Page 40 of It Hurts Me
I sat there, naked on his couch with my dress still bunched up above my tits. I pulled it down over my body, my hard nipples visible through the thin material now that the tape was missing. My black thong was on the floor where Theo had left it. I stared at it for a moment before I pulled it back on over my heels…because I’d never taken them off.
I was dead tired and could fall asleep right on this couch, but I needed to get home. I left the couch and grabbed my purse.
Theo came back into the room in a pair of black boxers, six and a half feet of pure man. His dark eyes took me in as he drew closer. “Next time you come over here, you’re going to get fucked.” He almost looked angry, like the nice blow job that had made me cry wasn’t good enough. “You’ve been warned.”
8
THEO
I sat behind my desk and looked at the painting directly across the room, the image of the changeling that had been stored in the basement of the art gallery with other portraits and sculptures that no one seemed to care about.
Except me.
My laptop was ignored on my desk as I stared past it, seeing something new every time I looked at it. But there was one thing I always saw when I stared…Astrid. I saw her standing beside me as we looked at the painting. I saw her in my study, measuring the walls in her tight pencil skirt. I saw a broken woman so fascinating she belonged in her own painting.
George knocked on the open door before he entered. “You have a visitor, sir.”
My eyes shifted to him, already knowing who it was.
“Should I bring Axel in here?”
Motherfucker. “Sure.”
George left.
I gave a heavy sigh before I left my desk and moved to the sitting area, the chairs outlined in gold, the coffee table with beautiful ornate legs. The man who’d owned this place previously was French, so it looked more Parisian than Tuscan.
I sat in the armchair and waited for him.
He walked in a moment later in jeans and a gray shirt. “Didn’t expect George to let me in.”
“I knew you would come back, like a fucking cockroach.”
Axel grinned like that was a compliment. He took a seat and helped himself to a cigar, lounging on the cushions like this place belonged to him as much as it belonged to me. “So…how was dinner?”
“Fuck off, Axel.”
“The only person who should be mad here is me, asshole.”
“Really?” I asked coldly.
“You’ve been seeing someone and didn’t tell me? I told you everything about Scarlett. Except the intimate details that are reserved for me.”
“You were serious with Scarlett. It’s not serious with Astrid.”
“You took her out to dinner.” He made it sound like I already married her. “You. Theo Bianchi. Skull King.”
Imagine his reaction if I told him how many times I’d taken her out to dinner. “I said it’s not serious.”
“It’s not casual either. Otherwise, you would skip dinner and head straight for dessert. And if it really were casual, you would have mentioned it to me.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“You mention your other rendezvous pretty often.”
“Not as often as you think.” I kept a lot of stuff from him because I wasn’t the type to fuck and tell.
“Theo.” He turned serious, letting the smoke leave the tip of his cigar and rise to the ceiling.