Total pages in book: 192
Estimated words: 192810 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 964(@200wpm)___ 771(@250wpm)___ 643(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 192810 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 964(@200wpm)___ 771(@250wpm)___ 643(@300wpm)
He came to me, his gaze devouring me from top to toe to top again (one could say mine were doing the same with him, and I’d already seen him in his suit before he left the closet), and he rested his hands on my hips.
“That’s quite a dress,” he murmured.
“Hmm,” I hummed, pleased with the pinprick stars in his eyes.
“I remember those shoes,” he purred.
Of course he did.
He took his gaze off my dress and aimed it at mine.
“Royal testosterone tantrum?” he teased.
I wanted to shout my joy that he was teasing. That we were here, not where we were. That he liked my dress, and he had his hands on me, and Nova had her daddy back.
I didn’t.
Because after he left the closet, a few things had occurred to me, and we needed to have them out before we went to pre-dinner drinks.
I arched into him and cupped his jaw in one hand. “Before we go, I’d like to talk about a few things.”
He sighed. “We need to talk about a number of things. I’ll fill you in with what I can after dinner.”
He was referring to political intrigue.
I wanted to talk about something else.
“Real quick, can I get into mine?”
“Of course, darling,” he murmured.
Gods, I loved this male.
“I think I made…not a mistake, but I said something which might have made you concerned about something else, and it was right at the time, but now, not so much.”
One side of his lips tipped up. “Laura, I’m not understanding.”
“I told you how upset I was the last time you got angry at me.”
No humor in his face now, and the pads of his fingers dug into my hips.
“Part of what we need to talk about is your father,” he stated. “But you’re right. I should have gone somewhere to cool down before I confronted you.”
“No. That’s not what I’m saying. What I’m trying to say is, when you’re angry, you need to be angry. You need to express it. You need to share it with me so we can work it out.”
His attention had drifted to my ear.
So I cupped his jaw in both hands and called, “Aleksei.”
He looked again at me. “It upsets you.”
Yes.
What occurred to me in the closet was yet another nuance of what he’d done the last two days.
“As I think I’ve made clear, I can hold my own,” I told him.
“I don’t want you to fear me.”
“I’ve never feared you, not once, not even when your dragon came out and tossed me on its neck. When we argued before, it wasn’t fear I felt. Never. Upon contemplation, I realized it was shock, because I hadn’t seen that side of you. But also, anger, because, well…just because you pissed me off.”
I wasn’t going to tell him I was also triggered due to how my parents treated me.
I wasn’t doing this because I was keeping it from him.
No.
I was seeing now that was a false alarm, and more, I was safe with Aleksei in an argument, and we needed to be free to have them.
I couldn’t fight back with my parents. I could with Aleksei, with no ramifications.
It was a style of communication for a couple, a passionate one, that, if done right, could lead to working things out.
Both times for us, we did it right. We’d worked things out.
“Darling—” he started.
I moved my hands to his chest and pushed in. “Part of the last two days was that you needed to do what we did in the daybed. Part of it, I’m sensing, is that you couldn’t let loose like you needed to for fear you’d upset me. And yet, nearly every conversation we had, you were goading me, so I’d get mad and we’d start fighting, and that way you would either manage to push me away in order to protect me from your attentions, or alternately, you could feel free to let loose like you needed to.”
His lips thinned.
Mm-hmm.
I sensed right.
“I didn’t do it consciously, but yes,” he said. “That was what I was doing.”
“I want you to be you, honey,” I told him. “What’s happened with Errol is too much to bear on your own. You needed to offload.” I smiled. “Pick a fight with me. I can take it. And then we can make up.”
“That isn’t fair. It wasn’t you I was angry at.”
“I’m not a flower, remember?” I asked. “I’m a star. There is not one thing in the universe that makes a star burn less bright. Right?”
At my words, he groaned, pulled me up his chest and shoved his face in my neck.
Okay.
I was taking that as he got me.
“You’re my flower,” he murmured into my neck.
So farging loved him.
He lifted his head. “You’re also my star.”
I got up on tiptoe to touch my mouth to his.
When I settled back on my heels, I said, “We best go.”