Falling For The Playboy

It felt like a rhetorical question. And while rhetorical questions might have answers, they didn’t necessarily need one. Which meant I had a choice to answer or not.

“I think I know why you did. ” he spoke before I could. “Do you want me to tell you? ”

That was another rhetorical question. He was full of them today. Of course I wanted him to tell me. But again, he spoke before I could.

“I think you were jealous. ”

I froze.Property of Nô)(velDr(a)ma.Org.

“Of the other girls,” he continued. “Of how close they were to me when you wanted that person to be you. You didn’t want to, but you did. You were jealous. ”

I didn’t know what terrified me more. The accuracy with which he read the situation or how effortlessly he saw right through me.

My heart galloped in my chest. I was pretty sure he could hear it. He had me caged in. I couldn’t move even if I wanted to and right now, I very much wanted to, but I could only stare at him.

I hated him for doing this to me. For making me face him when all I wanted to do was hide. I hated him for making me feel so helpless.

I tore away from his gaze and stared at the dresser. Recognition hit me and I realized I was staring at my phone. It had been there all along, I just hadn’t looked hard enough -or looked at all. Period.

“Were you? ” he asked softly, carefully. “Jealous? ”

Somehow, I knew he wasn’t going to let me go, not until I answered his question. So I did.

“I wasn’t. I’m not. ” I answered firmly, my voice even. I could tell I didn’t sound the slightest bit convincing, and that angered me all over. “Happy?”

“Not really. ” His brows furrowed. His eyes were still glued to the movement of his hands on my thigh. My breath hitched when he climbed higher than he initially had. I could feel the heat of his hands through the material of my trousers and it wasn’t helping matters.

Yet I couldn’t push his hands away. I didn’t want to.

“I was jealous. ” His murmured words kicked me back to the present and I blinked, confused. Until he continued. “Of Omar. I left to go get drinks and I knew leaving you there by yourself when you were dressed like that was risky, but I did it anyway because I needed to clear my head. I was… ” He frowned in concentration, his eyes on his hands on my thighs, as if he was looking for the right word. “Distracted. And unsettled. When I came back and saw you in his arms, what I felt, it stopped me in my tracks. ”

I listened to him silently as he spoke, not wanting to interrupt. All the while, my heart raced in my chest. He wasn’t looking at me, he seemed oddly concentrated on the irregular patterns he was making on my thigh, and I didn’t know why.

“At first, I was confused. It took me quite a while to understand that what I was feeling was jealousy and when I did, I flipped. ” The motion of his hand stopped. “I hated it, my body rejected it. I didn’t want to be. I hadn’t felt anything like that before. It was scalding and so fucking uncomfortable and I couldn’t see past it. ” The pain in his words called to me. It was palpable, almost tangible and I wanted to do something to comfort him, I just didn’t know what. “And I acted like an ass to you, but I still couldn’t leave. Lord knows I wanted to. I couldn’t even get into my car, I fucking couldn’t. I had just made the decision to go back and beg for your forgiveness when I saw you coming out. With you in his arms again. ”

My heart stopped, then started all over again. My hoodie was suddenly too thick and too hot for me to be in.

“What are you saying? ” I asked finally when he grew silent for too long. Too long for me to bear anyway.

He glanced at me then and the emotion in his eyes robbed me of my breath. “We do not want to feel this way, but we still do. I guess what I’m trying to say is, it’s inevitable not to feel when it comes to certain people, and the harder you fight the feelings, the clearer and stronger they become. I…. ” His eyes danced between mine, as if searching for something. “I guess what I’m trying to say is, you make me feel a certain way, and no matter how hard I try to ignore this alien feeling, it grows bigger and…. fuck. I don’t know what this feeling is. It’s uncomfortable and it hurts and I can’t fucking stand it, but I feel it anyway. ”

If he hadn’t been able to hear my racing heart before, then he definitely could now. I wanted to push him away and I wanted to pull him closer. I wanted to wipe out this entire conversation from my memory and his and I wanted to record it and store it forever. I wanted to give myself over and I wanted to run away and hide at the same time.

I was conflicted. Just like how I wanted to throw Laura’s words to the wind and dive into this and see what it brought, at the same I wanted to run as far away from him as I could.

I was feeling so much and too much and my brain and my over heating body couldn’t handle the onslaught of emotions.

“And if you feel even a quarter of what I feel, then, ” he paused, looking so unsure and I wanted nothing more than to wipe that emotion off his face. “It’s okay if you were jealous. ”

I didn’t know who moved first, didn’t know who was leaning into whom, but all of a sudden, we were mere inches apart and his lips were so close to mine.

His eyes fell to my lips. I read the silent question in them.

May I?

My eyes must have given him a positive answer -I might have even nodded, who knew?- because he was suddenly erasing the remaining distance between us.

My lids slid shut.