Home For The Holidays

“Please don’t I actually like my face the way it is.” I was too pissed to care about the fact that I’d spoken out loud again without meaning to.

“How could you?” Even I heard the hurt in my voice.

“Samantha, I told you, it’s not what you think.”

“Who is she? What’s her name? Where is she?” I was jealous of a woman I’ve never seen.

“Her name is Lisa; she’s a business acquaintance of sorts she’s a liaison for a company I worked with in the past.”

“Is she pretty?”

“Yes!

“Do you love her?”

“No!” I threw a piece of chicken at him, and it landed on his cheek and stuck.

“Then why were you with her?”

“Samantha, I’m a grown man. Did you think I was a monk?”

“No, but…” I hate it; I hate that he’d been with someone else. Somehow in the past week, I’d totally overlooked the fact that he’d once been engaged to Tessa, the snake.

“How long were you two together?”

“We’re not together; we’ve just had a casual sexual relationship for the past two years.”

“Two…”

“It was just easier to have a no-strings-attached arrangement with one person than have a slew of women.”

“No one has a no-strings two-year relationship.”

“Well, we did, and I’m not about to apologize for having a life before we met.” This time I jumped way off the bed in my anger, and picked my clothes up off the floor, headed for the bathroom to get dressed.

He met me halfway there, and we had a mini tussle for my clothes. “Leave me alone, let go, I don’t want to be here. Did you fuck her on that bed?” I was so hurt, hurt, and pissed that he had a point. I didn’t think he was a monk, but I didn’t know that hearing him talk about another woman would make me feel this way.

“No, she’s never been here, no one else has but you, I promise. We… I got her a place where we meet… Samantha.” I wanted to punch something, and since he was near, I let him have it. I couldn’t quite reach his stupid face, so his chest and stomach bore the brunt of my significant anger.

“Baby, I want you to calm down and listen to me. I’m not in love with her. She was just convenient. I feel guilty saying this or even discussing her with you like this, but I thought you had a right to know, and I don’t like feeling like I’m sneaking around; I don’t want that for us. I could’ve handled things without you knowing, but I don’t feel right going about it that way.”

“The only reason I haven’t told her about us yet is because she’s been out of town for a month, and I figured she deserved to hear about the end of our arrangement face to face as opposed to over the phone.”

“You’ve talked to her?”

“Not really, not since we started. I felt… off about talking to her, so I’ve been avoiding it. I did tell her that we need to talk when she gets back once I realized where this was going.”

“I’m sorry, don’t cry; I can’t bear that.” I didn’t realize I was crying until I felt his fingers wiping the tears from my cheeks. He went on to explain about how they met and how they came to be fuck buddies and yadda-yadda, and the whole time I was off somewhere in my head doing who knows what.

“How many lovers have you had?” I know exactly how to fix this.

“A few why?”

“I need the full body count Macalister.”

“I don’t see what good that would do.”

“It’s simple; I’ll just have to have as many lovers as you’ve had, so we’re even.” I was only joking, but you’d think I just took all his money and gave him a life-threatening disease the way he reacted.

Out came that hand, and around my throat, it went. Dishes went flying every which way off the bed splattering rich French stew all over the sheets and covers and onto the floor, but the maniac who was now on top of me could care less. He had murder in his eyes, and I was as cool and collected as someone who was figuring out how to pull her alpha nerd’s strings could be.

I guess he’d forgotten that that hand around the throat thing doesn’t mean the same thing to me as it does others. I just simply spread my legs beneath the robe he’d put on me that had now fallen open. His nostrils flared at my scent though he was trying to ignore it. “If you ever let anyone else near you, I’ll…”

“You’ll what?” I stared him right in the eyes.

He lowered his head and kissed me hard enough to hurt just right while knocking my legs apart with his knee, and then he was there, slamming into me punishingly hard. He so lost that fight. Anyway, that was the night I unleashed the jealousy monster, and let me tell you; there is nothing like a jealous billionaire nerd with more money than sense.