“W-why?”
He studies my face for a few seconds, his taped hand a hot band around my wrist before straightening up.
Before letting my wrist go.
But only for a few seconds.
To take the tape off his hands as if he’s getting ready to do something drastic, something dangerous with his bare hands. But I don’t have time to freak out about it because soon, his hands are bare and he bends down again but much further than before and instead of trapping my wrist in his hold, he traps my waist.
He wraps his arms around my waist and picks me up.
He throws me over his shoulder, my belly hitting his hard muscles with an oomph, and with his arm now slid down to my bare thighs, he begins striding down the hallway.
I’m not sure what’s happening.
I’m not sure why’s he acting this way.
But still I hold on to his hips and my breasts drag against his back with every hiccupping breath I take. “Alaric, what are you d-doing? Where are we…”
Before I even finish my question, I get the answer to it.
We arrive in the bedroom and he throws me down on the bed. I go bouncing, my hands coming to grip the rumpled white sheets, my heels digging into the mattress to gain balance.
I don’t even get a chance to catch my breath after this sudden turn of events when Alaric bends down again and grips my ankles. Before I know it, he yanks them forward to bring me closer, and then I’m propped on my elbows, looking into the darkest — and God, prettiest still — eyes ever.
“Because of you.”
I don’t have to ask him what he means by his rasped words or what he’s talking about.
He’s responding to my question, why did he miss all those things.
“M-me,” I whisper, my chest going up and down.
“Yeah.” His arms are now on the bed on either side of my waist. “It’s because all I can think about is you.”
My heart thumps. “What?”
He licks his lips. “It’s because all I can fucking focus on is you. All I can fucking pay attention to is you.” His biceps vibrate with tension, his shoulders straining. “Attention, yeah? That’s what you wanted, didn’t you?”
I swallow. “Alaric, I… I’m…”
“You’ve got it,” he rumbles, his eyes still accusatory. “You’ve got my attention. You’ve got every little inch of it. Every little drop of it. You’re the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning, Poe, and you’re the last thing I think about when I go to sleep. You’re the only thing I think about when I’m awake. When I’m working in my office. When I’m walking down the hallway. When I’m sitting in on meetings. When I’m fucking writing my paper. You. You’re the only thought in my head.”
I put a hand on his jaw then.
It pulses under my touch like my heart is pulsing as I confess, “Mine too. You’re the only —”
“Because it wasn’t enough for you, was it?” he cuts me off, ignoring my confession. “It wasn’t enough for you that ever since I came back from Italy, I couldn’t take my eyes off of you. I couldn’t stop watching you. I couldn’t stop watching you smile and laugh and strut around the school like some sort of teenage fucking siren. It wasn’t enough for you that I fucking lost my head and kept you here. That I fucking trapped you for the second time, no. You had to go ahead and do this.”
“Alaric —”
“You had to go ahead and fuck with my head so much that now I can’t even do my job right.”
“Alaric, I think —”
“So are you happy now, Poe? Are you fucking happy that you have all my attention now, all of it?”
This time I can’t even get any words out because he comes for my body again.
He comes for my waist.
He grabs it again but this time to flip me around on the bed.
My knees hit the mattress in a mad stumble and my arms struggle to catch my fall.
Although I shouldn’t have worried about that, about falling.
Because he catches me.
And pulls me upright, my spine hitting his shuddering chest and his palm spreading wide on my trembling belly, keeping me plastered to his big body.
Then in my ears, he rasps again, “Are you happy that you’ve got me wrapped around your little finger, Poe?”
I hold on to his hand on my belly, my own chest heaving. “Alaric, listen —”
My third attempt at talking, at telling him to calm down and listen to me for a second, fails as well because his other hand goes down my body, past my heaving chest and hollowing out stomach.
All the way down to that place between my thighs.
I’m only wearing one of his workout t-shirts and no panties — I love sleeping in his clothes; they’re all cozy and comfy after the bath — so his fingers find my pussy easily.