Page 23 of Iron

CHAPTER SEVEN

Petra

Pacing.

It wasn’t something I did often.

I wasn’t a pacer.

But you would have thought that I was well seasoned in the nervous, stressed out habit by the way I’d practically worn a line on the floor.

Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.

Turn.

Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.

Turn.

I’d never realized how loud and annoying the sound of my heels were until now.

My long legs kept eating up the marble floor, over and over again. My phone just so happened to be clutched tight in my hand so that I could check the time every ten seconds or feel it vibrate with some sort of communication.

Only there hadn’t been a single thing from him.

I didn’t know what irritated me more, the fact that he hadn’t shown up or the fact that I was worried something might have happened to him. The lack of response was normal. He never did tell me he was coming when I commanded. Every other time he simply came.

But it had been too long. Over an hour now. And maybe he could have been caught up in something but I was sure that if that had happened he would have let me know.

Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.

Turn.

Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.

Turn.

This was stupid but I couldn’t stop.

My mind went over the last time that he’d been here. I could admit that the three weeks that had passed seemed longer than normal. It somehow added more tension to my body and the longer the seconds ticked on, the tighter my muscles seemed to pull. I couldn’t come up with a single reason to explain the abrupt, blatant change in our arrangement. There was nothing that had been different in our previous interaction that led to me think this was no longer working for him. He left satisfied.

Then I remembered the phone call. The one that had been over two months ago. I thought that maybe I’d given him too much that night. All I was trying to do was let him know that I was… sorry… for ignoring him in that coffee shop. Perhaps my plan had backfired on me. Maybe giving him one thing had changed things in his mind.

He liked being over me, he had told me that much. I couldn’t believe that I’d let that happen and as I thought about it, I wasn’t even sure that I was aware of it at the time.

We had been together a few times since that night. And while I had let him continue to touch me, I wasn’t going to let him get me on my back again. He must have known that it wasn’t going to happen because he hadn’t even tried.

My aggravation level was rising. I didn’t like to be left hanging. If it was something he didn’t want any longer, then he needed to tell me those words. I wasn’t a fan of playing games or vaguely hinting at what you wanted. I was blunt and straightforward. If I had a problem, I faced it.

I shouldn’t be forced to pace because someone else didn’t know how to communicate. I didn’t like my time to be wasted and walking the floor back and forth, was a big pointless, frustrating, waste of time.

Ten more minutes and I was going to give up on waiting. I was going to walk out of here with my head high and throw myself back into work. I had girls to watch over and a business to run. I didn’t have the luxury of sitting around doing nothing. Or walking around, as the case was right now. I was well aware that I was the one that put that all on my shoulders. I didn’t let myself relax or leave for too long. A trip to the coffee shop or even a quick lunch was about all that I let myself have. Even the moments stolen with Iron had been pushing it. I had faith in Rowan and that was why I left her in charge most of the time. I didn’t trust easily but for some reason, I did with her.

Ten minutes had come and gone.

I found myself grabbing my purse and keys before I stepped into the elevator. Then I shot Rowan a text, to let her know that I was leaving the building and told her she would handle it until I got back.

She responded back before I hit the bottom floor.