The Carrero Heart - The Journey: Arrick and Sophie (The Carrero Series Book 5)

by L. T. Marshall

‘Hmmmm… Who says he even deserves her after how he ended things. That was an asshole move.’ I sulk petulantly, watching that set of eyes trace my neck and shoulders as his fingers do, his touch caressing me into tingles.

  ‘I told him that…. I gave him a tough time, trust me.’ Arrick seems to realise his attempts at placating me with sexy moves isn’t working and comes to rest in the throw pillows beside me, instead of tracking my skin, he curls up with me, pulling me down with him to snuggle.

  ‘Why are men such assholes? I surrender to him wholly with zero resistance.

  ‘Hey!.’ Arrick prods me and I only bat his hand away with a giggle.

  ‘Even you have been known to have asshole qualities, definitely not as perfect as I like to think you are. Especially when your drunk. I don’t think I like you drunk.’ I raise a brow, I have been pondering bringing this subject up the whole time he was away, not sure if I am over reacting but still. We suck as a couple when we are alcohol fuelled.

  ‘I can be okay drunk, we just have had a couple rough sessions … I promise I will cut down next time we go anywhere and not be an asshole. You definitely become an emotional wreck when you drink, I can see why it escalated everything in the past…Maybe we should both go easy at our next social outing; tipsy sex is just as good as drunk sex.’ He smiles at me, eyes on my mouth once more and I know he’s already thinking about how quickly he can recover even from two-hour sex sessions. I wouldn’t say no, but I can tell he’s not going to push it any further, still that part of him that is being cautious with me.

  ‘Agreed. I hate fighting with you.’ I sigh and nestle in against his throat snugly, loving how even naked he just feels inviting and safe. Nothing wrong, nothing making me feel shameful about this at all.

  ‘Me too. Especially when we could be doing way more satisfying things.’ He wraps his legs around mine tightly and bodily squeezes me until I half giggle, half cough with the effort to breathe and push him away with a grunt. Arrick untangles us with a kiss on my eyebrow and a smile that signals he’s getting up.

  ‘We should get dressed, get up and eat. I want to take you to my apartment to sleep tonight, I have to sign some papers Jakes sending over and there’s something I need to deal with.’ He sighs and then yawns, clearly now suffering from delayed jet lag and over exertion and it’s all starting to catch up on him. I glance up and catch that tiny flicker on his face, something he’s not telling me, an evasive look and my heart sinks.

  ‘What do you need to deal with?’ I push his stomach with my palm as though to urge a response. He sighs and gets up, leaning over me as he climbs off the couch and plants a kiss on my head, getting up, he walks around picking up his discarded clothes, turning his back on me.

  ‘I’m paying for Tasha’s dads med bills; his insurance fell through and I felt like it was the least I could do. She text me the number and I need to call the treatment facility.’ He carries on picking up our clothes, pulling his own on and keeping himself turned away because I know he is trying to play this off as nothing. Stop an ensuing fight.

  ‘So she’s still texting and calling you then?’ I feel the heavy thud hit me in the chest and almost wind me, he hasn’t mentioned her calls or texts at all since that night. All week he has kept her out of our conversations. I see him stiffen, body language moving to the defensive and I try like crazy to control every single tiny thing going off inside me. Hating that one little word from him, concerning her, makes me feel this sick and stupid. Blood running cold and heart erupting in a flurry of anxiety.

  ‘Sometimes.’ He sounds evasive and for the first time ever, I feel like he’s lying to me. I don’t know why but I get an odd sensation from one little word that I cannot quite place. It just makes me want to cry but I push it down hard.

  ‘About her dad or…..?’ I pause, not sure I really want to know what she talks to him about anymore. Hating myself for the flood of pain and insecurity that overtakes me in this moment. Arrick sighs and looks over his shoulder at me.

  ‘She knows I’m with you. She avoids mentioning it. Just her dad, basic stuff, like how she’s getting on…. Pleasantries. Nothing that means anything.’ His voice is tighter, although I can tell he’s trying not to let this turn into something and I hate that I am making it something. I turn away swallowing down the wave of emotion and try to plaster on indifference.

  Something touches my arm and I turn to see him holding my clothes out to me. I take them and avoid looking at him, getting up and start unravelling the bundle to find my underwear. I turn away from him to fasten my bra and hide the single tear that fills my eye. Blinking it away fast and despising my insecure idiot self. Hating that I can tell myself a million times that she means nothing and then it all goes to shit so easily. I know that the weird vibe I got is why it’s escalated to tears and I know his sudden need to be cool and distant is because he’s picking up on the jealousy vibe. Still an issue to both of us then.

  ‘I’ll go sort us out food, take your time.’ Arrick sounds closed up and moves away, I guess he’s already dressed and just continue focusing on getting dressed slowly and silently. Hating that without fighting, it feels like we are and he’s suddenly so very far away from me. I hear Arrick sigh heavily.

  ‘I love YOU Sophie. I’m not going to fuck that up. You need to let this go, give her time to just move on by herself.’ He sounds pleading, my heart shredding that he really has no concept to how this feels. Why he can’t understand why I would have insecurities about her. I don’t respond, just look at what I am doing and keep doing it.

  In his head, as understanding and perceptive as he can be, I guess he figures confessing he’s always loved me means it takes it all away. That showing me he loves me daily means I shouldn’t have any reason to be jealous. For someone clearly so smart, sometimes he’s such a dumb ass.

  Chapter 23

  I yawn for the millionth time in the aquarium and blink at the bright light of a flash nearby, body heavy and achy from too much today. Arrick is walking behind me with his arms around my waist, pushing my tired body around like a child.

  ‘Maybe you need a nap before we get dinner.’ He nuzzles his nose against my ear from behind, pushing his knees into my legs so he can keep me walking, and holding me up bodily. To anyone watching I am behaving like a stroppy kid who doesn’t want to walk around anymore, and I don’t care. He has walked my legs off, after keeping me up half the night with his undying libido, after a week’s separation; taken a million selfies at various tanks and ponds and tired me out on some pedal boats for an hour. I am beyond shattered and never ever good when I am tired; I resort to being a five year old kid in a temper tantrum when I just can’t be bothered anymore. I just feel completely flaked out and unable to enjoy anymore of this day without some shut eye.

  ‘Maybe you should leave me in bed and go without me.’ I yawn again and this time he stops, let’s go to walk in front of me, turns his back to me and encourages me to hop on. Which I do, wrapping legs around him and arms around his neck while I cuddle in. Glad to be off my feet as nearby onlookers throw us disapproving looks. A woman with two children glares at us when her kid asks why she can’t get a piggy ride, but Arrick throws her a winning smile, pats my ass with the hand he slides back and then goes back to holding my thighs up and keeps walking with me. I’m an effortless weight to him it seems, doesn’t even break his stride.

  ‘Not a chance. I have seen the dress you brought over with you and I am not missing seeing you in that tonight.’ He squeezes my thighs and starts walking faster, skirting people as he manoeuvres towards the nearest exit, having to watch my feet sticking out and saving poor children’s passing faces from impalement.

  ‘I’ll wear it to bed, so you can ogle me when you come home.’ I yawn and rest my head against his, closing my eyes to snuggle up and sigh heavily. So much fatigue in one little body is so not good.

  ‘I want you with me. I hate going out without you baby.’ He bumps me higher on his back for a comfier grip and walks
on at speed, heading towards the neon signs to leave finally.

  ‘You’re a horrid boyfriend. Forcing me to socialise and go clubbing when I am wasting away with tiredness.’ I whine to no one in particular and Arrick answers with a ‘Hmmmm’ of disinterest.

  ‘I’m pretty sure I don’t care right now.’ I can almost feel his smirk as he manoeuvres me out of the metal gates that lead to the carpark area, still bouncing me along and getting cute looks from other couples we pass. We obviously look so adorable right now.

  ‘Why am I even with you?’ I mock huff at him, poking his cheek with my finger and sighing loudly as if he is being the cruellest person alive right now.

  ‘Because you love me to death, and no other man alive would put up with your stroppy ass the way I do. Or piggy back you home, because you’re too diva to keep walking.’ Arrick gets us out into the crowded car park and drops me on my own feet when he finds his car, holding me up as he manages to find his keys in his jacket pocket and beep opens the locks.

  ‘I only love you sometimes, like when you let me go to bed and stay there. I’m tired Arry.’ I huff, whine up at him with soft sleepy eyes and flop around dejectedly when he positions me in the car and lifts my feet into the footwell.

  ‘Do I need to buckle you up too, or are you capable of that?’ He sighs, leaning in to kiss me on the mouth and ruffle my hair. Obviously used to this side of me, patient and indulgent. I lift my hands pathetically and he sighs, leaning in and pulls my belt over me, clicking it in place with a kiss on the cheek.

  ‘You suck. I don’t like you anymore.’ I flop sideways so my head rests against the door frame, gazing up at him like a puppy and give a dramatic exhale; he shuts it and comes around to his own side, getting in and pulls his door shut. Arrick buckles his own belt, starts the car and revs the engine, adjusting his mirrors before he notices I am still scowling at him.

  ‘Sure you’ll love me again, when I let you nap. You can crash on the couch while I cook dinner, make you smile again… Sleep and food, your two most favourite things in the entire world.’ He says flatly, completely un-phased with my overly dramatic teen behaviour. He’s seen me this way a million times on a million different days and has oddly never gotten annoyed with it.

  ‘I have a third now….. And nope. You’re making me get up to dress up, and spend a night with your friends in a noisy bar, when I really could just have a long bubble bath and a smoochy movie in your bed. School holidays could be put to better use than lying dead with a hangover.’ I try for Bambi eyes and serious wounded animal behaviour, but he just tweaks my cheek with a cute look and winks at me, infuriatingly so.

  ‘The party animal in you really did die, didn’t it baby?’ He smiles my way, again with a ruffling of my hair before manoeuvring the car out of the parking space carefully, avoiding milling pedestrians.

  ‘She retired, happily.’ I retort.

  ‘What good is it having a sexy as sin girlfriend if she makes you go out solo, I want a trophy wife that men can hate me for.’ He raises a brow my way with that devilish wink before turning back to the road and looking so very handsome with full on concentration.

  ‘I may have to hurt you.’ I warn with a low tone and steady deadpan gaze on his face. Not impressed with pretty much telling me he wants bimbo arm candy for a girlfriend, only as an ego boost.

  ‘Well, we both know I like that, so feel free, not sure you’ll get your nap though.’ He grins cheekily, and I just slap his shoulder with a flat palm.

  ‘You’re an asshole sometimes, I forget what I ever liked about you.’ I sulk now, grumpy from being overly tired. Now I am hungry too and that just serves to make me ‘hangry’.

  ‘Jesus, you’re a stroppy one this afternoon. You’re lucky I am probably the most chilled and tolerant male on the planet and don’t carry out my desire to suffocate you.’ Arrick wriggles in his seat and fishes in his back pocket, one handed revealing his phone buzzing crazily as he pulls it out.

  He glances at the screen and red buttons it before dropping it in the centre console of the car. I catch sight of the illuminated name before it blanks out again and see it is Natasha; biting my lip, I look away and stare out the window before he sees that I noticed.

  ‘Sleep for you, cooking for me, and then we will see how you feel, okay?’ Arrick looks my way seriously, catching my eye for a second so that I look at him, a flat tone and no hint of anything other than continuing a conversation. I push down the tidal wave inside of me and just try to not turn into a crazy bitch.

  ‘Yeah, whatever.’ I say airily. Still pretending to be absorbed in the view outside now I have turned back to it, and jump when his hand comes to rest on my knee.

  ‘I love you, beautiful.’ Arrick is watching me and the road simultaneously as I let out a long sigh of defeat, faced with adoring and cute, I really can’t be pissed at him.

  ‘Fine! Okay! Stop giving my puppy eyes, I’ll come to your stupid whatever it is.’ I am dying to get home and lay down, I hate feeling this wiped out and blame it half on a bad night’s sleep and half on the fuzzy head and runny nose I feel coming, that I’m sure Christian has inflicted on me. As if to prove the point I sniff again and wipe my nose with my sleeve.

  ‘Are you getting sick? If you are, then maybe we should stay home after all. I don’t want you getting sicker.’ His eyes scan my face, looking concerned and instantly paternal and it just soothes my ruffled feathers a little.

  ‘I’m fine, I just need sleep. I feel out of whack and just touchy. If I had periods, then I would probably be having one.’ I point out blatantly; my contraception injection means I never get them at all, but do occasionally get symptoms of having them and I wonder if this is part of why I feel so tense today. Emotionally overwhelmed when Arry has been nothing but sweet all day, taking me out for one on one time, holding my hand and kissing me endlessly. There’s a stuffed sea lion in a bag in the trunk from earlier and about three bags worth of tourist crap that I just had to have. The aquarium is one of my favourite places in the world to visit, but as it’s a bit of a long drive and a place that takes an entire day to get around, then we only come occasionally, and I felt the need to splurge. Not that it cost me anything; Mr old fashioned wouldn’t allow me to use my card for anything.

  ‘I love the fact you don’t, it means you’re never off limits… Maybe need to set my watch for this time every month though, so you keep a free keep out of jail card for being a pain in the ass.’ He flicks his eyebrows upwards in a cheeky gesture and I roll my eyes at him again, instantly back to irritable.

  ‘Ha ha. I can never tell when you’re being serious or being an ass.’ I slump back down in my seat and lift my feet to his dash, so I am practically curled up, he frowns at me but never says anything about the way I use his dash as a foot rest. He never has, even though Jake practically rips my legs off for doing it in his car.

  ‘Usually I’m being an ass, because you’re easy to wind up and I enjoy it. Part of being my girl, so get used to it.’ He reaches out and pinches my cheek to be met with a hand slap.

  ‘I want a massage.’ I pout, petulant mood, being demanding when really, I should be giving him one for the tough time I always give him. I am getting too used to Arry indulging me in every way, pandering to me. Not that I can blame myself, he has done this for so long that I really blame him for the spoiled baby I have become. He always encouraged me to behave like a little madam around him.

  ‘Not sure… If it gets you to go to sleep fine, but lately they all end up in sex. I think I have tainted you.’ He winks, and I can only shake my head at him.

  ‘Well either would make me sleep so, you know, I’m easy.’ I cannot help the naughty smile that creeps across my face and instead of pouting, I find myself sliding my hand over the console to curl over his thigh. Solid, muscular thighs that make me think about climbing on his lap.

  ‘When it comes to me you are.’ He casually picks up my hand and replaces it on my own lap, grinning at the furious look I give him, an
d knowing fine well he is just as bad. All I have to do is say his name in that pleading husky way, with big eyes, and he’s on me like a dog in heat.

  Not that I’m complaining.

  ‘I wouldn’t get so cocky, might just go to bed alone and not bother coming at all with that smug ass attitude.’ I prod his shoulder, so not impressed with him rebuffing my advances.

  ‘You know you want me, you have very little control when it comes to that.’ He looks a little too sure about that as he moves himself down in his seat to adjust his jeans, I get a little smug when I realise why. He can hide so much but never the start of an arousal.

  Easy!

  ‘Stop being smug, asshole. It’s not endearing.’ I raise a haughty eyebrow his way, half smiling at him, because I can’t help but like him, even when he’s being his confident cocky self.

  ‘I have every right to be smug, you can’t keep your hands off me lately. Not that I’m complaining Soph’s, but all I need to do is look at you nowadays and the panties drop.’ That one gets another Casanova wink and I feel that inner stubborn me uncurl to stand up to him, she doesn’t like when he gets too big for his boots…or err pants.

  ‘Maybe I’ll implement a sex ban, seeing as your so overworked and so sure of yourself.’ I sit up, cross my arms across my chest and cross my legs for good measure, sizing him up as though he means nothing to me anymore. So petty, sometimes I surprise myself.

  ‘Try it… See how long you can last, before I get you naked and moaning for me. Begging me to fuck you.’ He smiles, the hot shot of smiles, that ‘I know you better than you think’, glance my way and the infuriating way he rests his hand casually on top of the wheel like he knows he’s got this. I narrow my brows at his use of that vulgar term again, hating how crass it is.

  ‘Okay I will. From this second until further notice. I’m not giving you sex. You can try all you like, but I am not yielding to you.’ I pout, sticking my chin in the air and smirking like a diva.