Chapter 17 Chapter Seventeen
CANDY’S POV
“What are you thinking about?” I ask tiredly, my eyes heavy with sleep, my entire body humming with deep sated satisfaction. I don’t need to look to know that I’m covered in his marks that’ll hopefully dull my disgust at the big palm print starting to darken on my left thigh.
His hand pauses in my hair that he’d been absently stroking and for a long minute he says nothing.
“You don’t remember do you?” He asks finally, too calm and too rigid. I’m not sure what happened between him fucking me into multiple mind blowing, body wracking orgasms and now but I think something did. He’s never been like this after sex, withdrawn into his own mind.
“Remember what?” I ask, forcing myself up so my breasts are resting on his chest, my hand supporting my chin so I can look him in the face. He looks at me intently like he’s trying to decipher if I’m being honest about having no idea of this thing I’m supposed to remember and then shakes his head.
Curling his hand in my hair, he pulls me down and kisses me instead, just like giving candy to a child to shut them up and distract them from what they really want. And I accept my candy and kiss him back because I love the way he kisses me, especially when he’s being extra gentle like now and treating me like porcelain.
When he finally pulls away from me, he hugs my naked body to his, holding me like I do the fat ass teddy bear that sleeps in my room back home. He kisses the top of my head and slips into silence again. I try to ignore the heavy quietness and slip into oblivion but it’s not working because my brain won’t stop worrying and it’s making me uncomfortable.
He’s never this quiet after sex, never. After cleaning us both up and getting comfortable, he always makes small talks and teases life out of me like a ritual, so this is bothering me. I doubt it’s still the incident from the pool. Did I do something wrong?
“Ughh, I just want to juice your head and see what’s going on inside it so I’ll stop worrying that I did something wrong?” I whine, touching the days worth of beard growth on his face.
“What are you thinking about?”
“How to tell you that we have cut your holiday short and get out of here by morning.” He says resignedly, taking me by surprise. I jerk up from his arms immediately, looking him dead in the eye to see if he’s joking.
“Leave? Why are we leaving?” I ask confused.
He tries to pull me back into my previous position on his body but that moment has passed and what he just said has me concerned beyond cuddles. Why do I have to leave here, to leave him to return home also known as hell now that Brent and Lindsay are engaged.
Giving up, he drops his hands, folding them across his chest as he sits up against the headboard, the sheets falling to his waist.
“It might not make much sense but those guys from earlier are Bratva, a Russian crime syndicate. They’re dangerous and I just got physical with one of them over you. They’ll come for us as soon as they see an opportunity and I don’t want us to be here for it.”
My guts tighten at his revelation like I’ve been suckered punched, the air sucked from me.
“But I thought it got settled by the big man.” I whine, already missing him even though he’s literally just an arm’s length away from me.
“That big man is Viktor Petrov, he’s their boss but even he knows he can’t keep his hounds contained when they smell blood. He asked me to get you out of here to keep the peace. So I’m asking you to please listen this once and go home.”
I feel my eyes start to mist as I realize he’s not joking.
“The man I hit is his brother Aleksandra and he’s infamous for being vengeful. The men listen to him almost as much as they listen to Victor. You’re smart so I’m not going to explain what can happen if we stay.”
So this is really the last time I get to see him? The last time I get to sleep in his arms and be held like a baby, be stared at like the sun rises and sets on my face? I didn’t even have the time to prepare myself for goodbyes. I thought I had time, I thought I was fucking in charge, so why does it hurt like hell to think that I have to say goodbye?
Fuck.
Defeated, I fall back into his arms, angry at the tears that starts leaking out of my eyes immediately, wishing I can pause time. Is it selfish of me to not want either of us to leave this comfortable cocoon we’ve woven together? Is it too much to ask for to remain in this perfect bubble that’s everything I’ve ever dreamed of served to me on a platter? Why the fuck did I carry my stupid self outside this room in the first place.
And for what? For Brent and Lindsay.
God, I’m stupid. Look what I’ve gone and done.
“Hey, don’t cry.” He whispers to me as I sob uncontrollably in his arms. “I’ll pay for you to go anywhere else you choose to finish your vacation, anywhere that’s just not here, if you stop crying.’
‘It won’t be the same, you won’t be there.”
The tears come even more as I admit the problem out loud. Way to go little miss no strings attached.
Instead of answering, he holds me close until I’m spent from crying, my eyes puffy again and hurting, my body limp. But eventually I know I have to be reasonable and listen to reason so I do that. I agree to get ready and leave, knowing that this is it. The end.
I go through the motions of bathing feeling numb, a feeling that gets worse when he takes me to my room to pack.
Over the past few days since it was thrashed, he’s helped me put it back together in one piece and all and refused to let me sleep in it even though it’s already paid for. We’d slowly moved all my necessities over to his instead. Head of security can shove his investigations or lack of one there of down his fat throat now.
I pack up all my things, leaving the room as I met it the first day I moved in and he helps me carry the bags back to his room. He spends the next half an hour on his system getting us on the next available flights while I finish up packing the things I have here in his room.
He climbs into bed after, reaching for me so naturally it makes me even sadder. And I spend my last night in paradise, wrapped in the arms of the man I’ve mostly fallen for until the dark comes for me, sweeping me under.