Beneath This Man (This Man, #2)(161)

I push his hands away from my thighs and get up, leaving him crouched by the sofa looking lost. ‘So on Thursday in your office, are you telling me that if you had drank the vodka, I would’ve found you nailing Sarah on your desk, not just looking cosy with her on your desk?’ This is horrible.

He gets up and stalks over to me, grabbing my hips to immobilise me before bending down to get into my line of sight. ‘No! Don’t be so stupid.’

‘I don’t think I’m being stupid.’ I scathe. ‘It’s bad enough worrying about you drinking. I don’t know if I can cope with the additional complications of you being drunk and wanting to f*ck other women!’ I’m screeching, but I can’t help it.

He recoils. ‘Will you watch your f*cking mouth? It doesn’t make me want to f*ck other women. It just makes me want to f*ck!’

‘So I had better ensure that I’m with you when you have a drink then, hadn’t I?’

‘I won’t be having a drink! When will you listen to me, woman?’ he shouts. ‘I don’t need drink.’ He releases me harshly and stomps off towards the window and then back again. He points at me. ‘I need you!’

And we’re back to that. How the hell does he know? I slap his finger out of my face. ‘You need me to replace drink and screwing.’ I want to cry. All he needs me for is to remove himself from a lifestyle that would kill him if he kept it up for much longer. I’m his escape from a certain premature death by alcohol poisoning. I think I might throw up again. He really is scared of me leaving, but it has nothing to do with how much he loves me. It is because he is scared of returning to a hollow life. ‘You manipulate me.’

‘I don’t manipulate you!’ He actually looks offended.

‘Yes, you do! With sex! Sense f*cking, reminder f*cking. It’s all manipulation. I need you and you use it against me!’

‘No!’ he roars, and then swipes his arms straight across the top of the drinks cabinet, sending dozens of liquor bottles and glasses crashing to the floor, the sound of broken glass thundering around us.

I jump, stepping back, but he stalks forward and grabs the tops of my arms. ‘I need you to need me, Ava. It doesn’t get any simpler than that. How many times have I got to tell you? As long as you need me, I look after myself…simple.’

‘How is having yourself whipped looking after yourself?’ I scream in his face.

He drops me and grabs at his hair, virtually pulling it out. ‘I don’t f*cking know!’

I look to the heavens above. This is hopeless. ‘I do need you, but not like this.’

He takes my hands. ‘Look at me.’ he demands harshly. I drop my head back down so we’re at eye level again. ‘Tell me, how do I make you feel? I know how you make me feel. Yes, I’ve had a lot of women, but it was all just sex. Mindless sex. No feelings. Ava, I need you.’

I look at my handsome, troubled, neurotic rogue, looking me straight in the eyes and I want to scream at him, bang his head against a wall and knock some sense into him the conventional way. We make each other crazy. That’s the truth of it. We’re no good for each other, and he does manipulate me. The problem is, I enjoy it. The sex kitten in me comes racing to the surface every time. I need him, just as much as he needs me, but for different reasons. He’s made himself a part of me. He’s embedded himself into my mind and soul. Without him, I feel like nothing. I am nothing.

‘How can you need me if I make you do this to yourself?’ I ask tiredly. ‘You’re more self-destructible now than you were before me. I’ve made you need alcohol, not want it. I’ve made you into an unreasonable, crazy man, and I’m certainly not stable anymore. Don’t you see what we’re doing to each other?’

‘Ava,’ His tone is warning. He knows where I’m heading.

‘And for the record, I hate the fact that you’ve put it about?’ I need him to know this, but then the most horrific thought slams into my head.

I gasp.

‘When you disappeared for four days…’ I can’t even finish. My heart has just jumped into my throat and exploded.

His eyes widen at my obvious conclusion, his mouth tightening, the muscles in his jaw ticking. ‘They.meant.nothing. I love you. I need you.’

‘Oh God!’ I fall to my knees. He hasn’t denied it. ‘You were f*cking other women.’ My palms find my face as the tears start again, a massive hole punched straight through my stomach.

He joins me on the floor, clenching my arms, shaking me. ‘Ava, listen to me. They meant nothing. I was falling in love with you. I knew I would hurt you. I didn’t want to hurt you.’

‘You said you couldn’t do it to me. You forgot to add again. You should have said you couldn’t do it to me again.’

‘I didn’t want to hurt you.’ he whispers.

My defeated face comes up. ‘So to remedy that, you f*cked other women?’ My stomach is turning. I can’t breathe. ‘How many?’

‘Ava, please don’t. I hate myself.’

‘I hate you too!’ I cry, my shoulders jerking as I sob relentlessly. ‘How could you?’

‘Ava, why are you not listening to me?’

‘I am, and I don’t like what I’m hearing!’ I scramble to my feet, but he grabs my waist to prevent me from walking away.