Mister West by R.J. Lewis (animal farm read .TXT) 📕

“I’m a big girl,” I whisper, feeling more sparks shoot through me. “I know what I want.”

He looks up at me now, his face solemn. “Says every person who dives in too soon after a breakup.”

“You’re worried I’m going too fast?”

I rock again and his head falls back into the pillow. He groans deep into his throat. Fuck, the sound of him in pleasure is turning me on.

Through clenched teeth, he takes breaths and says, “I’m worried you’re still so hurt, you can’t process your feelings. When I have you, I want all of you. I want you to be emotionally available for me.” He holds me with more force, not allowing me to rock anymore, staring me straight in the eyes as he adds, “Let me make it clear so that there is no confusion, Ivy: you are not a fling to me.”

I look down at him, mouth parted because I’m literally going to come just from watching him alone. “I have been emotionally ready to move on for a long time now,” I tell him through shaky breaths. “It was breaking the bond and walking out I struggled with. Besides, you won’t hurt me, will you?

He lets out a dry chuckle, pinning me with a cautious stare like he’s fighting to hide his emotions. “Ivy,” he says wryly, “you’re the one with all the power. To relinquish myself to you, I have to trust that it won’t be you that does the hurting.”

Aidan is so vulnerable when he’s in the throes of passion. It’s one of the few times he truly lets his guard down and lets me see everything.

He’s terrified.

I want to laugh. He’s terrified of me hurting him. It is so ludicrous. He can pretend all he wants, but he knows he owns our dynamic. I’m malleable in his hands and I only show resistance to hide my desperate need to be touched by him.

I’m waiting for his cocky smile, for him to exercise those skills on me, but he’s not doing that. He’s staring at me, and there’s a sudden shift in his expression now, like he’s realized what he’s said and wants to take it back. I go still, taken off guard by the want bleeding out of his eyes, replaced by a hardness I’ve never seen.

“Off, Ivy,” he tells me sharply.

I slide off him straightaway, confused. He runs a hand over his face. He’s tense now, almost…angry.

“Fuck,” he whispers, frustrated. “Fuck.”

The room is tense. It’s like badly tense, too. Not the kind of tense you can ride out with an awkward smile. We can’t laugh this off because he’s too upset with himself. Or me. I don’t know which one it is.

Shit.

“I should leave,” I mutter.

I quickly jump off the bed and grab my nightgown and panties. I slip them on, watching him every few moments. Maybe he’ll notice I’m about to leave and stop me. I want that to happen so badly. But he completely ignores me. His chest is moving rapidly. He’s trying to calm down, but from what? What did I do to trigger him? The flames have been put out and it’s suddenly cold in the room.

I get out of there in a flash. I rush to my room and shut the door. Then I stand in the darkness, unsure how to process the situation. After a while, I collapse into the bed and cradle the pillow to my chest.

This room is empty, stale, and doesn’t smell like him.

I don’t sleep.

Twenty-Four

Ivy

Okay, so things didn’t magically go back to normal like I hoped.

It’s been a week of very awkward run-ins. The awkward part is coming more from me, if we’re going to be brutally honest. I sort of laid myself out there in that bedroom, sat on him and everything, pretty much begged to be fucked.

It was unbecoming of me.

Every time we cross paths – which have been few lately, thank fuck – I haven’t been able to meet his eye. I look down at my feet or smile at a spot above his head – the latter must look so fucking disturbing now that I think about it.

Our conversations consist of:

“Good night, Aidan.”

“Good night, Ivy.”

And that’s it.

Like that’s it, for real.

Because the few times we have run into each other have been in the evenings and in the hall on my way to the bedroom and on his way out of his.

Good times.

“Relax,” Ana says as we walk through Byward market, sipping on our coffees. “Men aren’t very expressive with their emotions, and he got super expressive in the heat of the moment.”

“We haven’t talked since, Ana. Not even messaged. I feel like he hates me.”

“Opposite. He’s realizing how much you mean to him and he’s scared shitless.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“Look him up,” she tells me then. “You’ll understand me when I say he is not the type of man that ever gets close to anyone.”

“I don’t want to look him up,” I reply. “That’s an invasion of his privacy.”

She raises a brow. “It’s public knowledge.”

“I promised him I wouldn’t.”

“How about I just tell you then? It wouldn’t be breaking the rules if it came from a third party.”

I shake my head. “I can’t.”

She sighs and stops to look at me. “Then you have to trust me when I say that guy is not used to anyone worming their way into his heart. He’s an ice block. They label him the Asshole of the East, after all.”

I’m dismayed. “They call him that?”

“Well, they’ve laid off him a great deal because he never goes to social events or speaks to anyone outside his workplace. He’s that closed down. When you can’t dig into someone’s life because they’re that private, you can’t put them in the news, right?”

“He is closed down,” I acknowledge. “Like… I feel like he does nothing but work and come home only to do more work. He doesn’t have hobbies.”

“Anymore,” she adds. “He doesn’t have