Chapter 152

Ten months on…

I wake up with gentle hands on my face, the bed dipping and a warm mouth grazing mine to bring me around from slumber in the darkness. His familiar scent and warm body encompasses mine and I know his touch instantly as my body wakes with excitement at his final appearance.

He smells so good, feels even better, rousing me from sleep and my heart rejoices that he’s back with me once more. I have pined for him so much this time. It’s been unbearable

My perfect Arry.

“Hey, beautiful. God, I missed you so much.” He breathes, tone sexy, kissing me softly, hands gliding over me in the bed easily as he gets as much skin on skin contact as possible and I wrap myself around him too. Sinking into that seductive kiss and erupting with tingles, a sense of completion that he’s finally home with me. That security, longing, and wholeness that only he can give me, flooding back beautifully. The days of feeling alone and fragile disperse with one touch and the past weeks seem to instantly erase.

He’s been gone for three whole weeks this time; every trip back to New York is achingly lonesome, seems to drag more every time, and he always comes home tired and wiped out. The trips back and forth are so frequent nowadays I barely see him, and moments like this are all I live for.

Nothing much has improved in Paris, not that he knows the half of it. He shoulders so many burdens already and I never had the heart to tell him that school has never gotten any better for me.

“I missed you more.” I whisper against his face as his nose rubs against mine. So hard to see him in the pitch black of our bedroom, but his touch is everything I love and need. So familiar, safe, and gentle. He can still make my skin burn so effortlessly that I cling to him, wanting nothing more than for him to be around me and inside of me every second that I get to have him here again.

The kiss deepens as he slides over the top of me, holding himself on strong arms as he maneuvers his body between my thighs. Stopping to rest on one hand as he pulls my nightdress off in one easy fluid tug and I can already feel he’s naked too. Wasting no time in getting in bed to wake me up because we have been apart for far too long and internet calls don’t make up for it. We start to kiss, bodies hitting an all-time instant searing heat to be reunited and even though neither says it, we both know sex is the first thing on our agenda.

We are quick to work each other up into a frenzy amid passionate kissing, hands and nails tracing each other’s skin and bodies. Grinding, teasing, nibbling, and sucking from both sides.

Arry presses his nose to mine as he starts to make love to me, eyes locked on me, hazy and heavily dilated as he focuses on me intensely. Early morning light breaking quickly, making the room hazy and grey now so that we can make out each other in the gloom. Bodies moving in unison, moaning, and clinging to him as intense pleasure overtakes my body from the toes up.

“That feel good, baby?” Arry leans down on top of me, body fitting to body as he breathes against my neck huskily, snuggling in so we have full contact, although his speech seems a little slurred with tiredness, pushing on yet his rhythm seems to be slowing down. With his face buried in the pillows beside my head, his body weight starts having more of an impact on top of me as he cuddles me close than it normally does, in fact, he is slowly getting heavier. Alarmingly so, and I wonder what the hell is going on. I’m surely getting pinned to the bed as he comes so obviously to a complete stop, after only seconds of slower and slower thrusting. Silence in the room intensifies and it becomes painfully clear he’s no longer responsive.

“Arry?” I try to wriggle free from under his dead weight, but I cannot move under the bulk of a hefty six feet pro fighter with way too many muscles on top of my little frame. “Arrick?” I jerk my body to try and nudge him and all I get in response is a muffled snore and heavy breathing which instantly angers me. Arry has fallen asleep, both on top of me and inside of me in the middle of reunion sex and I’m immediately outraged. Like a massive jolt to the heart which bruises my feelings. Hurt and temper both gripping my stomach as tears prick my eyes in a nanosecond and the realization hits me. So much for a hot re-joining of our bodies after a long separation!

Who does that? I mean what the actual hell! How can you be crazy turned on and screwing your woman and then just be… just be unconscious?

“Arry? … ARRY? … ARRICK CARRERO!” I snap at him, jerking with all my might under him so I at least make his body shift and slide to the side enough that the fright wakes him up. I’m completely devastated in this moment, bubbling with anger and pain and close to stupid tears.

Arrick mumbles something as he rolls onto his back beside me and rubs his face, getting a shove in his side from me in huffiness as I pull the sheets back to me and silently hate on him. Chest tight and stomach aching with broken pride.

“You’re a jackass.” I spit tearfully, and he seems to come to a little more. More alert to the fact he was just quietly snoring on top of me. Complete dent to my self-esteem that he can start snoring while supposedly so hot for me.

“Shit… Sophs. Baby. I’m sorry.” He clears his throat and sits up to rub his face, trying to wake himself up and leans out to lay a hand on me, which I slap away. Prickly with wounded feelings.

“Go to sleep.” I retort quietly and curl myself on my side childishly, away from him, so he cannot see how much this has hurt me. His hand comes to rest on my hip over the bed clothes, but I try and conceal the fact that tears have started rolling down my cheeks pathetically.

Every time he leaves it seems to last longer, the trips more frequent and the parting so much more heart-breaking. I feel like I never see him anymore and he’s always tired from the constant jet lag and commuting. Last time he was home only four days between two long trips and it’s killing me. Yet in all of that, this is the first time he has passed out on me during sex. I mean, he’s never even done that when he has been crazily drunk and practically non-functioning.

“I’ll make it up to you, baby. I’m so god damn exhausted. Just give me a few minutes to get my head together.”

He leans in and kisses me on the head before sliding out of bed to go to the bathroom and I turn and watch him walk nakedly off, looking as sexy as he always does, yet I just feel sad and broken up. He has no clue how huge him falling asleep on me is in this right now. Just another notch in my anxiety and insecurity that have been piling up for months.

I feel like we’re losing each other, that the past months we have been just going through the motions and our intimacy and closeness is dwindling. Arrick doesn’t seem to see it though, like right now, his normally intuitive caring self has completely missed that I’m upset and crying. He is a walking zombie when he’s here and oblivious to my feelings nowadays.

What happened to us?

We’ve been living in Paris for almost a year, and our life has turned into one circle of him leaving endlessly. His fights, his responsibilities within Carrero Corp, and his family, all pulling him every which way and I’m here keeping my head on my studies, easier to detach myself from people when I focus on my goal. I go home less often, maybe a tiny snippet compared to him, because I literally do not have that much free time. School is demanding, and the weekends are usually filled with functions they expect us to attend, the catwalk shows we take part in or must go to, and the hours I spend studying for exams. Even Arrick must attend Carrero functions without me, and most of my school trips and shows are without him. It’s not the existence I thought it would be and as time moves on, I’m more and more affected by it. By the lack of him in my life.

I lay and stare at the ceiling, body still tingling from his attentions, skin warmed and goose bumped even though we barely got started. I curl myself up protectively and try to calm the war of emotions inside of me, yet none of the contentment I normally feel when he is home is there.

He swore this wouldn’t happen, months ago when we came out here, but progressively it’s been getting worse, more frequent and he gets agitated when I bring it up. I know he’s tired too; he hates leaving me so much, but his career is so much more demanding than it was a year ago. Things are happening in his family company, important things, that have all of them rallying together constantly. Some takeover of a competitive brand that is partnering up and the last nine months have been nothing but a wave of Carrero connected trips. His fight career is stable, his title as champion secure, so he has cut to three or four fights a year right now. He barely has time to train now either and it’s making him restless. I never realized how much of that calm and smooth demeanor relied on his ability to punch out his trainer in the ring until Paris.

I haven’t even told him about the new offer I received from the academy, that they want me to think about staying on another year and finish out my bachelor’s degree with them. My final year is in sight. All I have to do is extend my visa and see out another two terms here. One more whole year of this shitty existence in a bid to give myself the best start, but I don’t think Arry and I can withstand this for another month at this rate, let alone a full year more.

I want it; I know this school can give me the best qualifications in this business, but I feel like if I say yes then he will drift further away. If I go back to the New York fashion school then he won’t have to commute, he won’t spend his life on eight-hour flights and weeks away from me, but I have been away from there for an entire year, working at a different speed and I do not know how effectively I would slot back into the school now.

“You mad at me?” Arrick catches my attention from the bathroom door, now wearing his fitted boxers and looking utterly exhausted. I guess sex is off the agenda; he doesn’t look fit to do anything to me anymore. Guilt gnaws the last ounces of anger away, realizing that for my boy to pass out during his favorite pastime is a big clue that I’m being a selfish idiot and he is the walking dead right now. Standing in this light I can see it in his face, his dark circles and messy hair. His posture just screams ‘let me sleep’

“Come to bed. I’ll stay home today; you can make it up to me later.” I eye up that muscular body, framed by the doorway, looking like two halves to my soul. That tattoo emblazoned side has become more crammed with black ink in the last year, and his naked side has hints of them creeping across at the waist and chest. I just want him back in bed with me, curled up and snuggling. Not move for days because I’m still waiting on him telling me when he has to leave again, and I know it’s coming.

“If I sleep now, I’ll pass out all day and fuck up my night. It’s almost seven. If I make us food and keep myself up till late evening, I’ll recover quicker.” He wanders back and slides across the bed heavily, pulling me to mold against him and sinks his face into my neck, lack luster and so obviously suffering major jet lag and I feel even guiltier, pain panging my heart that I got mad at him after everything he does for me. He’s done this for me all year, so I can stay here, and I hate that it’s making him like this. I just want to wrap him up and let him sleep beside me all day. Never leave this room.

“Do you want me to stay home with you? … Or is that your way of telling me to go to school?” I watch that flawless chiseled face as he tilts it to the side to look at me, shadows cast by the dullness of the light and he slowly closes his eyes despite himself.

“I want you here. It’s like I’ve barely seen you in months, baby. I hate that you’ll miss a day, but I want to be selfish for once. Three weeks is too long to stay away at one time, and I want to get lost inside of you.” He sounds like he’s no energy left, voice husky and low, breathless as he fights himself to stay awake and I grip him so much tighter. Wrapping my legs around him snugly, curling up around him.

“I never take days off… One won’t kill me. I haven’t seen you in weeks and Skype isn’t the same as being here with you.” I smooth that short messy hair back, run my fingers along his scalp and press my cheek to his head.

“I don’t know how much longer I can keep doing this, baby… I’m so fucked all the time, like all you ever get is the shitty part of me that’s never here long enough to recover. I’m sorry I fell asleep on you… I’m an asshole.” Arrick whispers it so softly it’s barely audible and my heart breaks in two, feeling him slip away again even though he is trying so hard to stay awake with me.

His breathing slows and gets instantly heavier and I know without moving him that he’s fallen asleep wrapped around me, weighty and unmovable. I know he doesn’t want to sleep, but I leave him be, he obviously needs it and I don’t want to move either. I miss being this way with him so much, I miss us; I just miss him.

I snuggle into him and just close my eyes too, pushing away the aching pain in my stomach and knowing when he wakes up, we need to talk about our future here in Paris. We need to talk about us. I can’t keep bottling this up every single day because I don’t want to make this any worse. It’s destroying my sanity and making me miserable while we seem to drift further apart.