Chapter 305

I yawn and stretch out on the bed lazily, stirring slowly like a cosy kitten waking after a peaceful slumber. A huge sense of weightless contentment waving over me like a warm blanket in the moments before I fully connect with consciousness. I jump when a large, hot hand gently grips my hip in reaction to my wriggling and scares me half to death. Rousing me fully as I’m not used to waking up beside someone, ever. My heart skips a beat for a second and sends me into instant sweats and floundering panic, deep inside. It all comes back to me in a rush and I blink at an unfamiliar ceiling and a rotating fan that’s too close for comfort. Blurry vision clearing to bring my surroundings to me.

Hazy in my sudden awakening, mouth a similar consistency to a furry carpet and my head aches with the after-effects of far too much alcohol and a night of walking myself to death. I have a monster hangover, head pounding me into oblivion as those first few seconds of happy waking ebb away into reality, and now I remember whose fault it is and who is lying beside me, breathing so deeply in his own comatose state of slumber.

The devil himself, who kept plying me with booze and egging me on. He is the reason I have woken to suffer.

I’m lying in bed with Alexi and I take stock of that for a moment, forgetting my miserable state and stare at his face just inches from mine and hold my breath for a second. Absorbing the moment. Connecting the dots and seeing the importance of this moment.

We have never woken in the same bed and it’s strange yet warming in a way. He always gets up and leaves long before I wake, and the fact he is still here, touching me tenderly, holds me still and makes me analyse how it feels.

What it means.

Alexi chose to be here till morning, brought me to a place I can’t leave without his say so, and shared a bed without running off before dawn. Another truth to his words.

Sure, it’s a control freak manoeuvre to keep me captive in his company overnight, but it’s an Alexi move at romance. I wouldn’t expect anything else from him, to be fair.

He really wanted to wake up with me, like he said. So, he made it happen, whether I agreed or not.

I don’t even feel surprised at that.

It feels nice. There are no other words to describe this sense of quiet contentment that waking in his arm gives me or the intimate way we are facing each other in the bed. Connected, close enough to share air although with enough space not to be overwhelmed, or for me to feel caged in by him. I’m drawn to watch him. The rise of that wide chest and fall as he sleeps on under my gaze. Unaware, trusting, so powerful as a male physique but he looks so young and vulnerable like this. To lie beside me, completely oblivious to me watching him. It’s a show of trust. He let me get beside him when he is at his most vulnerable. Face peaceful and blank, but so youthful and pretty.

I guess all those times I never really analysed why Alexi was a fuck and run kind of guy. I just assumed it was intimacy issues. Keeping women at arm’s length and never too close and cosy. Now I think about it, it’s self-protection in other ways too. He has a lot of enemies and being asleep beside some strange girl he just screwed, leaves him open and unprotected. I know there are women in his world who are used to get close to a man and be part of their demise. Women kill too … or let men in that can. He knows I’m no threat at all.

I have never seen him sleep. Not to my recollection and for a moment I see someone entirely different. Peaceful, gorgeous and has an aura of something that draws you close and urges you to wrap your arms around him. Something boyish and needy, aching for love.

No masks, no controlled manner because he is asleep. My heart constricts with so much feeling for this man that I scare myself senseless with the sheer overwhelming depth of it and move away again, edging backwards to break his spell over me. Even unconscious he has a power like no other.

A deep pit of fear grips me with the immense way he takes my breath away and rips the rug out from under me while doing nothing at all. I stop breathing in his presence, controlled by my heart beating only for him. He never lost his hold over me, he only made it grow stronger, and I’m so stuck in his own brand of quicksand and sinking by the minute. Just looking at him reminds me that he has the power to make me want to stop surviving entirely.

He’s still clothed, with his arm draped across me possessively, while still maintaining a distance between us that allows me some breathing space. We are on the mattress of his loft bed, which is surprisingly comfortable for being on the floor.

The room up here has a strange safe quality to it, tucked in the rafters with minimum furniture and belongings up here. The open metal balcony gives it an airy feel despite being a tiny space and I feel a million miles away from anything that is Carrero, or part of his world but I think that was always his intention.

To take me from all I know of him and have formed in my mind about him. To bring me to a neutral place, dressed differently, cut off from anything else that is our norm. Disconnected from Alexi Carrero and his empire and showing me the real him—Lexi. He can be so much more than I ever gave him credit for. This place, last night, it was all proof of that.

He’s clever, I always knew that, but now I think about the last twelve hours, I see he really thought about the best way to lower my guard and convince me he could be something more. It worked, judging by the way I’m staring at him like a lovesick fool. He completely changed me from a combative ‘No’ to a hopeful ‘I want to see where this goes’ all in the space of one date.

Devil of a man, that he is.

I’m still not really feeling this place is suited to the man I know but I’m understanding some of the connections. It’s in the fine details of his belongings and personal choices within these walls and I no longer doubt that it belongs to him. His secret bolthole and a place so special it means something to have brought me with him. I believe him when he says he allows only a few he trusts to come here.

Last night I poured over his book collection while teasing him relentlessly and realised the authors reflect the ones he has lying in the apartment over the club. He has every Stephen King book in existence for a start. Duplicates here. The eclectic collections have hints of things I know he likes, and the CD variety is the same music he plays in the office. Alexi knows what he likes and is consistent. He doesn’t deviate. Little clues to remind me, none of this is a lie.

I roll away from him gently, slowly and work myself to the edge of the mattress where I can step off the bed easily, which is practically on the floor. I stretch my legs out before attempting to get up and inch out of his grasp, so I don’t wake him up. His hand finally slides from my body as I get further away, out of his natural reach, but he just continues to inhale and exhale silently, no movement from him at all when I get free.

He looks beautifully peaceful, in all his handsome glory. That face sporting dark shadows of impending stubble. Ruffled hair, jet black and gloriously sexy when it’s not in its usual styled and groomed manner. Casual and rough around the edges, creased and rumpled. It suits him more than I thought it would. Makes him approachable, softer somehow. Like he is an actual human and not some cool, tailored control freak who lives in sharp suits and sinister scowls.

He is dressed in a tee and jeans, although he’s barefoot, and it’s a nice outfit for showing off toned arms, a lot of black ink from his tattoos and the perfect profile of that face. Alexi looks underwear model worthy like this, laid in crumpled white sheets, one arm bent and propped under his head to support it. Smoking hot if I do say so myself. I could stare at him all day and never get bored of that sexy man.

I tear my eyes away to sit up. I steady myself on the mattress and force myself upright properly, despite the woozy wave of nausea and dizziness which hits me full force as I do so. Head pounding intensely and room swimming as I try to hold myself together. I think I might still be a tad drunk and already that washing machine stomach is making me regret letting myself get so wasted with him. I completely let myself go last night, no concerns about getting so drunk I could barely function.

My gut had convinced me I should trust him to take care of me. I mean, it’s what he does after all. He is very good at it when he isn’t being a violent psycho.

We had our Chinese food and went to that little movie house he told me about, merry and relaxed with all our heavy topics of conversation laid to rest. Food was a welcome break to the emotional stuff, and we ended up talking about the vaguest things. I never just sat and talked to him for the sake of doing so before, and it was weird how easily we could talk about nothing and everything, and I forgot myself and just chilled in his sparkling company. Seeing why the women in his family feel adoration for him. He can be incredibly easy to spend time with when he isn’t trying to manipulate the scenario or teach you a lesson. He’s easy going when he has nothing to battle you over.

We drank both bottles of wine to loosen up while we ate and a couple more that we picked up on the walk back from seeing ‘The Godfather’. It was nice. Mellow and comfortable and then we came back here, played music, teased each other mercilessly and talked about the film. We talked more about random, trivial crap, like if Mico will ever bite the bullet and marry Mandy, and Jackson’s birthday coming up, what we wanted to surprise him with for that. Normal people stuff, like every day couples do, and we got a little drunk in the process.

Okay, we got more than a little. We got so drunk he had to carry me up the stairs, in fits of giggles, and I finally got to hear him laugh properly. Alexi’s genuine, non-guarded and having a good time laugh. The most perfect sound in the world. Dimples in all their glory.

He had to haul me over his shoulder when I almost fell down the stairs backwards before we finally got on the bed up here with a DVD on his tv until we fell asleep. A drunken stupor on my part, with my head on his chest, watching something full of action, shooting and sexy movie stars who jumped out of helicopters.

It was surreal.

Like being out with a regular guy, getting drunk and a lot of kissing. Alexi pulled me over at every opportunity on the walk to and from the theatre to get his tongue in my mouth and the drunker we got, the riskier those kisses got. I swear I was not the one stopping sex and I cringe at the memory of how stupid I was.

I was a wanton whore who got her hands down his pants in the stairwell and had myself a good grope of his obvious erection. Feeling very powerful that I could make him groan, yet so drunk I lost all my inhibitions and just wanted a release to how horny he was making me. I remember every detail of rubbing myself up against him, plying him with my full-on seductive moves and flirty behaviours. I’m a seasoned pro and he knew loud and clear I wanted sex. I was not about to stop it either.

Alexi, however, was a perfect gentleman who kept his hands above waist level and kept things PG-ish, for him anyway, surprisingly. He pulled my wandering fingers out of his jeans and threatened to tie me to the bed if I didn’t stop torturing him. Pretty sure he was hoping to follow through on that threat, knowing his love of bondage.

He didn’t let it develop though, no matter how hard I pushed. Even when I got huffy and told him to stop being a killjoy and screw me already, he turned me down flat and reminded me that sober Camilla would cut off his balls if she woke up naked next to him.

He had a point and I would have if I woke up with the memory of him taking advantage of me in my altered state of mind. Another show that I can trust him if I set a boundary and am not able to genuinely remove it. He respected me, in a way I never thought someone like him would.

I remember the basics, but I’ve lost a lot of the finer details of the night in a blurry merry haze of being bladdered drunk, although I do remember feeling safe. The whole time, I just felt wrapped in a bubble of secure warmth, where nothing could ever get at me. Stuck to his side as though I knew he wouldn’t let anything happen to me again. I never knew that kind of security, before him. No one in my life ever took care of me or kept me safe. Not even my mother.

Alexi was looking after me though, and I let go for once and trusted someone to watch my back. I don’t remember ever getting that drunk in the company of anyone without any niggles of fear, so it amazes me to think I allowed myself to become that vulnerable while with him. Miami was a start, last night I truly loosened up. I guess there is hope for us after all.