose fists. “I don’t like this. You know how my brain works. I’ve been running through all sorts of scenarios, all day, trying to figure out what I did wrong.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
They were going to be together. Her pretty ass was stuck with his petty ass. She was his—his girl, his woman, his future. He’d been so sure he could never love again, and then not only did he love again, he loved even harder than before. He would fix this.
“Eesh, can I hold you now?”
She didn’t respond.
He drew her toward him. When she didn’t resist, he coaxed her bent knees to either side of him, looped his arms around her waist, and kissed the hollow of her throat.
“I’m sorry, Ayesha.” He kissed her again. “I’m sorry.” His lips brushed her neck. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. If you don’t forgive me, I won’t survive.”
“I’ll forgive you if you tell me what happened today that caused this,” she said.
“First, tell me the truth about your feelings for Adrían. He wasn’t just some fling. It hurt when you two broke things off. I saw it all over your face.”
“Where’s all this coming from? Adrían’s what I said he was.”
“That’s not what your face says.”
“Then stop reading my face and listen to my voice. Adrían wasn’t exactly a blight in my life. Yes, I loved being with him, and the sex was amaz…”
She closed her eyes and cursed under her breath, and Adrían moved to second place on his hit list.
“Finish what you were saying, Eesh. Share with the class how amazing Adrían is in bed and how this man knows my wife’s body more intimately than I do.”
“Because of you, not me.”
“Do you know howdifficultit is to stop myself from fucking you so hard that you might be scared of me for a while?”
“Joel, I pretty much offer myself to you on a platter, and you don’t take it when I know you want me as much as I want you.”
