Chapter 9: To Carry My Weight
To Carry My Weight
I strolled in, shutting the door behind me. When I was close enough to her sleeping form, I squatted beside her. I watched her sleeping face with a frown. Her cheeks had those trails of tears again, and her countenance looked disturbed. It was visible that she had cried again after I left.
I lifted one of my hands, gently cupping it on her face and she sighed heavily at the feel of it. Then I caressed her spotless milk skin with my thumb and watched as her expression began to soften slowly and her breathing gradually began to return to normality. I stared at her innocent pretty face, my eyes studying every form and angle until they stopped on her lips. Small, pink, and succulent. I pulled away, stilling myself from claiming them. Then my phone suddenly rang, and my attention was pulled from her. Seeing the caller id, my mood turned sour. I rose from my position and walked toward the bed.
“What is it, Smith?” I returned to Rayne on the sofa after dressing the sheet. Then picking her up, I carried her to the bed.
“Can’t it wait?” I demanded over the phone, simultaneously leaning to put Rayne down on the bed, but her eyes suddenly fluttered open, stilling me in my action.
“I can’t come,” I said and hung up the phone.
RAYNE’S POV
I opened my eyes to the stranger staring at me, making me flinch a little with apprehension and embarrassment. He had his big arms wrapped around my waist and was leaning so close to me while I lay in between the bed and his body. As soon as I opened my eyes, he raised a brow at me and then said something on the phone to whoever he was on a call with.
“I can’t come.” He said, while still staring at me and that too, with a strange unfriendly countenance before hanging up. And as soon as he did, his perfectly chiseled facial muscles flexed, stretching into a smile.
“Good evening wife, you’ve been falling asleep all day and waking up that you missed lunch and I don’t think you had something to eat before planning on running away. Come, let’s have dinner.” He said and I thought he was going to put me down but instead, his loosened grip around me tightened and he lifted me into his broad body. I gasped in surprise but he just winked at me smirking.
“Please, put me down.” I muffled a plea and to my surprise, he did although after much hesitation.
“Let’s go have dinner, and after that, I’ll show you to your room. But first,” he ran me a calm, accessible look from head to foot, and my cheeks burned hot under his stare. “You should get changed, that dress would be way too uncomfortable for dinner.”
I looked down at myself and he was right. I was still wearing the blue halter dress I had on since morning. Sarah had gifted it to me on my birthday last year. It would really be a discomfort wearing it to dinner, especially considering that I would be needing my throat for swallowing.
I walked to my luggage and started going through it in search of something simple and comfortable. I had packed my bags with DC’s weather in mind. At this time in Washington, they were experiencing cold waves so I had mostly packed my sweaters. So it was difficult finding something simple and befitting of Los Angeles’ weather.
“You can wear my shirts.”NôvelDrama.Org content.
I turned around and saw him open a door I hadn’t noticed was there. Curiously, my eyes followed behind him as he walked into the… room?
I stared in shock as I realized what that was. A walk-in closet filled with clothes. He came out a moment later holding a silk milk shirt out to me. Considering that the shirt was his, it’d be very comfortable for me and would as well be for a dress, but I couldn’t just walk around his house, wearing his shirt like I was some committed girlfriend. Of course, I was his wife, although by word. But, I couldn’t wear his shirt and leave my lap on display in his house and presence.
“No, thank you, I- I’d keep looking, there must be something in my box.”
He led me downstairs to the dining room where a banquet lay in an array on a long dinner table that resembled a conference table from one of those huge companies.
Was he expecting guests or were there other occupants in the house?
As if the banquet wasn’t already enough, a host of servants were rolling in huge dish sets and unloading them on the table.
“Does your family stay here?” I couldn’t help but ask because the table was filled from beginning to end. Plus, I was getting anxious at the thought of having other people around.
“No,” he answered as he walked me to the table, putting a hand on the small of my waist, making me flinch a little.
“Are there people coming over?” I inquired further and watched him pull a chair out, gesturing for me to sit. I sat down and he turned around and took the chair in the opposite direction. I stared at him, curiously awaiting his reply, but instead of giving me a reply, he picked up a glass plate and opened one of the large dishes. A delicious aroma oozed out, sipping into my nostrils and my stomach growled at it, making me realize how hungry I was.
“No guests are coming over. It’s just you and I here. You know what that means right?” It took me a few moments to realize what he meant by that and my face immediately turned red. He dished a sizable amount of a variety of mouth-watering meals into a plate and pushed it in front of me. I gasped at the quantity of the food.
“You should learn to eat more, you’d be needing a lot of strength to carry my weight.”