He didn’t give her a chance to protest, just came around to her door, and helped her out of the car, then grabbed her bag from the trunk.
The house was dark, except for a light in the small kitchen.Josie checked her own phone.
[Mom] Staying at Carlos’s tonight.
“Josie, I don’t want to leave you,” Ares pulled her against his chest.
“I’m fine.”Though the knot in her stomach said otherwise.
“Why don’t you call a friend?”He took her chin in his fingers, drawing her gaze away from her phone and to his face, where the anguish in his eyes tore at her heart.
“I can look after myself.”
“I know you can.I like it when you let me.”He smiled that stupid smile that gave her butterflies, the one that showed off his dimples.
“I had a good time tonight.”The words were inadequate.What she really wanted to do was throw herself to the ground and beg him not to leave her.So much for not being a whiny girl.
“Me too.The best.There will be another night.”
She didn’t miss the hopeful note in his voice.
“Yes.”
“Good.Lock the door behind me.”
“Okay.”
He stepped out, and the room immediately felt emptier.She locked the doors and through the window, watched him get back in his car and driveway.
She tried to ward off the tsunami of emotions, knowing she was being silly.He didn’t break up with you or rejected you.He had to go.That’s all.
But the only thing she wanted to do was curl up in a nest of blankets and sob.
15 ARES
PullingbackintoJosie’sdriveway made him feel like a pervy stalker but he didn’t want to leave and by coming back to check on her, it satisfied his need to make sure she was okay.Even though he wanted to break through her door and demand that she came with him.
He wanted to give her another orgasm—at least one more—and relish how her body lost the every day tension for that moment in time and she became all softness and languid.The pride he felt when she reached that state was like nothing he ever experienced before.
The last thing he wanted to do was to leave his girl, but duty called.
Obligation and loyalty were the ties he won’t break.Ares grabbed a water bottle from the back seat, took the cap off and slugged it back, trying to ease his tight throat.He didn’t want to lose Josie over another interrupted date.
He wanted her to understand and thought that asking her was asking for too much.But he was selfish that way.For too many years, he had put his own happiness above everything else.Having her in his arms felt so damn right.He wanted everything.
And he didn’t know if that was possible because it would depend on whether Josie could trust that he cared about her and would protect her and be loyal to her too, as well as maintaining his obligations to his brother.
It was a role he couldn’t abandon.
When a light upstairs flickered on, he started the car and drove away, heading through the traffic, his destination the training compound.
His phone buzzed just as he got on the highway.He wasn’t in the mood to talk but it was part of being co-CEO and considering his brother hadn’t responded to any of his texts or calls, since Erik’s call had crashed his plans, he was the only one to take it.Ares glanced at the number, frowned, and accepted the call immediately.
“River, what is it?”His stomach knotted because River had a team on Drustan and Ida and he didn’t want Xander’s suspicions about Drustan to be true.
Whatever the reason River was calling, he didn’t want to hear it, not when he was on his way to review another security breach.
“Mr.Tennyson was seen following an employee of Axis Management to her home.Then he went out for dinner.He had a few drinks with two men, then he drove back to the employee’s residence and knocked on her door.I thought you would like to be informed.”
