Page 103 of Perfect
I don’t want to scare her off, and it takes everything in me not to wrap my arms around her. She hands me the towel and lets goof my face, and I keep the towel pressed against my nose, staring at her with wide eyes as she turns away, opening the freezer.
“You should have called me if you needed a ride, sweetheart,” I say quietly.
“I didn’t want to bother you.” She grabs an ice pack from the freezer and hands it to me.
“You’re never bothering me, even if we’re fighting, okay?” I press the ice pack over my face, wincing as she reaches for the wine on the counter.
“Well, I’m fine, so you can go back to ignoring me now,” she says bitterly, and a small part of me is delighted at how angry she sounds.
“I wasn’t ignoring you, honey, I was trying to give youspace.” She glances up at me, surprised. “I hated it, and I missed you, and I thought we should talk. I didn’t even think you’d be home yet, so I was going to surprise you. I made you dinner. And a pie. And I got you flowers.” I gesture at the abandoned tote bag with my foot, and Alex looks at it with wide eyes before she stares down at her hands.
“Why are you being nice to me right now?”
“Because I lo-” I bite my tongue hard enough that I taste blood. I don’t think she caught my slip up, thank god. I slump against the counter and look up at the ceiling, putting the towel and ice pack down as all the remaining anger and frustration drains out of me, leaving nothing but exhaustion.
“I’m fuckingtrying, Alex, but I don’t know what to do here. I’m having a hard time figuring out how to make this relationship work because you won’t work on it with me. Any time you let me in, you push me away immediately, and you keep telling me that you don’t want me, and it hurts. I don’t buy it because you’reconstantlylying, but it still fucking hurts.” She’s staring at the counter and fidgeting with a potholder nervously, assiduously avoiding meeting my eye.
“I promise you that I’m not going anywhere, but it sucks that you’re constantly telling me to fuck off in one way or another. I fuckingadoreyou, and I want you to be happy, sopleaselet me in.” I can hear how pleading my voice gets at the end, halfway to begging, but I don’t care.
Alex shakes her head faintly. “I don’t want that.” Her voice is small, and she’s looking at her feet again.
“You don’t wantwhat?”
She runs her hands over her face and shrugs. “I don’t know.”
“Well, what the fuckdoyou want, Alex?”
She looks up at the ceiling and shakes her head. “I don’t know! I want you to stop being fucking crazy, and I want my goddamn life back, but I…I don’t know, I feel so...goddammit, this is so confusing!” She exhales loudly, pressing her hands over her eyes as her shoulders drop, and she leans against the wall a little too heavily. “I don’t want you to fuck off, okay? I do, but I don’t,” she says, her voice almost inaudible, and something inside me unwinds instantly.
I wasright. Of course I was right, because I fuckingknowher.
She wants this as badly as I do, she’s justscared.
She makes a groaning sound and wraps her arms around her waist again, but she still won’t look at me. I watch her closely, focusing on her mouth as I hold my breath.
“I didn’t…when I flinched, I just reacted. I didn’t think you were going to hurt me.” I fuckingknewit. “I was going to call you tonight to pick me up, but I didn’t want to ask you for something without apologizing.” My hand jerks from how badly I want to reach out for her as she rubs at her eyes, smearing her makeup a little. “When Ben…he thought that I…Ididn’t, I swear, but he was going to…I just fucking froze, and I wanted you here, and then you were here. You’re, like, really fucking scary when you’re angry, by the way,” she says softly, and I wince at thenervous edge of her voice. She finally looks up at me and shrugs, the corner of her lips picking up into a shade of a smile, her expression open and vulnerable. “I’m so happy to see you, Theo, and I’msosorry about the other night.”
Relief floods through me, and I stand there staring at her gorgeous, upset face for a long moment before I’m across the kitchen in one stride, pulling her into my arms until her toes barely touch the ground. Her arms grip tight around my neck, and I don’t even know what to say, so I just breathe her in. Her breathing adjusts to mine, or mine to hers, and we stand in the kitchen holding each other, breathing slowly, calming each other down, finally connecting in a way that feels unguarded.
She pulls away to kiss me and makes a displeased sound when she realizes my nose is still bleeding. She makes me sit down on the couch, standing between my legs and fussing over me, looking at me with soft eyes as she examines my face carefully, telling me I’m going to have a hell of a black eye and chiding me for beating up Ben so badly. Her touch is gentle, and she keeps giving me a small, fragile smile whenever she meets my eye. I run my hands over her hips and waist slowly, in awe of how good it feels to have her take care of me.
I’m stunned when she climbs into my lap and kisses me, pressing her body flush against mine and sighing as she grinds down into me. I hold her close, and she makes needy, frantic sounds as she deepens the kiss, nipping at my lip and tongue as she undoes my belt. She pulls back and looks into my eyes, her face anxious as she quickly reaches down to undo my jeans.
“Can you not…” She strokes me roughly as she pulls my cock out, and I groan, my eyes rolling back. “Let me…just…I need to do it, okay?” I nod, kissing her neck as she hikes up her dress and slides her thong to the side, ignoring my hiss of discomfort as she plunges herself down onto me. She’s too tight, wet but not quite ready, but she forces it over and over until I’m fully insideof her. I open my mouth to say something, but she slams a hand over my mouth and tells me in a harsh voice to shut the fuck up, so I do.
Alex is rough with me in a way she usually isn’t. She’s demanding, snapping out orders and telling me how and where to touch her. She bites my lip hard when we kiss, bites my neck and shoulders as she rides me aggressively, pulls my hair, digs her nails into me until it hurts and drags them down my skin, leaving long red scratches. It’s so fucking hot, but I can tell it’s mostly about control, so I do whatever she asks and take whatever she gives me.
I want her to know that I can give her what she needs, no matter what that looks like.
She starts picking up speed but losing her rhythm, and she makes that fucking whining noise that drives me crazy, and I can’t help gripping her hips and thrusting up into her hard. She gasps, moaning out something unintelligible as she rides me faster. Her leg starts tensing against me, and she’s getting closer, her eyes fixed on mine and her head nodding, her moans low and harsh. My eyes stay locked on her flushed face and the way she’s looking at me with desire and something else, something new, something deeper and more vulnerable than I’ve ever seen from her. We stare at each other, and I can feel an electric current of connection running between us.
From the slightly scared look that flits across her face, I know she can feel it, too.
“Theo,” she whispers, but it’s more of a question than anything else. I pull her closer, gripping her tightly.
“I’ve got you.” Her eyes widen, and she whimpers my name again and starts shaking in my arms. The second her muscles flutter around my cock, I come with her, spilling up into her without breaking eye contact.
She’s panting hard as she comes down, her hands carding through my hair, and I pull her so close that there’s no space left between us.
