When I finally quit babbling and he could get a word in edgewise, he asked, “Are you all right?”
No. No. It was safe to say I was not all right. I’d seen my husband masturbating in the shower, I’d never seen anything more beautiful in my life and I was standing in a hotel room probably looking like garbage when he was three feet away from me looking like the definition of male beauty and I had a near overpowering urge to jump him and f**k his brains out.
So no, I was not all right.
I didn’t share any of this but I still answered, “No.”
His hand came up and he took the latte from me ordering, “Talk to me.”
“I was at the pool,” I told him and then sucked back some of my own latte wondering if Ty would find it amiss if I hit the mini-bar and poured a few of mini-bottles of rum into my coffee. Say, seven of them.
“Yeah, I know. You left me a note,” Ty prompted when I said no more.
“A pool, incidentally, that you didn’t join me at.”
“Lexie, told you, got no need to hang out in the sun.”
“I know you told me that but there’s a meal to be consumed, it’s called breakfast and it’s the most important meal of the day.”
“You’re hungry, eat.”
“Aren’t you hungry?”
“They got a counter at the gym. Had a protein shake after I worked out.”
My eyes narrowed. “You have a phone, you didn’t think to call me and tell me you were covered so I could take care of myself?”
“No, I didn’t, seein’ as you’re a grown woman. I assumed you could take care of yourself or, say, phone me you wanna know what’s happening, not charge into the room throwing sass.”
My back went straight.
“Throwing sass?” I asked.
“Throwing sass,” he answered.
“What the f**k does that mean?” I snapped and, surprisingly, his brows drew together and he shared a reaction with me and that reaction was puzzlement with an edge of annoyance.
“It means, you barged in here yammering and then threw a fit about me not joinin’ you at the pool, which I told you I didn’t do, and you bein’ hungry when anyone knows, they’re hungry, they should f**kin’ eat, and not phonin’ you when your phone’s right f**kin’ there,” he pointed to the phone that fell to the ground when I dropped my stuff, “and you got fingers so you can also dial me. That’s throwin’ sass.”
I glared at him.
He kept talking. “I also told you this was your vacation day so I got back, saw you were at the pool and left you to it.”
“You left me to it?”
“Uh… yeah.”
“Yeah?” I snapped.
His eyes changed at my snap and it was new to me but I read it right away.
Confusion and annoyance gone, now he felt anger.
He proved that by biting out, “What the f**k’s your problem?”
“My problem, Ty,” I started, not giving one shit about the fact that this huge man was obviously angry and angry enough to let it penetrate the impenetrable shields he kept up to cover his emotions, “is that I wanted to have breakfast with my husband not be left to it. What, were you gonna leave me out there all day?”
It was then I noticed his body had gone still but I was still angry. And I knew why I was angry. I was angry because I was reacting to something different, something important, something big and it had nothing to do with breakfast and everything to do with life being total shit and me never being able to latch onto anything good, anything clean, anything right and I sensed, no matter what secrets the man standing in front of me had, he was all three of those things. Therefore right in front of me I had something I wanted and there I was, in a position where I couldn’t let myself have it, not until I knew I was right. But I wanted it, not later, but right then and that pissed me way the hell off and I was taking all that out on him.