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I rolled my eyes at him. I was being petty and I knew it, but I was sick of him shutting me out and controlling me. “I’m fine,” I protested but no sooner had I spoken the words than he snapped. His fists slammed down on the hard mahogany of the table, the wood vibrating with the force of it.
“For fuck’s sake, Lola!” He glowered at me, waiting for me to submit and let him win, but I wouldn’t. “You’ve been fighting me all day, why can’t you just—” He cut himself off, pushing away from the table and stalking away from me. His hands fisted in his hair like he wanted to tear it out. “Fuck!”
I watched him pacing the room with wide eyes.What is wrong with him?
I opened my mouth to speak but before I could he turned, staring at me wide-eyed from across the room, and spoke words that sent a chill up my spine.
“Every time you fight me you put yourself at risk.” He spoke slowly but his voice shook. His whole body hummed with tension, as if there was a demon inside him trying to bust its way out. I needed to diffuse this situation.Diffuse it. Diffuse it now.
“What’re you talking about?” I said as calmly as I could. His eyes flicked to the marks on my thighs, marks left by him, and I started to understand. This wasn’t about control or anger, it was about guilt. “Alfie, this isn’t the first time you’ve accidentally marked me during sex.” His jaw ticked and he opened his mouth to speak, closed it, then opened it again.
“It wasn’t an accident. You hurt me and I wanted you to suffer for it.” He tilted his chin up defiantly, as if waiting for…what? Rejection over his vulnerability? He’d be waiting a long time.
I held out a hand to him and his eyes widened in surprise. My hand hung in the air, waiting for him. I bit my lip, and just when I thought he was going to reject me, he came to me, not too close, but close enough to slip his fingers into mine, his clammy palm connecting with my own. I pulled him closer till he stood at the edge of the table. I pushed up onto my knees until I was level with him. My dress rode up and his pained gaze slipped again to my marked thighs. I took his face in my hands and forced him to look at me. Even in this position he was taller than me.
“Alfie, whatever you’re trying to convince me of, I don’t believe it. I believe you’re hiding things from me, things you don’t want me to see, and I don’t understand why. But I remember that you told me once that deep down, you could be a good man.”
“I lied.”
“That’s for me to decide, not you, and I have decided. There is goodness inside you, Alfie Tell. You have demons but you aren’t one. You have more protective instinct than anyone I ever met, but you have to let me in. You have this wall up around you, and I can’t get through it on my own. I can’t blast my way in, or climb it. You have to open the door.” I meant to sound steady and strong, but by the end of my speech I sounded like I was begging.
“You won’t like what you see when you’re inside.”
I took a deep breath before I spoke. “Maybe not, but maybe I’ll find the good in you anyway.”
His eyes searched mine for any sign of falsity. Then, as if someone had flicked a switch inside him, all the tension released from his body. He closed his eyes as if in prayer and pressed his forehead to mine. For once, I didn’t feel like his mind was going a million miles a minute, busy processing and recalculating.
“I’m still carrying you to bed, O’Connell.”
I couldn’t help but smile. I wilted, and this time I didn’t fight when he took me in his arms, lifting me easily. He strode down the hall, heading for the staircase.
“Why didn’t you want me to carry you?”
I was surprised by the question, Alfie usually liked to skate over issues we disagreed on, not talk them through.
“It undermines my authority.” He snorted in response, the small sound putting a smile on my face. I sighed and rested my head against his chest as he climbed the stairs. I hoped we’d broken new ground tonight because I couldn’t stand being shut out for much longer. “I don’t like it because it’s unnecessary, Alfie.”
“So, I can only take care of you when it’s necessary?” He stepped into the bedroom, the thud of his footsteps softening as he stepped off the hardwood of the corridor and onto plush carpet.
“I guess not,” I said as he deposited me onto the bed. “Why do you like to carry me around so much?”
“I want you to be safe. When you’re in my arms I have control over what happens to you. It’s the only time I don’t feel agitated.” He left me on the bed, moved to the chaise-lounge by the window, and began undoing his shoes.
“So, you’re saying that if I was just walking beside you, something might happen to me?”
“You could fall over.” I waited for him to let me know he was joking, but he wasn’t. He was really that paranoid.
“You’re being ridiculous.”
“I know.” He toed off his shoes and socks neatly, then stood and began on the remaining buttons of his shirt, the ones that hadn’t gone flying across the room when I’d ripped his shirt open.
Saliva gathered in the hollows of my mouth as I followed the trail of his fingers, their deftness revealing his torso inch by inch. My throat convulsed when I got to the V of his hips and the smooth ridges of muscle. When I finally flicked my eyes back to his face framed in moonlight, his cheeks were hollowed in a self-satisfied smile. He knew what he was, he knew it so damned well it killed me.
“Is it so difficult for you to let me carry you? Being in control gives me peace of mind, Lola.”
“But why do you need the control, Alfie? What happens when you lose it?” He glanced at the marks on my thighs, then darted away again, focusing instead on the fastening of his trousers. Apparently, the comfort I’d tried to give him in the games room hadn’t reached as far as I’d thought, and the ground I’d thought we’d broken still remained smooth and untrodden.
“Alfie—”