Chapter 23
TWENTY-THREE
Sophia
I slip into a fresh set of Eric’s clothes, tossing the sopping wet ones into the hamper that now houses the shirt that he had slung over his shoulder when he got home. The one that he was wearing when he…
I shake my head, trying to force the thought from my mind.
He was trying to protect me, that’s all.
Climbing onto his bed, my knees sink into the plush material of his duvet.
He may not spend a lot of time here, but he invests in quality bedding, and I can definitely respect that.
I’m just surprised by it; he seems like a superstore cotton-blend bedding kind of guy.
No frills. Certainly not a thread count higher than two hundred, but this feels more like seven or eight.
“You gonna keep fondling the blankets, or you gonna get under ‘em?” Eric drawls, staring at me with an arched brow and a crook in his smile that makes me melt.
“Hold your horses, cowboy,” I tell him as I crawl closer.
“Never had any,” he winks. “Always wanted one, though.”
Dropping onto the bed next to him, I pull up the covers until they reach my thighs, then turn on my side and face him, propping myself up on my elbow. “Why don’t you actually live here?”
“How do you mean, Sugar?”
“I mean you don’t live here. Your stuff is here and you sleep here, but your friend said you’re hardly ever here, and I can tell just by looking around that he’s right,” I explain. “I’m just curious as to the why.”
He pauses for a second, pursing his lips while he mulls over the question in his mind. Looking at him, you would think that he’s just been asked to perform some really difficult mental math.
I worry for just a second that I may have pushed too far by asking; it’s none of my business, at the end of the day, is it?
I’d like to think that I know him well, but I haven’t known him long.
Maybe the answer isn’t something that I’m entitled to, yet.
I know I have my own secrets that he doesn’t get to know yet.
“I don’t like the quiet,” he finally answers.
Now that I think about, that makes sense for him. We were always in a loud, crowded place in Cancun, and if we weren’t, we were in his suite where he almost always had loud music or a TV show playing somewhere in the room. If I had to guess, I’d bet that he doesn’t like to be alone, either.
In some ways, we’re so alike; but in others, I don’t think that we could be more opposite.
I love the quiet. Sure, I like to crank up my favorite songs and dance my heart out or to go to parties and be around a huge crowd of people, but I recharge in the quiet of my own company, with nothing but the sound of my thoughts and the city outside of my window.
Eric’s company recharges me, too – and that scares me.
Not only because of what he so easily did to Ethan, not even the fact that he has no remorse over it, but because he’s become the source of something.
I don’t like to rely on men for anything.
Emotionally, physically, financially, spiritually.
And it’s not because I’m some damaged little girl with daddy issues or anything; my dad and I get along great.
He and my mom split when I was four and they both had very different ideals for the way a young woman should carry herself.
It just so happens that I found my mom to be more well-versed in the world of womanhood, so I followed her word as law, and she taught me not to let a man be the source of anything.
Not to let myself rely on them for anything.
“You alright over there?”
My attention snaps to the man in front of me, my eyes tracing over the sharp angle of his jaw, down the curve of his muscular chest, the tattoo of my lips etched into his skin and the little barbells adorning each nipple, following their trail all the way back up to his eyes.
“I wanna try something with you,” he tells me, bringing himself to a sitting position. “Sit up.”
I comply, pulling myself up to mirror his posture. “Are you gonna do a magic trick for me?”
“I’m gonna show you something,” he replies, a smirk tugging at his lips.
“But you can’t tell anyone that I did, alright?
‘Cause I’ve got a reputation to uphold, you know.
” He positions our hands in a seemingly-specific way; his forearms resting over his knees and my palms near his elbows. “You can use your safe word here, too.”
My throat tightens a little, and I gulp down a lump of rising anxiety trying to crawl out of my throat. “Do I need it? Do you have one?”
“Pickleback,” he answers with a chuckle. “’Cause I just fuckin’ hate those things.” He takes a deep, steadying breath. “Eyes on mine, Sugar. Breathe.”
Maybe it’s the calm command in his voice, maybe it’s some deep-down need to feel even closer to him or to get a peek into what makes him tick; I don’t know. But I stare into those pale blue eyes, letting them swallow me whole.
I could be imagining it, but I swear that I can see his pupils restrict and contract as they drink me in, and I imagine that my own are doing the same.
It’s as if there’s a silent conversation happening between two melded souls that we’re not invited to witness, but we can feel the impact of nonetheless.
We sit, lost in time, locked onto one another for several long minutes; until our breathing matches one another almost exactly and we both stop blinking. It’s like we’re under some kind of fucking spell.
A warm blanket of safety wraps itself around me, soothing muscles that I hadn’t realized were tense, slowing my heart rate and cracking open a hard wall inside of me.
My chest burns, low and deep near my stomach, and it feels like something is caving in somewhere inside of me. My breaths start to become heavier and harder to manage, and I feel a burn at the backs of my eyes, following a path that leads it straight down to the lump forming in my throat.
“I want out,” I finally whisper to him as a tear frees itself from my eye, rolling its way down my cheek and landing on my thigh.
“You calling red?”
I shake my head. “Out of Envy. I can’t take it anymore.”
“There it is.”
“I can’t pretend to be happy in those rooms,” I continue, letting my tears fall freely now.
I would wipe them away, but I’m afraid that if I move my hands from his, I’ll break the spell and the wall that I’ve put up around myself will fall back into place with a violent crash.
“It’s killing me. I hate the way those people touch me and kiss me and use me.
The things I’ve had to say yes to when all I wanted to do was yell ‘red’ and run.
But there’s no safe word in those rooms. They don’t care, Eric, no one cares.
” The blue eyes staring back at mine are filled with nothing but a kindness that I didn’t know them capable of, in spite of his jaw tightening below them.
“Some of them hurt me, and I’m afraid of what will happen to me if I try to leave.
I’m scared that I let a man hurt me...And I’m scared of what you did tonight. ”
Warm arms envelop me as I’m scooped up, pulled closely against Eric’s firm body, and he cradles me like I’m a child. He’s had his arms around me before, but always possessively. Always in a way that meant that all of me belonged to him.
This is comfort.
He’s holding me.
And I let him.
I let my body melt into the warmth of him as everything that I’ve tucked away pours from my eyes. His cheek presses against my forehead, and I wrap an arm around his neck, breathing him in, listening to the steady and sure beat of his heart.
“How the fuck did you do that?” I ask him when I finally calm, wiping away the remnants of tears left at my eyes, my body suddenly heavy with exhaustion.
“Believe it or not, I’ve been to therapy,” he laughs.
“Bill and Martina – my parents – took me to five or six different people before landing on this guy, and they told him, ‘kid’s obviously got issues but he won’t talk to anyone, no one can get him to talk.
’ So the guy said, ‘alright, then we’re not gonna talk,’” he explains.
“He pulled out a couple of these tricks and voíla, the silent kid started talking.” He chuckles, but the humor doesn’t quite extend to his face.
“So you’re a feelings-squasher, too.”
He nods his head, keeping those soft eyes pinned on me. “If you want out of there, you’re out, Sugar. You’re not working there ever again. You can come work for me, you can go to school, you can do whatever you want; but you’re done there.”
“Nash—”
“Won’t do shit to you,” he cuts me off, pushing my hair back, tucking it behind my ear. “Trust me on that.”