If I Were You (Inside Out #1)(73)

We step into the elevator and he leans on the far wall, watching me. I turn and stare right back at him. His eyes slide over me, a hot caress, and damn it, I hate how much I crave his touch. I hate this power he has over me.

He says nothing. I say nothing. The air crackles with sexual tension but I cling to anger. You can’t handle it. I’m so tired of men telling me what I can and can’t handle.

The doors open and I head for the hallway, and I sway. Chris’s hand slides to my waist and heat darts through my body. “Don’t,” I hiss without looking at him. “Just don’t help me and don’t touch me.”

His hand falls away and I start walking. The hall is long and it feels like an eternity before Chris swipes the keycard to the door.

All the anger I’ve bottled for the past half-hour explodes from me when I enter the room. I kick off my shoes for stability and toss my purse, which I don’t even remember holding, to the ground.

I whirl on Chris before the door even shuts behind him and unleash on him. “You’re making me crazy, Chris. No picket fences, no talking about the past, yet you ask about my past and then you take me to meet your godparents, who you know will tell me about your past. I had no expectations from you besides you whisking into my life and thoroughly f*cking me before going back to Paris. I was okay with that. It’d been five years. I needed sex, not this…this making me crazy thing you’re doing.”

Before I can blink, I’m against him, his hand sliding into my hair, pulling my face to his, his other hand caressing my breast, my nipple. “You want to be f*cked? Is that what you want from me, Sara?”

“Yes,” I whisper but I know it’s not enough anymore, not with Chris. “I want…” A wave of nausea blasts through me and my hand presses against his chest. “Oh God.” I push away from him and he lets me, as I desperately seek the bathroom, and have no idea where it is. Chris guides me beyond the bed and I remotely register entering a smaller room and a light being flipped on but all I see is the toilet.

I drop to my knees in front of it without a second to spare and what follows isn’t pretty. Chris approaches and I wave him off. “Go away,” I choke out. “I don’t want you to see me like this.”

“Forget it.” He goes down on a knee beside me. “I got you like this, I’m going to take care of you while you’re going through it.” He hands me a towel which I clutch eagerly and I can’t argue anymore. I fall into eternal heaves, and he is holding my hair, stroking my back, until I collapse on some shiny white surface I think is the side of the tub.

Chris eases me off of the tub, cradling me against his body. “We need to get you out of this dress. It’s a mess.” He tugs it upward. I am a limp noodle and barely raise my arms to help him pull it over my head.

I am naked on the bathroom floor, and Chris slides his arms under my thighs and behind my back as he picks me up. Clarity begins to come back to me. I put my trust in Chris to take care of me and he is but I am sick all over again thinking of the irony of what has happened.

He pulls back the sheets and settles me in the bed, pulling the covers up, before kneeling in front of me. “Let me get you some water.”

I grab his hand before he can leave. “Chris…me getting drunk on wine after what you told me--”

“You did nothing wrong tonight. I did.”

“No,” I argue, certain, for reasons I’m not clear-headed enough to analyze, that him taking the blame is a problem. “Chris.” I don’t know what else to say. I’m too sick and to weak. “I…we…”

“Rest, Sara. I’ll be right here if you need me.”

The question is, will he be here tomorrow? And should I want him to be? But it doesn’t seem to matter what I should want. I just want to be with Chris.





Chapter Twenty-Six





I blink against the morning sunlight in my eyes and swallow against the dryness in my throat. Awareness comes to me first with the throbbing of my head, next with the horrid taste in my mouth, and then, with the warm weight wrapped around me. I’m naked, under a blanket, and Chris’s arm is draped over my body.

For a moment, I lay here absorbing the implications and the complications that have become our relationship, remembering the explosive fight we’d had. The turbulence of that battle fades away in Chris’s embrace. Because Mike and Katie don’t know that wine was my father’s drug of choice. My poor damaged artist. He’s been through so much and thought Mike had meant well with his gift, instead he’d sideswiped Chris and left him reeling. I’d been there for the aftermath and thanks to the wine, I’d handled it horribly.

Guilt twists in my empty, aching stomach as I remember hugging the toilet, with Chris watching me be sick on the very drink that had destroyed his father. And still, he’d tenderly taken care of me, and been my hero.

“You’re awake.” The raw, morning rumble of his deep voice burns through me and I’m amazed at how easily everything about this man affects me.

“And embarrassed.”

He nuzzles my neck. “You have nothing to be embarrassed about.”

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

He tries to turn me and I push to a sitting position, tugging the sheet with me and scooting against the headboard. “I’m radioactive. Unsafe until I shower and brush my teeth.” I frown, noting he’s wearing the clothes he’d had on the night before, a dark blond stubble thick on his jaw. He looks rough and sexy, his blond hair a wild hot mess. “You’re fully dressed.”