Chapter 124
It was near sunset but it was still sweltering hot outside. We’d gotten dressed in shorts and tank tops and flip flops and Azriel looked so young and carefree compared to his polished serious suit persona. He told me he knew the perfect burger joint.
We swung in, filled out burger contracts (a checklist of how we wanted our burgers prepared) and ordered milkshakes. He ordered chocolate and I ordered vanilla but felt my face get flushed when I asked for vanilla and he’d chuckled and kissed me breathless while we were waiting for our orders.
Then he drove me to the beach, the beach where we’d gone after that first date at the Italian restaurant. I wondered if he’d taken me there on purpose so that I’d see we could have sunsets on the beach sometimes.
We found a picnic table and it really was a delicious burger. He looked at me with this mortified look when I swiped one of his onion rings (a really crispy one!) and then shoved it under the bun of my burger then gave me a big k**s and stole one of my French fries, which led to me feeding him half of my fries one by one looking at one another all googly-eyed. We got to watch the sun set, all cuddled up together. It felt like we were a normal couple.
He kept looking like he wanted to say something. But he didn’t. I could’ve said stuff too, but I didn’t. So much was exchanged in those glances, it was almost like a conversation that didn’t need words. He wanted to know I was okay. I wanted to be okay.
I didn’t know if I was okay but I was trying to be. Maybe if he never got like that again, I could be. Maybe I could make sure he never got like that again. I knew I was taking on a huge responsibility for something that might be completely out of my realm of control but I wanted us to work so I wanted to try.
Then we went to a drive-in and I fell asleep watching the movie, some fast car / gun-toting/ lots of explosions / bromance partner cops type of movie and woke up when he re-started the car to drive us back.
** ** **
The next few days were amazing. It felt like playing house and I was loving it. We’d had three days to ourselves before Rosita was back. I’d been keeping the house tidy, cooking for him, doing laps in the pool and spending time in the basement gym, doing research on my pretty pink laptop about him and his s****l tastes, and considering options for online school.
I played Miss Pacman on the arcade machine in the basement, determined to beat Dario’s #1 spot high score. In a few days I was at the #2 spot and I wasn’t giving up. I’d put “ClaireTyson” as my name on it.
I’d had two conversations on the phone, one with Lisa about wedding plans and an upcoming baby shower for Luciana. I told her I’d come over and meet with her and the sisters and we could make plans. She told me they were all happy to help. I said I’d talk to Azriel about dinner on the upcoming Sunday and then we’d sit down and go over things. Then I had a phone conversation with my best friend Lily.
I’d brought it up after afternoon s*x when we were all cuddled up afterwards. I nervously told Azriel I needed to talk to her, to put her mind at ease because she’d just been wondering about me for all this time, and because I’d promised her mother, Rose that I’d call her. By not calling I’d be leaving them wondering and worrying about me.
He said it was fine but that I had to remember that any call could be being recorded and that I had to be very careful of what I said.
I assured him it’d be fine to talk to Lily and that I understood. I was about to dial from the house line when he fetched me an older disposable flip phone call phone, reminding me to be careful on any line, but especially on a house line or traditional cell phone. When he left the room I braced myself with a deep breath and dialed her cell.
First she was pissed at me. I’d just disappeared for weeks and given her the strangest explanation for my sudden disappearance when she did finally manage to catch me at the mall.
Her parents had evidently protected her from their suspicions even in the beginning when they were involving police and social workers, but that was until I’d reassured them I was okay at the hospital.
I was easily able to sell her on this being a case of a whirlwind romance. The billionaire guy had swept me off my feet and we’d moved in together instead of just me giving him my virginity.
She was a romantic at heart and so it wasn’t at all hard to convince her that this was just all that’d happened. She was mad at me at first. When she asked why I was all upset at the mall and why I’d disappeared like that I said, “Let’s just say my father did something to seriously disappoint me.” She’d replied with a knowing, “Enough said.”
Hallelujah!
I told mostly the truth, or at least selective parts of it, about how Azriel had turned out to be everything I was looking for.
I told her he’d wined and dined me, taken me on a vacation, that we’d had sunset beach walks, made love in a hayloft when he proposed, told her that I knew when my dream wedding dance song came on and that he’d picked that moment with the fireflies and the stars in the sky to ask me to marry him that I didn’t need to wait to get to know him better, that everything he was in that moment was just what I wanted in a husband.
I told her he was protective, fiercely protective, that he was strong, that he was smart and funny, and that sometimes he could be so sweet that it made my heart melt. I also told her about the panty-melting s*x, a little. That it was hot, not what it entailed.Content (C) Nôv/elDra/ma.Org.
She practically swooned over the phone when I told her he’d repeatedly made me come hard, not once, but two and three times per s*x session.