Slut - Woodruff Jettie. Страница 51

“Are you okay?”

Paxton spun me toward him when I hit the top landing. “Why do you have to say shit like that? You never asked me if I was okay before.”

I looked down to the grip he had around my arm and opened his fingers. “Okay, we’re not doing this. Sorry, I asked. Let’s just go to bed.”

He let me walk away, but he didn’t stop. He kept it up until it turned ugly, badgering and saying mean stuff just to start a fight.

“What? I’m not supposed to wonder who the fuck you are? I’m not the one that changed, Gabriella. You are.”

“Paxton, I don’t even know what you’re all bent out of shape about. I asked you if you were okay. Shoot me dead in the head next time. My God.”

“Maybe I’m just tired. It’s not like I haven’t worked my ass off for you for the past two days.”

That pissed me off, and Paxton got what he wanted. A fight. “I never asked you to do any of that.”

“No, Gabriella you didn’t. This wasn’t my fucking plan. I was going to let you get that kid, help you do it, and dangle it over your head to get you to go back to being the way it was. Before all of this bullshit.”

“Is that what you want, Paxton? You want me bow down and kiss your feet.”

Paxton snorted and shook his head. “What the fuck are we doing?”

“You started it.”

Paxton walked away with a confused expression and pissed off wife. “I’m going to shower.”

I ran my fingers through my hair, groaned from frustration and whiplash, and walked outside with my phone. I talked to Mi for a good fifteen minutes before I heard him come out, and plop to the bed. We didn’t really talk about much, the girls, Vander, the movie, and our stupid little fight. The one that fell from the sky like an asteroid. No warning whatsoever.

Paxton didn’t move when I entered the room. He stayed still, laying on his stomach with his arms above his head. I didn’t say anything either. I left him on top of the covers in sexy, boxer briefs and no shirt. I loved Paxton in tight white briefs, especially next to his tanned complexion and defined back.

I showered, thinking about Paxton’s outburst over nothing. I knew it was more than nothing, and the conversation with Nick was my first guess for the cause, but why?

Paxton hadn’t moved a muscle since I’d left him. I watched him sleep, feeling stupid, heart fluttery things when I looked at him. His eyes were closed and his breaths were deep and relaxed. Like he was in a deep sleep. I brushed the hair from his forehead and kissed his warm skin.

“Will you rub my lower back?”

I smiled and straddled his butt, digging the tips up my fingers into the tight muscles in his back. “Why don’t you talk to your parents?”

“I do sometimes. They call once a year or so.”

“I’ve never heard you.”

“They haven’t called this year yet.”

I laughed a little with a short puff of air. “It’s almost September. You’re running out of year.”

“I don’t care.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, Gabriella. We’re just not close. Lots of families aren’t close.”

“I was close with my family.”

“You don’t even remember your family. You have amnesia, remember?”

“Shut up. I still loved them. I know I did.”

“Well, I didn’t. My old man drove a truck, hauled oranges up and down the west coast. My mom was a slut. She cheated on him for as long as I could remember, and he either stayed gone or drunk. That was my childhood. You’re not the only person on earth that grew up with a fucked up life. It happens every single day.”

I dug my thumbs into the tight spots, right above his hips. “I know. I never said it didn’t. It was always just you? No brothers or sisters?”

“I had a sister. She died.”

My fingers stopped moving for a second while that one sunk in. “What happened?”

“She got hit by a truck her first day of kindergarten.”

Again my fingers stopped and I hid a gasp. “I’m so sorry Pax, that’s horrible.”

“I was two. I don’t even remember her. I never knew her.”

“Yeah, but don’t you think maybe that had something to do with your mom’s behavior, and your dad staying drunk? People deal with things in their own way.”

“Yeah, and they still had a kid. I was still there.”

“I’m sorry that was your life, Paxton, but you know what?”

“Hmm?”

“Mi says there’s a cause and an effect for everything. Maybe you had to live like that in order to be a good dad for Rowan and Phi.”

Paxton lifted his body and rolled to his back, leaving me straddling the front of his waist.

“Well, if that’s the case. I’d do it again.”

“Me too.”

“I’m sorry.”

My fingers glided over deep fingernail marks engraved in his chest. “I’m sorry, too. Jesus, did I do that?”

“You don’t have to be sorry. I fucking loved it. It’s the strangest thing ever, baby. I’ve spent all this time telling you to be a slut, you lose your memory, and bam, you’re a—”

“Watch it, buddy.”

“It was a kudos.”

I raked my red painted nails over his stomach and frowned at him. “Why do I feel like I should be offended?”

Paxton ran his hands up and down my bare legs, staring up to me like he cared, like he really cared, like he loved me. “I fucking exploded when you did that last night. Your body twisted into some fucked up position, your nails dug into my skin, and your entire body orgasmed. And blow jobs. Pfft, you’re a dirty, bad girl, and I fucking love it.”

“I’m not a dirty, bad girl.”

Paxton shifted his hips to get my attention, and I looked up. “It’s a compliment. Say thank you. I rather like the connotations to the blow jobs you give. It’s like you enjoy it as much as me.”

I stared at him briefly, contemplating something else, not blowjobs. “Don’t you ever think I don’t appreciate how hard you work for us? I do. Very much. And I am grateful for what you’re doing to get Vander.”

“I know you are. I’m sorry for saying that. I’m a dick.”

“I’m sorry about how you grew up, too.”

“Lay down.”

I rolled from Paxton to the bed, ready to relieve the day’s tension with my body pinned below my guy. Only that’s not what happened. Paxton pulled the covers down and I crawled in with him, snuggling my back to his chest. He wrapped his arm around me and kissed my hair with a heavy sigh. A tired one. Damn.

I tried to be discrete with my ass twisting into his crotch, but he didn’t move. A new position and a leg over his waist did little, too. He told me to behave. What the hell?

His eyes never opened, he ran his hand up my thigh, but that’s it. “Go to sleep. I’ve got to get up early.”

“No you don’t. The people are coming tomorrow. The state people.” I reminded him as my freshly shaven leg ran up his.

“Behave, that’s in the afternoon. I’ll be home before they get here.”

“Call in sick.”

His warm breath blew on my head with the short laugh. “I’m the boss.”

“I’m the boss. Call in horny.”

“Are you asking for sex?”

“Sort of…Einstein.”

“I like it. Ask me again tomorrow.”

I groaned and rolled back to my side, shoving my ass into his groin. “Goodnight.”

Paxton kissed the back of my head “I love you.”

“Yeah, okay.”

Paxton was in a deep sleep, relaxed breaths, purring in my hair within minutes. Five at the most. I laid in his arms, trying to focus on Vander and not everything else. That was hard. I knew Paxton used the way I trusted him to keep me like I was a puppy that he’d found walking along the beach, an animal. I also knew there was something else, I just didn’t know what, but truth be told, I wasn’t sure I cared anymore. Maybe people can change. Maybe Paxton could change. Unfortunately, I didn’t doze off to little Vander’s face. I fell asleep feeling safe and content, yet confused, and uncertain.

The next thing I knew I was waking to the sun, shining brightly through the glass doors and two little girls. Rowan and Ophelia climbed in, one on each side, smiles as bright as the sun. I loved how chipper they woke up in the mornings.