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“The last thing I want to do is fight with you.”
Once we were inside my apartment, I locked the door and leaned against it. Wariness of what was to come slipped down my spine.
Elise stalked through the entry, pausing to bend down and slip off her heels. She carried them with her to the bedroom, her dress flowing behind her.
I followed.
She was fumbling with the zipper on the back of her dress. Stepping up behind her, I gently nudged her fingers aside and unzipped her, pressing kisses to the bare skin of her shoulders. She crossed her arms over the front of her dress so it didn’t fall, then broke away from me to go into my walk-in closet.
I followed again, yanking off my bow tie and shrugging off my jacket.
Elise had taken off her dress, leaving her in a bloodred corset and matching panties. My breath hitched. My stunning, sexy girlfriend was standing there in lace and my diamonds, and she wouldn’t even look at me.
“Elise—”
She pulled on a pair of joggers then started working on the hook and eye closures down the front of the corset.
“Please don’t try to make me talk about this now.” Her eyes lifted, sweeping over my face before lingering somewhere around my chest. “If you give me some space, I’ll be able to have a conversation. Right now, though…I’m closed down and don’t think I could stand to listen to you try to explain away what you did tonight.”
My chest constricted with the weight of her honesty. I knew her well enough to recognize she’d gone cold. I would give her time, but space wasn’t really an option for me.
Tonight had begun with Elise slipping on the exquisite lingerie she’d no doubt chosen with me on her mind. I should have brought her home, undressed her, and taken my time appreciating what was underneath.
My inability to set aside my job for one fucking night had catapulted us to the opposite end of the spectrum. The corset fell open, and Elise threw it aside, covering her breasts with her arm while she shook out a T-shirt and tugged it over her head.
While she went into the bathroom, I sank down on the end of the bed, my head in my hands. Patterns of my past were repeating. My past failures mocked me.
Nights like this had ended a couple short-term relationships. I’d brushed myself off and moved on.
Most of the time, I hadn’t even paused to mark the end.
I would not let Elise go. I refused.
Balance was possible. It had to be.
She padded out of the bathroom, her face washed, curls brushed out of her hair. As she walked by me, I snagged her around the waist and pulled her to me, pressing my face to her middle, holding her tight.
She was stiff at first, but her muscles slowly uncoiled, and her fingers sliced through my hair in languid strokes. Neither of us said anything. She didn’t want to talk, and quite fucking frankly, I needed to get my head together, so I didn’t say the wrong thing when she allowed it.
I rose to my feet and cradled her face in my hands. “Are you sleepy, baby?”
She exhaled, her parted lips rosy and chewed on. “I’m just…ready for tonight to be over.”
“I’d like to do it over.” I rested my forehead on hers. “Tell me what you want.”
“You won’t give me space, so what’s the point?”
“Space isn’t the answer. Ask for something else.”
She worried her bottom lip with her teeth then sighed. “Zombies.”
“Should have known.”
We spent the rest of our waking hours watching zombie movies on my couch. Elise let me hold her, but she didn’t speak or touch me the way she always did. I had her, but not really. By the time we went to bed, I was going out of my mind.
But I bit my tongue until it was bloody. I hadn’t given her the night she deserved or the space she’d requested. Silence was all I had in me, even if it killed me to do so.
I woke up to a nightmare. Pictures of Elise and Luca dancing the night away were all over social media. I knew this because Luca had personally emailed me links.
