If I Were You(Inside Out 01)(70)

“How do you know if you don’t try me?”
“You can’t handle it,” he grinds out. “End of story. And you’re not going to get a chance to prove me right. I’ve broken rules with you, important rules I’ve lived by, and you’re the one who’ll pay the price. I’m not going to let that happen.” He pushes off the railing. “We’re leaving.” He grabs my hand and when he sees the card in my palm, he tosses it into the water. My stomach knots as I double-step to keep up and watch the small piece of his father flutter toward the water. My heel catches on a board and I stumble again.
Chris rounds on me and catches me. “And stop drinking too much damn wine.”
I’m appalled at his reprimand, my defensiveness rising to the challenge. “You gave me the wine, you…jerk!”
His hand tightens on my arm and he pulls me close. “Finally you get what I’ve been telling you. Yes. I’m a jerk. The kind of jerk you don’t deserve.” He takes my hand and starts walking, and like the jerk he proclaims to be, his steps are fast and my footing is painfully unsteady.
We round the building without ever going inside, and head to the limo parked off by to the side of the drive. He yanks open the door. “Get in.”
“What about Katie and Mike?”
“Get in, Sara.”
My throat thickens with emotion and I consider refusing, but the world is spinning around me, and not entirely because of the wine. I slide into the car and over to the far window. I watch Eric scramble upright from an apparent nap and straighten.
“Is everything okay, sir?” he asks as Chris climbs into the vehicle.
“We’re ready to return to the hotel,” is Chris’s only answer. He slams the door beside him and this time he does not move to sit beside me.
We are worlds apart.

***

The ride back is short and tense, but it is long enough for the anger to build to a near-explosive level inside me. I have let Chris turn my life upside down in a matter of a week. It’s insane. It’s everything I said I would never let a man do again.
When the car stops I open my side and get out. Eric quickly does the same. “Thank you, Eric, for the tour.” I turn on my heel and let him shut the door I’ve exited.
Chris is waiting on me as I round the trunk, a predatory gleam in his gaze, hot and filled with desire. It pisses me off. I am not prey. I am not a token to be used and played with. I tug the shawl around me and cross my arms, giving him no chance to take my hand, and head inside the hotel.
He falls into step beside me, softly announcing the obvious. “People are watching us. They can tell you’re pissed.”
“How very observant of them.” I keep walking toward the elevator and I know I’m swaying. I’m flipping drunk and that just ticks me off more. It means I trusted Chris to take care of me. I don’t need to be taken care of. I don’t want to be taken care of.
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.