The Carrero Heart – Arricks POV
Universal book links
Book 1 – myBook.to/TheCarreroEffect
Book 2 – myBook.to/CarreroInfluence
Book 3 – myBook.to/CarreroSolution
Book 4 – myBook.to/CarreroHeart1
Book 5 – myBook.to/CarreroHeart2
Jake’s POV – myBook.to/JakesPOV
Just Rose – getBook.at/JustRose
Sophie, Natasha, and porn.
There is a choice of things Sophie normally orders from the menu, all her favourites, from her favourite Chinese. Food has always been the way to her heart and I am pulling out the stops after my flowers nose-dived – literally, out her bedroom window. She knows how to make me suffer and I hate fighting with her. She is sitting herself at the table, eyeing up the familiar containers and I hold my breath for a moment. Watching her, a smile spreading across my face as I see her expression soften a little.
I think it’s working.
My sassy little Hell-cat looks less ferocious and maybe I can relax a little if she just simmers a bit. Dark hair and dark looks, glancing up from across the table and I try not to watch her too intensely. I miss her natural blonde, but this is growing on me. She could pull any hair colour off, she has a face that could even pull off a shaved head.
‘Still pissed at me?’ I nudge her foot under the table with mine in a bid to get a response from her. If she pushes back playfully then I’ll know she isn’t still as mad. I can’t help smiling at her little pouted glare, the little sigh as she tries to convey that I am not getting to her. She can only hide so much from me and I know the food has softened her enough to be open to a little forgiveness.
‘Maybe.’ She answers flatly, mood still simmering but she doesn’t react to my foot shove and I sigh too. She can be hard to crack when she’s hurt, and I guess kissing her and then brushing it off was more than enough to be upset over. I just can’t tell her that all I have thought about since, is kissing her again. She doesn’t need to know that all I do nowadays is try to figure out what the hell to do when it comes to her. If anything, she messes me up in the head more when I am with her nowadays.
I watch her for a moment, tucking into her food with that little tiny frown on her brow, the little turn up of her top lip as she pouts and sulks and its distracting. I funnel my own food in to my own mouth in a bid to try and ignore how much this is getting to me. Sulky Sophie always makes me feel anxious, nervy, and tonight I seem to be hypersensitive over her. I guess it doesn’t help that all I see when I look at her right now is that mouth and how good kissing her felt last night. My head already having a hard time over what I feel and kissing her has sent me into overdrive.
I seriously need to stop this shit.
We’re interrupted by the buzzer and I check my watch, confused at who would be showing up this late in the evening without a heads up. Most of my friends know I was going to be travelling back from home today, so wouldn’t just show up. I catch Sophie’s eyes flicker to me as I slide up and head across the floor to the intercom panel by the elevator. I feel annoyed that we have an intruder, just when I am starting to try and fix this mess with her. I let her sulk all day to get the worst out of her system and now, when I am pulling out my arsenal of Sophie softening, someone shows up.
‘Hey who is it?’ I mumble into the intercom, hoping it’s a delivery, or just someone who won’t be sticking around. I really need to get things back on track with Soph’s and now she is mulling rather than raging, I could have finally talked to her properly. You need to let her be sometimes, or it’s like talking to a brick wall.
‘It’s Natasha – I came for some things, and maybe a chat.’ The gentle tone is the last thing I want to be hearing right now, like a sucker punch, and I glance across at Sophie’s back; in two minds about what to do. They don’t get on at the best of times and that was before all of this. I really need to just fix shit here before I add Tasha to this equation.
Shit
‘Sure.’ I answer and press the buzzer, knowing I have no choice. I am still trying to figure things out with her at the same time as figure things out with Soph’s, the last thing any of us need right now – well, me- is tears and drama when my head is already struggling to function as it is. If I tell her she can’t come up, she won’t leave and if I leave, Sophie will get upset – I cannot win in this.
I take a deep breath to calm the crazy nerves that explode in my gut and suddenly I feel pretty darn afraid that Soph’s is going to react badly. She’s already pissed, and she is volatile when she is like this – unpredictable.
I walk back to the table and hover beside her as I try to find the words that won’t set sulky into storming again, and hesitate. Chewing on my bottom lip as nerves get the better of me and my stomach and all my organs nose dive into my sneakers.
‘What is it?’ She blinks up at me before I get a chance, obviously wondering why I am footing around the side of her indecisively. I literally feel my blood run cold with a fear I have never known when it comes to her, that furrowed brow and angry look on her has me anxious. I crouch down beside her and scoop her hand in mine, enveloping that dainty warm softness that always seems so fragile, in a bid to appeal to her sweeter side.
‘I need you to be good, just for once Sophie. I need you to behave, and just not throw your dummy out, for like one night. Even if you’re still pissed at me.’ I am practically pleading, knowing Tasha is almost here. This could all kick off badly and I am in no state to deal with a cat fight. Sophie would annihilate Tasha and in that I wouldn’t have a clue which girl I would protect.
‘What?’ She screws up her face, confused and looks wary, yet still pissed. Not a good combo on her. She pulls her hand away and I sigh slowly, edgy and knowing deep down this heavy ache is anxiety.
This is not going to be good.
‘Natasha is here. She wants to collect some things, and to talk. I just need you to not react.’ I try to keep my cool, that flicker of rage in her face makes my stomach drop further, and honestly, for the first time in my life I actually wish Natasha would just not come up and let me work on getting Sophie back to sunny. I can handle Sophie when I am left alone with her. I cannot handle Sophie when she throws a shit storm around other people.
‘I’m staying right here to eat. I’m not moving from this room, if you want to talk then take her elsewhere.’ She snaps and goes back to eating. She is digging her heels in and being her delightfully difficult self, always making a point of making me put her over Tasha. I curb the urge to rub the tension out of my face and just implore her with a pleading look.
I can see the light on the elevator rising, getting closer to this floor and I am glued to this spot.
‘Promise me you will try and behave, that you will try and be nice for once. Remember she’s hurting too.’ I hope I sound endearing.
Please, please behave, beautiful. For me, for once.
‘Why don’t you just come out and say it huh? Sophie please do not mention the fact that you’re the reason I broke up with her, and have kissed you twice!’ She snaps at me again and gets up to slide past me with her plate in hand and a hair flick over her shoulder. My girl can definitely pull off sass. She’s a born natural and if I wasn’t shitting a brick with the drama heading my way I would be smiling at the little Diva she can be. She storms towards the kitchen and I am powerless to do anything but follow her. Groaning inwardly and trying to just keep my calm.
‘Sophie?’ The ping as the elevator hits this floor signals the end of life as I know it. This is going to be the death of me, I can feel it. My body sags and my insides disintegrate with a hot flush of defeat.
‘Better go run along and welcome your girlfriend in… I think I’ll take the couch and watch a movie!’ Sophie raises haughty brows, pointed snappy tone and saunters off wiggling her ass towards the couch. I literally have to tear my eyes from that view and shake myself with a ‘what the fuck are you doing?’ My whole face was literally tensed as I watched Sophie’s ass and try not to think about the fact that when faced with ultimate death, I just checked out my best friend unintentionally.
Where the hell did that come from?
‘Don’t make this worse for her. I’m trying…. Just please…. For once in your life. Think about someone else’s feelings.’ Shaking myself and watching her while trying to stop myself from over analysing the fact I legit checked out her ass, it has thrown me, and I am trying to get my shit together.
What the hell is wrong with me tonight?
I take a breath and move to the elevator fast as the door opens, in a bid to get my head straight and plant a sombre smile and genuine look on my face which I hope conveys welcome to Natasha.
Natasha is in the open space before I even get a chance to pull my head together, I think I was zoning out as I watched the doors. Head caught in the twilight zone, because she suddenly in my face and kissing me on the mouth quickly. I recoil instinctively and manage to dodge more than a chaste brushing of lips, glancing over my shoulder to make sure Sophie isn’t watching. I feel guilty as shit and I no longer know for which girl or what reason. This is the same thing that happened after Sophie told me she loved me, first time Natasha tried to kiss me, I felt exactly this way. Like I was betraying Sophie somehow.
My head is so screwed up.
Natasha looks at me oddly, I think she senses or sees how weird I am being. I try for a smile, take her coat and practically haul it off her in my eagerness to get away from this dark corner and back to showing Sophie that nothing is going on. I can practically feel her rage emanating this way and I take a slow steadying breath and just try to stay in control of my faculties. No one unnerves me like she does, with one shitty mood.
‘Hi Sophie. You look nice today.’ Natasha walks ahead of me, leaving me with her coat and bag and I mutely follow. Eyes scanning the brunette on the couch who looks, even from this angle, like she wants to impale someone with her chopsticks and the nerves and tension inside of me only get stronger.
‘Thanks, you too!’ Sophie glances Tasha’s way and the sarcasm oozing from within is clear as day. I frown at her, in a bid to tell her to lay off. None of this is Natasha’s fault ad I hate when she behaves like this. Sophie visually gives me a huge ‘Fuck off Arrick’ glare and I know this is futile. I have never had a chance in hell of controlling her, it’s something I always loved about her. Even though it is now biting me in the ass.
Back to being majorly pissed at me, great. My life sucks, again.
‘I hope you don’t mind me showing up like this while you two are obviously eating, I just needed some of my things, and I hoped to have a little time with Arrick.’ Natasha is mumbling something to Sophie, but I am lost in just trying to communicate with her from back here. I dump Tasha’s crap on the chair and try like crazy to just find some calm inside of me, some zen to get a handle on this.
‘Nothing to do with me.’ Sophie smiles, her deathly, black widow, and I hope you die smile. I literally feel all ounces of calm and control fly out the window and just hope this death will be quick and painless. If these two start, then I will need to protect Tasha from Soph’s and I don’t know if I am even up to the task of taking her on tonight. I am so god damn tired and I taught her everything she knows. I am now seeing the error in teaching her how to disable someone with a few kicks and well-placed thumbs.
‘Sorry, I know I’m staring.’ Tasha giggles and I wonder what the hell she is doing. She never bothers talking to Sophie if she can help it, but seems intent on acting weird and flirty with her tonight. I feel like I am in an alternate reality and for the first time I wonder if Tasha swings both ways or if she thinks this is something I might want – a three-way with those two?
Ummmm, fuck….ehhh. No.
I need a fucking drink.
‘It’s just, I love your new look, so very sophisticated and your make up is gorgeous. Maybe you could give me some tips with mine before I leave. You just look so pulled together.’ Natasha is still talking, and I wander to my kitchen in a bid to find booze, something a hell of a lot stronger than coffee. Trying to ignore her weird behaviour and blame this on some full moon lunar crap, or something equally odd.
‘Drink?’ I ask loudly, in a bid to stop whatever is going on between them. Natasha looks like she is trying to get a date and Sophie just looks murderous, like she might turn into the newest New York hacker if Tasha keeps this up, and I happen to know she has a violent trigger in that sweet little body, that makes it plausible.
I locate a bottle of wine, glad of that anyway, even if I don’t rate wine much and hold it up in a bid to get Sophie looking at me, instead of plotting my ex-girlfriend’s death by chopsticks.
‘Ummm, sure.’ Natasha giggles, weirdly. She isn’t a giggler and I wonder if she has already been hitting the booze. I don’t get this act at all and in the lounge light I can see she is pretty dressed up compared to normal. She’s wearing heels and stockings by the look of it and I wonder what gives. She only wore them once, on my birthday the first few months we dated. If she thinks she’s staying for sex, she can forget it. Sophie would never talk to me again, I wouldn’t do that to her. I couldn’t, not with her here – I never even did it when she stayed under the same roof as me at any time.
‘Maybe we should take it through to the study, just me and you.’ I nod at Tasha, figuring that we can have a drink, a quick chat, and tell her I need her to go. Early night, late training or whatever. Will be easier to brush her off if Sophie isn’t sitting right there making me feel awkward about any contact between us. Natasha has become excessively touchy since I came back and broke up with her.
I don’t know when this started with me, but it has, this over awareness to letting Tasha touch me, incase Sophie gets upset. Maybe knowing how she feels about me has made me rethink it, I have no clue. I wouldn’t want to hurt her that way, by pushing it in her face or making her have to endure Tasha pawing at me while I know how Sophie feels.
I pop open the wine and start gathering glasses in a bid to focus myself and stop letting my head wander.
‘I thought we could all, you know the three of us, sit for a while. I know we don’t really get on that well Sophie and I figured maybe it’s time we tried.’ Natasha looks lovingly at Sophie and then me, with a small smile.
Okay…. What is she doing?
I look at her and then Sophie and try to figure this out, catching sight of the movie starting on-screen beside Sophie’s head and realising she has picked that film Jason downloaded and discovered was pretty much porn from the first thirty seconds.
Only Sophie!
‘Plenty of food, maybe we should pick another movie though, right? … Eat and then take it elsewhere?’ I eye the screen and try to motion to Sophie that she should change the channel, but she just looks at me like I have lost my mind.
Yeah, I get it, this is weird…awkward. I don’t know what else to do, or how to play this, Soph’s. CHANGE THE CHANNEL!
I know if I wander over and sit, that Tasha will follow me and get close, it’s what she did a few days ago when she came by to talk and I know I really cannot handle this shit. Sophie is touchy, moody, and on the defensive already. That will go down like a ton of bricks and to be honest. I have pissed her off enough this weekend already.
I make a plan and follow it, hopping the back of the couch when I come back so I land beside Soph’s, far from Tasha, so she has no choice but to sit away from me. I deposit glasses on the table and concentrate on just filling them, rather than all the eyes on me right now. I have no actual fucks about how to handle this situation.
The moaning on-screen starts, and I realise Sophie never changed the channel at all.
For fucks sake.
We have a full, high-definition, up close and personal, view of some guy licking out his co-star’s vagina, nothing left to the imagination, and I want the ground to open up and swallow me right now. Sophie is too innocent for this kind of shit and this is all sorts of weird right now.
Sensing her body freeze as she clocks the view on-screen I start moving around to look for the remote, seeing it’s not in her hand anymore and willing her to just stop looking. I swear if she doesn’t I’ll cover her face with my hands while I try and turn it off. She looks pretty mortified from this angle. She starts wriggling around too and I realise she is looking for it as her cheeks colour with a blush and it just makes me want to hold a pillow in front of her face and save her from the sight on screen.
Sophie is my innocent, she doesn’t watch porn.
I spy it between the couch seat cushions and dive for it, except she does too, and we bang faces, full frontal, mouths so close I literally almost kiss her with the awkward contact and in a millisecond, it’s all I think about. Forgetting Tasha is even here as soft skin, warm and inviting, that summer breeze smell of Sophie is all over me and we are so intimately close for a moment, that its pretty much the only thing in my head.
I want to kiss you again.
Fuck.
Sophie looks panicked, has the remote and hits a button. Relief sinking through me as I shake myself mentally and try like crazy to get my act together and move away a little to regain control. I turn and realise there is a huge ass on my screen and some guys dick being rammed into it forcefully, and I feel like I might just die.
Actual porn – great choice Sophie.
I have no fucking clue why this particular porn channel is on my TV, it’s not one I even watch, and I can guess Tom and his new woman, when they used my apartment last month, have something to do with it. Never again will I let a guy use my pad as a weekend bang hang out when I am out of town.
‘For the love of god.’ I internally sink. Sophie looks traumatised and I groan as I slide the remote out of her little hand, flicking the channel to a movie I was watching last week. I want to just rewind all this crap from Soph’s head and delete it. The thought of her watching, doing, anything like that shit, has me all messed up inside.
Still fiercely protective of her in that way.
Sophie is way too innocent and pure, she is the kind of girl you make love to. Not show her porn and introduce her to anal.
Where the hell did that come from?
Sophie is looking at me in a seriously accusatory way and I know she wants to know if I watch porn, I shrug, not sure how else to answer that and I sure as hell have never lied to her. Yes Sophie, I have watched porn. Not this porn and anal is not really something I do very often, never with Tasha. It’s not really something that gets me off either, although I have tried it and could take it or leave it. I prefer the natural way, in many positions.
Natasha looks wholly uncomfortable too, her face is paler, and I actually do not care. Wouldn’t do her any harm to see that sex is normal and enjoyable and our sex life before all this shit, was severely lacking. How I ended up with a girlfriend who would rather clean the oven than get fucked, is beyond me. I know I happen to be pretty good in the sack. It kills me, how little I get to use those skills nowadays, and I literally cannot stop the sweep my eyes do of Sophie as I wonder what she would be like.
Stop – stop -stop. Not a chance.
Maybe that’s what this all is, some grass is greener, sexually frustrated bullshit. Because Sophie looks like she does, she is a turn on, whether I can accept it or not, want to see her that way or not, and there is so much possibility; while I am completely unsatisfied in my sex life with Tasha. I mean last time I did screw her was about as thrilling as stripping wallpaper. She lays like an empty sack, makes zero effort, or noise, and only seems to get involved when she wants to make me cum faster. I just don’t get why she dislikes it so much, and I have given up trying to make her orgasm, she doesn’t seem to care about having them either. We have gotten to the once a month stage and even then, I am starting to think it’s her sense of duty that instigates it, and not for any real pleasure.
My sex life sucks.
There is nothing else for this, just get drunk and try like hell to not ponder over this. I hand the glass to Sophie and pray we can just stop fixating on sex – okay, if I can stop fixating on sex, because I have a fucking boner in my pants starting, and it has everything to do with the fact Sophie just reminded me of how good sex can be, and what I have been missing. This is why I do not watch porn anymore. I really think I am having some sort of mental breakdown, a stress induced hard-on, if that’s even possible. Or maybe it’s the fact I haven’t had sex in a couple of months due to the fact my best friend told me she loved me, and my life has gone to shit ever since.
I can’t screw the girlfriend, even when she was willing, because my guilt at hurting my best friend made it impossible to even think about doing it. I can’t screw the best friend because she’s her, and my undying need to protect her, overrides everything, even my ability to think beyond her being my best friend.
I am so fucked.
‘Interesting movie choices you have.’ Natasha drags my head back to the present and I can’t tell if she is being ironic.
Sophie looks at her then bursts into laughter, relieving the tension and I somehow end up laughing too, except not at this – at the shit state of my life, and my head, and my heart. I have never been so caught in between a hard place and a brick wall ever and really for the first time I wonder if becoming an alcoholic might be a way out.
The three of us laugh and I just feel crazily out of whack. The silence which follows is even heavier, and I just want Tasha to leave us alone. I want to spend a night with Sophie, like we used too, a movie, and a bowl of popcorn, and give my head one night of a break from this bullshit while I take a break from the mental torture I inflict on myself.
‘Maybe I should leave you two alone.’ Sophie sounds deflated, hurt. It rips my attention back to her and my heart out of my chest in one fell swoop, always able to just slap me back to what matters with one upset tone.
When she moves to get up, I stop her impulsively, her small hand in mine, concealed by her body and I can’t explain it. I want her to stay with me…. I want Tasha to leave. I smile across at Natasha, trying to find the nicest way to get rid of her, so I can be alone to talk to Sophie and just will Sophie with every part of me to understand that I want it to be just the two of us tonight, to fix things.
Looking at that determined look on Natasha’s face I know the only way to get her out of here, is to go with her, grab a quick drink nearby and drop her home. I won’t be able to get rid of her otherwise. She will drag this out for hours here, if she thinks there is a chance of getting cosy and we are not having sex, even if she strips naked; Sophie will be asleep by the time I get rid of her.
‘We should go, Natasha.‘ I smile at her, hoping she goes for this idea.
‘We could go for a drink and maybe talk somewhere else.’ I raise a brow, even though I can feel Sophie’s eyes on me, eating into me and I am trying so hard to ignore it, ignore the crushing guilt that wounded look gives me.
Natasha visibly relaxes, smiling widely and looks pretty for once, less pinched and less strained and I immediately feel guilty all over again at the fact I am trying to get rid of her. This is my worst enemy right here, when it comes to these two. The guilt never stops circling between them and I can never get a god damn break or settle on feeling more for one or the other on a more permanent level.
Sophie’s palm hits my chest as I move to lay my glass down and she shoves me back aggressively, startling me with the sudden assault, that spike of anger and sassy and that unveiled hostility. She’s jealous. It’s all over her face and her demeanour, and it has the same effect as punching me in the abdomen would.
I fucking hate that she thinks I am doing this for Tasha. I am not trying to hurt her, or rub her face in this. I am doing this so I can spend time talking to her, and I just keep fucking it all up.
‘I’m going for a shower anyway…So knock yourself out.’ Sophie snaps, clambering to her feet and my heart sinks all over again. She is beyond the pissed stage and any hope I had of salvaging her mood, just flew south. The way she gets up sends the wine she is holding sloshing over the rim, because I filled them crazily full and it pours down her dress like a slash of dark blood.
Great!
‘Shit.’ She lays it on the table and grabs the towel she left lying there earlier and begins dabbing it erratically. I know her and her clothes, she will be cursing herself for ruining this dress and killing any last ounces of salvageable good mood. I jump to my feet to help minimise the damage and somehow translate that this isn’t what she thinks is happening. She tugs the towel back and avoids looking me in the eye, no matter how hard I am trying to get her to do so and I am practically ripping my hair out with the crazy facial signals I am trying to send her without Natasha seeing.
‘I can do it. Just go out and go do whatever you’re going to fucking do, with your girlfriend.’ She is beyond raging with me, this is obviously my fault and her ruining this sexy little dress is another one of my growing list of misdemeanours. I know her only too well. I feel completely hopeless in this moment, no idea what the hell to do as she turns on her heel and storms off towards my bedroom. Deflated because not once did she actually look at me and see what I was trying to tell her. Sophie just knows how to make me feel like shit sometimes. I know all of this is my fault, but I’ll be damned if I can get a handle on any of it.
I go to follow her, feeling crestfallen and sighing, but Natasha’s hand on my arm stops me. I almost forgot she was still here in that moment, head on the bad mood and departing figure of my best friend, while cursing myself inwardly for making everything a thousand times worse.
‘I’ll go, I have more skills at wine removal than you.’ She smiles adoringly and kisses me on the cheek before following Sophie to the bathroom and I literally cringe inwardly. This is all I need. Natasha thinking she’s helping, while Sophie is in ‘death-star’ mode and probably about ready to explode. I have no clue what else to do, except sit back down and rub my face with both palms while contemplating leaving my own apartment. I don’t want to be around when Armageddon strikes, and it is only a matter of time.
I am so out of my depth.
Natasha has closed my bedroom door behind her and I really do not know if I should leave them alone together, or not. I trust Sophie, I know she won’t be spiteful or cruel, even if she does hate Tash. She isn’t like that, and she knows that Tasha knows nothing about any of this. I have no fear that she will say anything, yet a part of me wonders if I would prefer it if she did. If she just let all of this come out into the open and maybe if I had to handle a full-out explosion, then maybe I would know what the hell to do.
I pick up my glass of wine and down it a little too fast, it’s red, one I don’t even like, bought by Tasha as she always likes to have a bottle in the refrigerator to have with meals. I have always been more of a beer guy, but any form of booze right now is better than being sober while my life falls apart.
And it truly is.
I thought breaking up with Tasha would give me breathing space to figure this out, and at times it seems so clear that I don’t want her anymore. Yet at other times, guilt rips me apart and she seems like the right option. The alternative being Sophie and the whole list of mess that comes with her, the fact that I don’t even know if I could. Sophie is this precious, vulnerable, angelic girl, who had the shittiest start to life. I know her secrets, her scars, and her fears. I know what that asshole did to her on every level and it haunts me inside and out.
She trusts me because I never laid a hand on her in any way that made her feel threatened. She trusted me to keep her safe and protect her, when she pushed everyone else away. How can I now cross that line with her, it abuses the trust she has in me and I don’t even know if what she feels is real, or if it is all tied up in how safe and secure I make her feel. This could be a complete psychiatrist’s nightmare and by allowing myself to follow through I could do her untold damage, ruin everything we have. I could lose her.
Emma assures me that she believes Sophie’s feelings are genuine and uncomplicated, but then I look at how I feel, and I don’t even know if I could love her that way, if this confusion is because I obviously love her, in so many ways, and my need to not hurt her is clouding my logic that I don’t love her. Or what if I do love her, and this is fear, because there is a possibility that going this way with her would be more than I can handle. My feelings for her are already crazily strong, what would letting her into my heart in all ways, into my bed – what would that do to me? What would that do to her?
Arghhhh – my fucking head.
I hate that I am this way, too crazily over analytical with everything. This is why I avoid drama and conflict and pick the easiest, stress free options in life. I hate hurting people, hate being the reasons for chaos. I am the last person in the world who would ever want Sophie hurt, but it’s what’s happening, and I cannot deal with it. I have a neat approach to life, boxes and compartments all neatly labelled and filed and nothing overlaps and gets messy or else I have no sense of control – this is what happens when they do.
Then there’s our parents, well our moms… mine warned me from day one to never go there with her and it’s stuck, all these years. That look on her face when she warned me off and told me Sophie wasn’t a girl who needed anymore heartbreak. It’s always there in my head, and now this mess reminds me of why I shouldn’t fuck things up this way. I am already hurting her, and we haven’t even gone down this route. Her mom would never forgive me, mine wouldn’t either and the fact we have a five-year age gap. I am too old for her, she’s too young for the sort of intensity that would come from us hooking up. I am supposed to look after her, not take advantage. I should know better.
I can’t even believe I am contemplating hooking up though, that’s another can of worms when it comes to the actual hooking. Sex – with Sophie. never in a million years did I ever think I would put those two words together and yet over the last few weeks the thought gets less abhorrent as my brain starts to question the what if’s. She was abused, she might not even like sex for all I know, although I know she has had boyfriends. We have never talked about sex, or what she has done with any of them, it’s a no go area between us and even that in itself makes me question things.
We are best friends – why have we never talked about this shit?
Okay, so I know on my part it’s because I didn’t want to think of her doing any of that shit with anyone, never wanted to see her with some ass hole guy, because I figured it was a sibling thing. Now I am not so sure anymore that’s what it even was.
I need to just stop and breathe.
I sigh again and realise I shouldn’t leave them in there any longer. I am slumped on the couch and a little tipsy from drinking the half pint of wine too fast. I am letting my head loose when I should be preventing murder in my bathroom; it’s eerily quiet and I wonder if Soph’s has solved all our problems in one fell swoop by suffocating my on-off girlfriend with a bath robe.
Why am I even thinking this way? Fuck I am drunker than I thought.
I jump to my feet, ready to face the music with some Dutch courage running through my veins and stroll to Sophie’s room to get her another dress. That way I can at least let her loose from Tasha’s vice like grip, if she is washing the wine out and send her off to her own room to declaw herself. I can almost imagine she will be spitting teeth right now, seeing as Tasha has the knack for grinding her nerves effortlessly.
I find one of her dresses already hanging on the wardrobe door from her unpacking earlier, similar to the one she had on and walk back down the to my own door, opening it cautiously and straining to listen for sounds of violence.
With Soph’s, you can never tell.
‘Natasha? Sophie? Are you in here?’ I wander in and see from here the bathroom door is sitting open and I get a full, unbroken view, of Sophie standing in what I can only describe in the sexiest lingerie I have ever laid eyes on, on a body that will feature in every wet dream I will ever have again. My stomach tenses, body goes into rigid shock at the realisation I just got hard within a second of seeing her in her underwear. My eyes glued to what I am seeing before I even manage to drag them off of her.
Shit
Sophie spots me and blushes, grabbing for a towel to cover herself but that image is etched into my mind and even though I forcefully drag my eyes away, all I can see is lacey, pretty transparent, purple underwear, made for seduction, on a body I want to fuck.
Shit, shit, shit.
‘I need a minute.’
Natasha’s voice rings out and again, alerted to the fact she is still here and again, all I thought about was Sophie. This is becoming a bad habit lately.
I take slow steady breaths to cool both the raise in my body temperature, and to calm down the boner in my pants. I have never had a full on physical reaction like that, not since I was an adolescent discovering I could get an erection, and I curse myself for drinking that red wine so fast.
Sophie appears with a towel cross her front, avoids my eyes as she storms past and I can’t tell if she is still pissed, volcanic angry, or just done with this whole thing. She whips the dress out of my hand and just keeps going, right past and out of the door. My eyes follow, and I groan when I realise her rear view is not shrouded in towel and that is a thong on an ass that is too far too mesmerizing a sight not to follow.
Impulsively I do, and then have to shake myself and drag my eyes upwards to her dainty little back and shoulders as she hauls the dress over her head, still walking ahead of me and oblivious I am behind her. I catch her wrist before she gets to the bedroom door and pull her back to face me, stopping her in her tracks and trying like crazy to not still see her in her underwear, it’s the strongest image I have ever had, and I cannot shake it at all.
‘I went to get you clothes… What did you say to her?’ I have to use all my will power to keep my eyes on her. Not scan that body and see what my mind is currently retaining in all her glory.
‘Nothing. She just wanted to help me get the wine out…She’s crying, over you. Maybe you should go see her, and I don’t know…… Do whatever you do to make her feel better.’ She sounds fed up, with all of this and I return to the land of reality at the sound of it. I hate that Natasha is in there crying over me, hate that I just spent the last few minutes thinking about Sophie in her underwear and it’s suddenly all so fucking sordid and wrong. This is MY Sophie. Not some object to fuck, not some meaningless bimbo. My girlfriend, ex, whatever, is in the bathroom broken-hearted and I shouldn’t be acting like some horny dickhead. Remorse floods me, coursing through me, and once again that part of me that always has to do the right thing is back in control.
‘I’m going to take her home and maybe spend some time with her. I need to talk to her properly.’ I try and gauge her response, but see nothing but Sophie in closed down mode. the face that screams ‘I need space right now’. She is fed up and she really doesn’t want me to try and talk her round. I know her signals well enough.
That makes two of us.
‘Whatever. I’m going to have a shower and go to bed.’ She answers flatly and again my heart sinks. What started out as a shit day has ended even shittier, with Sophie still as mad at me and nowhere nearer to any sort of decision in what I should do. She pulls her hand out of mine and turns on her heel, sighing as she goes, and I let her walk away, watching her with that same feeling of dread and a knot of anxiety. She looks tired and I need to deal with Tasha before I can even contemplate fixing some of this shit with Sophie.
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