The Carrero Heart - Beginning: Arrick and Sophie. (The Carrero Series Book 4)

by L. T. Marshall

  I text Leila and get nothing but sassy responses, she is clearly on her period and having a day of ‘fuck you’ at everyone’s expense. I give up on that little conversation quickly, not in the mood to deal with whatever is up with her, probably another tiff with her husband and I wonder how on earth he still puts up with her. Leila is a cyclone and Hunter is just way too laid back sometimes, I think he kind of likes her craziness, the two of them are just plain weird.

  I leave Camilla another voicemail, seeing as I have still never heard back from abandoning her in that apartment, and to be honest, her wall of silence is really pissing me off. I thought we were friends, of sorts, but I guess she is just another shallow asshole who probably did spike my drink that night, and I am probably better off shot of her. Like everyone I ever became friends with, I didn’t invest enough emotion to actually care that she is no longer around. Very few ever really got to me the way Arrick did.

  The ping of the elevator almost has me catapulting myself off the couch, overly eager to see him and suddenly flustered that he’s back, yet not ready either. After waiting agonising hours, I am faced with nerves and so not sure how to behave. I smooth my hair, fix my dress and sit down again once more, quickly and seamlessly, hauling over my notebook in a bid to look busy and not at all bothered by his lack of absence. My heart hammering through my chest, eyes keep glancing to the doors and I try to look anything but antsy and spring loaded, like I am about to go off.

  When it opens a moment later and he saunters in, completely relaxed, I resist the urge to look his way. I can see him from the corner of my eye, carrying a gym bag, dressed in sweats and a tee and I can smell fresh shower gel and body spray almost immediately, wafting my way in the air, and try not to sigh at his familiar scents. He seems to be drinking from a water bottle, head tilted back and not really focused on my whereabouts in the way I am noticing his, he finally does, after dumping his bag and whatever else he’s carrying in the foyer area.

  ‘Hey.’ He calls to me, casual in his tone, like he has no reason to be any other way and this is just a normal everyday morning of him coming home to me in his apartment. I just look up, smile tightly and go back to what I’m doing. Not sure if I am meant to be pissed or not anymore; I’ve lost track of whatever our last mood was, and to be honest, I am too exhausted for this. I just want things between us to be normal again, for him to flop down and make me laugh, or just make me forget anything about where he was all night. I drop my face and continue one of the sketches I have been playing with, colouring in a skirt that I am filling out on a headless body, in a bid to appear nonchalant. I jump in fright as his voice startles me in the left ear.

  ‘Looks good…. Needs some brighter colour though.’ He’s leaning over the couch, face almost against my cheek and I am suddenly overwhelmed by both the proximity and the smell of him, when it’s right up in here, about breathing distance away, moseying at what I’m doing. I frown up at him and shove his face away immaturely, impulsively, with a hand under his chin, yet also a necessity. His closeness is making my heart race a little too wildly.

  Arrick swipes the notebook from me as I push him back and then squeal and try to retrieve it from him, panic overtaking my need to have distance from him and turning in my seat to chase after it. He holds it up in the air on its side so I can’t reach, placing a hand on my shoulder as I try to stand on the couch to get it back, but he just pushes me to my knees so he can hold it higher and look as the pages begin to flutter open above his eye level.

  ‘Don’t…Leave it alone and don’t look at it.’ I yelp and squirm, embarrassed by my childish scribbles of dresses and outfits that I had thought up, but he just laughs at me, and my futile attempts to get it back from him; face flaming and feeling wholly mortified. Art was never a huge strong point for me and clothes is about the only thing I have ever drawn.

  ‘Come on Soph’s. I wanna see what you’re drawing.’ He holds it higher yet, when I make a mad dash grab for it, wrenching free from his grip and manage to get up on my feet. I almost get a hold of the corner, stretching out up the length of him in a bid to reach and using his chest as support under one palm, so I don’t fall over. I yelp in surprise as he grabs me around the hips with one strong arm, caught unawares because my attention is diverted upwards, he throws me over his shoulder like a light ragdoll and chuckles.

  I turn into a wriggling mass of fight, trying to break free and cursing him out while still reaching crazily for my notebook. I have zero chance of getting it back like this, I can’t even begin to reach from here and he has a vice like hold on me that tells me I have no chance of escape. I still try. Reaching over his head for it, futile, but now his arm is stretched out instead of up and they are way too long for me to get anywhere near it.

  Arrick walks around the room with me over his shoulder, it’s like I weigh nothing and even fighting him, he is in infuriating control and barley seems to acknowledge me, he lets the pages fall open randomly, and just keeps pushing me over anytime I try to lever myself up to get off him. I hate that he has shoulders wide enough to perch me here effortlessly, and the strength in one arm alone to restrain me. I mean normally they are a very attractive feature, but right now, I want to smack him across the head. I just feel like I am caught in a place between anger and embarrassment and this is truly uncomfortable.

  ‘Stop it. I actually hate you right now.’ I wail at him, and try to fight once more, but he’s too strong. I kick out more when he adjusts his position, bumps me up his shoulder with a little thrust and his full flat palm lands on my ass as his point of hold. Splayed over my butt cheek, and holding me firmly, so I can’t get away, he really does seem oblivious to the fact his entire hand is cupping my ass cheek, intimately, not innocent in the slightest. The interior wave of fire that runs amok within me at this little realisation only pushes me to try and wriggle more, confused by my obvious hormonal reaction.

  ‘These are good Sophie, I mean it. You have skills.’ I can’t tell by his tone if he’s joking and taking the mickey out of me, or if he is serious. I’m still hanging down his back, using my palms on his muscular shoulder blades to try and lever myself up off him. Aware that my hands are being allowed to roam over him freely, and he doesn’t seem to give a shit. It’s obvious that his ‘not appropriate’ sensor has been switched off in this moment and he really is just focused on my artwork of sorts.

  ‘Let me go. You’re an asshole.’ I snap at him and then yelp when he slaps me on the ass hard enough to make it sting and ring loudly. I guess my book has been discarded if he suddenly has a free hand and twist to try and get a better look. We’re now at the kitchen counter, and instead of holding it up he has it laid out and is turning it, page by page, on the black marble surface, much more slowly as he takes a proper good look.

  ‘Sophie. I’m serious… These are good. Really good.’ He stops squeezing me and instead slides me down him, so I’m front to front, my body slides down his in every way, faces passing, but he’s too intent on looking past me at the book and doesn’t seem to realise how weirdly sexual this is. Every part of me just slid down every part of him, in a very direct contact kind of way. Oblivious, he turns me in his arm to face my own sketches and distracts where my brain has just been teetering, still feeling every part of him, down the entire length of me, and unable to shift the eruption of tingles in my pelvis. I swallow hard, feeling his heat through my back instead, and the way his muscly tattooed arm is still across my upper chest possessively.

  Spying my book laid out without guarding fingers, I snatch it from the counter, yank it against me and make a dash to duck under his arm and run, but he only catches me around the shoulders with one arm again, almost instantly, and holds me tight. His other hand prodding in to try and retrieve it childishly.

  ‘I hate you.’ I sulk and cradle the book tighter against my chest. Wrapping both arms over it in a bid to protect it from falling into his devil hands once more, and turning away to shield it.

  ‘I’m sure you
do, but really… Where did you learn to draw like that? Or even where do you come up with half that stuff?’ He sounds genuinely surprised and finally lets me go, relinquishing me and no longer trying to annoy me into submitting the book back to him. I shove him in the abdomen with a flat palm, glaring icily like he has broken some circle of trust between us. I ignore that boyish chuckle I get from him, completely unaffected by the fact I am proper hating on him right now, and he’s just laughing at me.

  ‘I do. You’re a massive douche bag right now.’ I sulk and make to storm back to the couch, protecting my notebook fiercely and growl at him when he follows me at a distance. I don’t want to leave this thing unattended again if he is going to be a snoop, and nosey into shit that has nothing to do with him. My temper is properly riled and even all his compliments on my drawings have not changed the fact I didn’t want anyone seeing these.

  ‘I guess I’ll have to live with that. Does little miss huffy pants want massive douchebag to take her for a sundae right now?’ He’s still laughing at me, amused by my insults. Ha fucking ha, and I throw another glare his way, not sure whether to believe that he really is offering ice cream, because he has just got home from the gym and it’s on his no go list of foods right now. I guess he is trying to be cute, and make up for being a massive pain in my ass if he is offering, and I find myself pondering over whether I want it or not; ice cream is sort of a weakness, beside pancakes. He does seem to be in a good mood, which is odd, considering last night was weird and emotional, but he is showing no signs of being anything but normal today.

  ‘You are on an ice cream ban, why would you do that?’ I pout his way, glad to be diverting the topic from my sketches. Eyeing him up suspiciously.

  ‘You’re a bad influence on me… Besides, you have an ice cream weakness and I have some hate reversal to perform.’ He winks at me smartly, cocky at his quick wit, obviously pleased with it and sauntering over to me like god’s gift to women. I just roll my eyes at him and throw the book on the couch, now that it is no longer his focus. Forgetting my insane need to protect it with my life anymore.

  ‘Better buy me an ice cream parlour then, as it’s going to take more than a sundae.’ I smirk his way, softening a little, and yet also determined not to give in entirely yet.

  ‘So, ice cream parlours work better than flowers, right?’ He smiles this time, full on Carrero heartthrob smiles, the kind Jake throws about and I narrow my eyes suspiciously at him. Suddenly really wondering about why he is in such a good mood right now. I really don’t want to contemplate what might have gone down with Natasha last night, but I do know that the saying goes… If a guy is happy next day then it’s a sure sign he got laid! I feel myself bristle inside, heart sinking and mood plummeting. I can’t help that gut wrenching reaction that goes off inside of me and the way my constant pain companion takes another swift punch to my heart.

  ‘Ice cream is overrated.’ I throw back in a luck lustre way and see his smile fade to a frown.

  ‘The girl who can eat her own weight in sundaes, thinks that ice cream is overrated?’ He tries for another bout at light humour, but I’ve completely killed my own mood. My lip trembles and I look away towards the couch instead, trying to control the urge to cry now this stupid head of mine has basically summarised that him smiling, today equates to sex with her. I hate that it makes me feel this way and now it’s in my head, it’s killing me.

  ‘Nothing happened Sophie.’ His voice catches me off guard, the sudden change from light and fun tone, to serious statement, makes me look up at him in shock. He looks at me intently, that crazy skill he sometimes has of reading me like an open book and I waiver, unsure how to even respond to that and unsure if I should even believe him. He was gone half the night, or all of it, I’m not even sure.

  ‘I talked to her, nothing else. Then I drove to central park and went for a walk…. A long one, and came home and went to bed.’ He moves from where he’s standing and closes the gap between us, coming to stand inches from me, his eyes steadfast on mine and no hint of anything but utter honesty.

  ‘I checked on you, you were asleep, so I just figured I should go to bed too.’ He lifts a hand and prods me on the end of my nose softly, a cute, yet immature gesture, that makes me smile a little bit, mood lifting with the rise of heaviness inside, yet I stare down at the floor between us; avoiding checking out his muscular legs or clearly noticeable man area in those sweats. Eyes dart to floor just to be on the safe side.

  ‘That’s creepy.’ I push at his foot with mine on the polished wood, unable to lift my chin to look at him, feeling awkward suddenly, also maybe a little fragile. There is definitely a lot of relief going on inside of me, that has the same effect as being dunked in warm water.

  ‘Yeah well, so is drooling in your sleep, but I don’t judge you for it.’ I see the smile out of the corner of my eye, his return to playful mood quickly and can’t stop the grin that explodes across my face. Coyly looking up to meet that penetrating gaze on my face, that half smile, and those dimples which make me sigh and look down again.

  ‘Says the sleep talker.’ I poke him in the chest, in a bid to kill the weirdness.

  ‘I sleep talk, but you full on sleep walk, and sometimes you snore.’ He nudges me with his foot this time, childish tactics and I retaliate, so it becomes a game of footsy war between us.

  ‘How would you know, we have never shared a bed?’ I point out, this time meeting him eye to eye with a frown, the strangeness evaporating quickly between us now that the mood is lifting and my heart has stopped aching quite so badly.

  He never screwed her last night.

  ‘Pretty sure we have, more than once. Maybe you were just too drunk to remember. I carried you to bed twice when you stayed here, after a party, I couldn’t trust any of the guys not to climb in bed with you and make a play for something more, so you slept with me.’ I stare at him in disbelief, trying to recall any times I have ever woken up in his bed and seem to remember hazy memories of doing so once or twice, but always alone. I just assumed he had let me use his bed and slept elsewhere. It feels kind of nice, in a warm weird way to know that I have actually slept with him, that he took care of me that way, and shared a bed without even knowing I had. My heart expands with affection for him in that instant, looking at him with a definite smile and losing all the last ounces of shyness.

  Still my Arry after all.

  ‘Always the gentleman.’ I giggle, toying with his shoe with the toe of mine still, distracted by the motion, and happier that we are being more like us, that even after all this, I can find my way back to normal with him. I feel his hand under my chin as he pulls me up to look at him. I breathe in sharply, faltering in my reaction to this intimate movement that catches me off guard. He looks at me for a long moment, eyes flicker all over my face slowly before he settles on my eyes and I can’t help but get butterflies in response to that.

  Does he really not know what he does to me?

  ‘It’s my friend’s birthday tonight, we’re going to a club in town, and I wondered if you want to come with me. If you don’t then I won’t stay out late, I don’t plan on drinking much as I have training first thing again.’ His question completely disarms me, coming out of nowhere and I hesitate for a moment that it sounds like he’s asking me on a date. Somewhere in the back of my mind I wonder why he isn’t taking Natasha, they have the same friends.

  ‘You sure you trust me to come out getting drunk with you?’ I smirk at him, batting away the questions and doubts, and trying to take this at face value.

  ‘Well it might make a change getting drunk with you, rather than showing up to collect you after the damage is done.’ Arrick smiles back. I look him in the face, poke his cheek and reply with a ‘HA HA’. Ever witty and just has to poke fun at that crap.

  Good one.

  ‘I don’t think I have seen you really drunk in a long time.’ I point out, more than aware, that apart from being moderately tipsy at family parties, and even his own in the p
ast couple of years, he has remained sober for as long as I can remember.

  ‘That’s because I grew up, I don’t hit it like I used too, and I can’t be assed with hangovers anymore. Plus, I train most days so it’s not worth my while if it affects my fighting form.’ Arrick is still locked onto my face, those eyes watching every flicker of emotion on me like a hawk, homed in on its prey. It’s a little unnerving, but his hand is no longer cupping my chin, instead he’s moved to playing with the fingers on my loosely hanging hand, pulling my pointy finger between his and running a thumb over my manicured nail.

  ‘I guess I have a couple new dresses I haven’t worn out yet. Guess it’s a date.’ I smile, trying my hardest to ignore the way his hot hands around my fingers feel right now, how even a tiny little fidgety act of tenderness, turns me into a puddle of mush. My smile immediately drops when I realise what I have said out loud, looking warily at him and see he is smiling by my obvious reaction to my own faux pas.

  ‘I knew what you meant. Stop being so sensitive about this or it will get weird. We’re avoiding weird, remember?’ He leans down and bops his forehead against mine. Moving in a little too closely for my liking, his mouth a little too enticing and I move back, prodding him in the chest playfully and giving myself breathing space.

  ‘Better not take me then.’ I giggle cheekily, caught by his outstretched hand on my wrist as he yanks me bank to him, oblivious to how much I am trying to avoid this sort of closeness to him right now, for my own sanity. Arrick shifts his gaze to my hair, letting my arm go and picks up a dark strand from beside my cheek gently. Twiddling it in his fingers with a serious look running across that perfect face.