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As soon as he wakes in the morning, he leaves. He doesn't come back until late.
Usually, he comes back so late, I'm already in bed. And I've been known to be a night owl. The man has been avoiding me for an entire week. But tonight, he suddenly wants to spend time with me? He's joined me on the couch for popcorn and movies? He's trying to have conversations?
Why? What is he after?
If he's trying to make me warm to him after the response I got when I arrived, it's not going to work. I don't trust him enough to give him the will, even if there’s a big part of me that knows it would be the right thing to do.
I wish I could. I wish that when I arrived, he would have looked at me the way he looked at me when I was a child. With affection.
It didn't even have to be the kind of affection a man holds for a woman. It could have been that brotherly affection that he used to have for me. I would have been happy with that. Sure, it would have stung a bit. But at least with that, I would have trusted him enough to give him the will. I would have felt secure that he would keep me safe in the time it took me to acquire my trust.
But that’s not how he took me appearing in his life. Now, I don’t trust him.
I can’t trust him. He’s not trustworthy.
In fact, I think he might even be more manipulative than my own family. More calculating. That’s saying something.
It’s crushing to think that way about the man I’ve always held on a pedestal. It's brutal to know that your hero isn't so much of a hero after all.
Pulling the blanket onto my lap, I snuggle into the cushions as I do my very best to ignore the man, I share the couch with.
He said he believes me, but I'm not so sure.
I don't know why he suddenly would when he hasn't before. Nothing I've said before this moment has seemed to penetrate. He thinks I'm scheming, and I hate that I understand why. We’re both scheming. We both need something from the other, and we're manipulating to get it.
I wish I could start over, but I can't. We can't.
So, this is where we are.
I force thoughts of us from my mind, but I can’t entirely ignore the man beside me. I can feel the heat from his body, and I'm entirely aware of the way that he continuously shifts closer. Even as I subtly scoot away.
We're halfway through the movie when I realize I'm pinned to the arm of the couch. There's nowhere else for me to go, and Tav is shifting closer again.
My heart is thundering in my chest. But the real bother is the hot heat I feel between my legs at his nearness. At the slow, exciting, anticipatory, slightly predatory way he stalked me into this corner.
“What are you doing?” The words come out as a husky whisper, and a new blast of heat spills in my chest.
“What do you mean?”
The man has got to be playing coy.
“What do you mean, what do I mean?” I demand, my hand flying in the space between us. Since there's not much space between us, considering the fact he’s consumed it all, my hand nearly hits his chest, and it does touch mine. “You're so close to me. Why?” I don’t let him answer as nerves spill from my mouth in the form of blurted words. “You have the whole couch. Move over.”
He cracks a smile. And then he laughs.
It’s like it can’t be helped. The sound simply bursts into the space between us, a grunted, unwilling laugh stripping him bare.
I think my eyes might bug from my head.
That drink must have gone to his.
“I don't want to move away,” he tells me when he’s wrangled the laugh. “Like I said, I like the way you smell.”
My mouth drops.
I mean, it drops.
“You like the way I smell?” I repeat slowly.
