The Carrero Heart - Beginning (Friends to Lovers)

Chapter 210

Arrick’s POV

~ Sophie in THAT dress ~

I’m sitting on the couch, waiting for Sophs to hurry up and get dressed so we can leave already. I have no idea what possessed me to down two straight vodka’s while waiting on her, but I’m lightheaded and slightly off keel with the effects and regret it now. I figured a shot or two would relax me for tonight, but all it seems to have done is send me out of whack and my head is all over the place.

My body is overly warm and tingly, crazily so, considering I’m a seasoned drinker and it shouldn’t affect me this way. Although, I guess over the last couple of years, I haven’t really drunk like I did, and tend to stop after a couple of beers. I can thank Natasha for my tolerance going to shit, her incessant nagging whenever I got drunk made it that I tended to stop after a couple, and now I am suffering the consequences.

We’re going out to celebrate Colin’s birthday, downtown and Sophie is taking an age to pick a dress. I tried to help but seeing her in sexy dresses is still a weird grey area for me, which rattled my nerves enough to think vodka was the answer. It stirs up a whole lot of conflicting emotions and I am trying to not let this day veer beyond chilled and platonic. Drinking was obviously not the answer, seeing as now I am sat here anticipating seeing her in one of those sexy dresses like some nervous, first date, asshole, and not being myself at all. Practically sweating in my shirt awaiting her.

It was a good day today, with us acting like none of this has ever changed, and I think we needed it. Things have been strained, confused and I’ve been on the edge of my tether for weeks over how I feel about her. Today I got to cast it all off for a few hours, and just remember what it’s like to have me, and her, uncomplicated, relaxed, and enjoying being together. I miss the times like that. The easiness before love, sex, and ex-girlfriends got in the way and turned everything upside down.

Sophie walks out, catching my eye and I’m literally blown away with the way the purple pink dress, I helped choose, is molded to her body in all the right places. It’s tailored, fitted, and tight. So tight it leaves pretty much no room for imagination, even though she hasn’t much skin on show and I can’t deny, she has my body stirring crazily hot. So much so, I almost forget to breathe and have to tear my eyes from how much it’s pushing her cleavage up and together, and her hips look ripe for clinging onto. It’s a fuckable outfit for sure.

Alcohol was the worst idea ever. I forgot how much of a horny bastard I get when I drink spirits and it’s another reason I quit partaking around Tasha, seeing as her lack of sex drive made it more of an agony than a perk in the last two years.

“You look stunning.” I blurt out, unable to stop running my eyes over every inch of the sex on legs before me. My pants suddenly tight, and my heart rate through the roof. Instantly a little too overheated and nervy and haul on my jacket, in a bid to get myself under control and drag my head out of a place I know I shouldn’t be going. I know how wrong this is, in so many ways; to literally want to pull Sophie into my arms and peel that dress back off her.

I can’t believe my head has even gone to the gutter, because of one dress, but I so badly need sex right now. I can’t even remember the last time I screwed Tasha, not that it was memorable, and a guy has needs. Sex with Natasha is about as satisfying as masturbating. It does very little for me and doesn’t curb the urges I have for proper, all out, crazily passionate bang session.

I miss good sex. I miss even meaningless, hard and hot sex with random hook ups. I’m crazily turned on and horny, and I need to get my shit together before I make an idiot of myself and make Sophs uncomfortable. She holds her jacket out to me and I pull it with me as I move behind her to help her get it on, put her in front of me to avoid checking out her breasts some more and instantly regret my new view. Sophie’s ass in this dress gets the final reaction I was struggling to control, and I get a raging hard on and internally groan.

Fuuuuuuuuck.

I struggle to calm my jets, adjust my pants and pull her jacket up her arms before she has any clue that I have a massive boner, because right now, she looks like the best kind of sin and I have to stop my head from putting her over the couch and doing things to her I haven’t gotten to do to any woman in years. Natasha is a bed only, missionary, and on a weekend kind of deal.

Man, I fucking miss fucking so bad.

Sophie smells intoxicating, and my senses are on high alert, tuned into every little piece of her in a highly aroused way. I curse out my two vodkas once again and vow to start drinking more, so this never happens again. Screw Tasha and her moaning about me getting hammered. I miss being drunk as much as I miss being able to screw my woman like a real man and if I was more tolerant, I wouldn’t almost be dry humping Sophie right now in reaction.

“Don’t look too bad yourself. Totally make Batman and Robin jealous.” She softly giggles, returning my sentiments, turning her cheek slightly and draws my eyes to the exposed neck and creamy shoulders, so close and too inviting. I need to get a major grip of myself and focus on not turning our chilled day into some sordid. Banging my best friend because I am clearly frustrated and horny as hell. I haven’t had sex in weeks, and this is possibly all this is. Half drunk, horny as shit and faced with someone who does it for me.

“Yeah, I think we are way hotter than those two, and look a hell of a lot better arm in arm than I think they could ever pull off. Maybe we are Batman and Catwoman after all.” I focus on the task and not the inner war going off inside of me. This is Sophs, my best friend, my little Sophabelle.

I slide her jacket up over her exposed skin, trying like hell not to touch her too much, in case I explode and have to change said pants. Plus, the lack of physical skin on skin is a precaution, because right

now, I do not trust myself. Definitely tightly wound and crazy sex focused tonight. I’ll need to keep myself in check and try not to react or drink any more vodka.

I move in front of her, stopping to button up her jacket and hide the swell in my pants from this angle. Avoiding looking at her while I calm my passion and let Mr. Hard. soften back down, now I am covering up the inches of ‘fuck me’ dress and sexy as sin body. I breathe slowly and surely, regain that control I am famed for and hope I am doing my sterling job of keeping it all off my face.

“Oooh, I like that, she’s sexy and phraaar.” Sophie makes a cat claw motion at me and it only reminds me how crazily cute and innocent she is, cooling some more of that lothario blood. She can be so childlike sometimes and it makes me feel shitty for even thinking this way about her. I should never forget what she’s been through or who she is to me. Lusting after her is just plain wrong.

“You’re definitely that alright. You’ve always have been a little ‘phraaaar’. Ferocious kitty cat!” Trying so hard to play cool and pull all ounces of my mind out of the gutter where she is concerned. I need to focus on her being the girl that I will die to protect, in all ways. I love her, in a really wholesome way, and should always bring that to the forefront of my mind to keep this shit calm.

“That’s not sexy Arrick. That sounds like I’m a rabid stray” She answers flatly, a dead pan expression of unamused that just makes me break into a smile; absurdly adorable.

God, you’re beautiful.

“Yep... Sounds about right to me.” I grin, despite myself, at that sweet little hurt face, even harder when she slaps me in jest, and I can’t resist her. She does things to me on all sorts of levels lately, worse than she ever did, and I am eternally torn between wanting to kiss her and hug her protectively. She’s always been slap happy and kind of fiery and I wonder if she would be the same in bed. Passionate, hot and kinky, and for a moment it’s all I can think about. Translating her sassy into sex.

Stop with this shit, man, get your head off screwing your best friend!

I pull her into me by the lapels with a sharp tug, head on how much I want to explore that option, while also hating myself for it. We collide softly, her palms coming to my chest and stirring more heat and hardness in my pants that alerts me to how close I am to just kissing her, right here; blinkered for a moment that this is my Sophie, with the longing taking control. The vodka has hit me full whack, and I am screwed if this is how tonight is going to go. Maybe I should stick to water, or I might end up doing something I will eternally regret.

Sophie undermines all my control, makes my head blur out all my morals and think about crossing lines I shouldn’t be crossing. I linger for a moment, torn about how bad it would be, how wrong to just say fuck it and take her here, right now, over the couch. To throw all caution to the wind, give in to the side of me who wants her badly and not care about the outcome or the ex-girlfriend, who lately has not exactly been a deterrent when my head goes this way.

I know that makes me a shitty person and even though I do feel guilt over her, and this, it’s not as intense as it was in the beginning, and the thought of fucking Sophie is like an all-consuming black hole. I can’t deny these past weeks I have been looking at Sophie more and more in a non-platonic way, and tonight I want to know what it feels like to be with her properly. To feel her underneath me, around me, and finally release some of the crazy sexual tension building up in me from having to suffer her in dresses like this. To know if it would change us dramatically, if it would feel weird and wrong, or if it would be everything she seems to think It could be.

Sophie has blind faith that we could work; seamlessly go from almost sibling love to this and I am not longer on the side of No. I lose courage when I get dangerously close to those pouted inviting lips, and kiss her on the forehead tenderly, disappointed in myself, but I cannot override the part of me who is still fiercely trying to keep her platonic and protected. Therein lies my constant battle. I am always fighting myself to go with this.

I let my face trail hers as we pass, noses brush, eyes devour those soft lips and I get to inhale her sweetness and perfume. So god damn frustrated that I am fighting myself on this front eternally,

whereas the Arry of old, and any other girl would already be rolling around on the floor naked and killing all these pent-up urges. If she wasn’t Sophie, if this wasn’t us, I would be fucking her blind right now, in any way, on any surface with no thoughts to Natasha.

Yes, I am a shithead; a drunk one.

Impulsively, and I guess, aggressively, I pull her into me, so my pelvis is pushed into her, almost in a bid to kill my erection and partly because she frustrates me intensely. I’m annoyed at me, annoyed at this and behaving like a stroppy kid who wants the candy, but cannot take it. I let her go quickly, torn, and confused; cursing my dying hard on, which has found the overriding kill switch.

“Now move, kitty cat, I have a cab waiting downstairs.” I shove her forwards in front of me, to take temptation away, and cannot help the devil side that pats her ass as she passes. Impulse overtaking reason, and a reminder that I am already drunk, and this does not bode well for her if I consume more.

No more booze!

She turns and half scowls, half questions me with a look of surprise and I really have no answer.

Yes, Sophs, I want you so badly it hurts. I want to be buried deep inside of you and have every inch of you naked against me, but sex with us would either be the most all-consuming moment of my life, which terrifies me completely. Or it will be the single biggest mistake, which destroys us, and it doesn’t bear thinking about. One thing it would never be between us, is a one-night, one-time thing, that either could ignore or come back from to platonic. Even I know that, and I wonder if that has more to do with my apprehension than everything, and everyone else. Belonging to NôvelDrama.Org.

I usher her into the elevator when it opens and automatically catch her small hand in mine, so fluidly it’s like breathing. Lacing her fingers in mine. I never used to question why I did this; held her hand at every opportunity or just had to always be touching her. Yet, it’s all I have thought about these past

weeks, dissecting everything that came before and the why of how I can be this way with her, when I can’t even be this way with Natasha.

I don’t want to look back and see our whole relationship as jaded, complicated, or lose the innocence of what I thought we were. I don’t want to face the fact that six years of us, could be six years of me blind to something a hell of a lot more complicated in retrospect. It would change everything, and every memory, and it’s too vast to deal with. It’s sordid.

I swipe my card and enter the code to lock my floor from unwanted guests while I am out. Locking down the elevator to code and card access only. It’s one of the reasons I liked the elevator access only apartment at first.

“You obviously don’t get ID’d, right?” I glance at her as the thought hits me, that she’s not legal yet, even though she is no stranger to drinking, and that little thought in itself makes me rethink everything again. Always returning to the fact she is my innocent, sweet, little Sophs, as is the way with my dumb head. Sophie is still not even legal to drink, she’s still a kid. I should be the guy she trusts, always, not the asshole taking her to a club for a party. She raises a brow and looks at me as though I’m deranged.

“Not normally, no … although, I do have a pretty awesome fake if you’re worried they may not let me in.” She throws me that cheeky Sophie smile which normally would melt me to the core, but it just reminds me of the whole messy life she had these past two years and I shake it out of my head. I hate knowing all of that was down to me, this, us. That her life was two years of drinking away pain, caused by her feelings for me. I push it down hard to add to the growing list of bullshit, fucking me up tonight. Feeling uneasy, under the veil of floaty drunkenness.

“I don’t even want to know where you got that.” I shake my head, irritated that she even owns one, catching sight of our reflection in the chrome doors in front of us and can’t deny how right we look together. I try and drag my attention back to her, in a bid to knock that shit on the head and focus on the topic, but it takes way too much effort. “I doubt you’ll get pulled looking like that, so try and refrain

from illegal ID’s in future.” I sound sterner than I intend too, but I mean it. I hate the fact that some backstreet asshole sold my sweet girl a fake ID, so she could live wild and reckless, and put herself in dumb situations. I don’t care what her reasoning was. I hate that she lived that life for two whole years and I fucking let her. Sophie eyerolls at me, that air of ‘really, Arry?’ that she likes to hit me with when I am being overprotective and makes me feel ten years older than her once more.

“When did you get so boring? Don’t try and tell me you never had a fake, as I know for a fact you and that brother of yours were hitting it hard when you were only seventeen.” She raises a sarcastic brow, looking unimpressed with me and I feel more paternal, guardian like by the second, and I’m not sure I like that feeling anymore. It was easier when I had a set clue on how to feel about her, now it just adds to my confusion.

“It’s different for guys.” I shrug, trying to ignore the ten million other reasons that I could give, for her alone, why I don’t like it. The list of reasons that I never want my Sophs to ever go back to that, is huge, and I turn my eyes back on the chrome doors instead, shutting my mouth, and this time her long legs in sexy heels are too strong an image to not check out more intensely.

“That’s so sexist!” She softly punches me in the arm, barely enough behind it to even make any impact; her touchiness manifests in hostility sometimes, and I have always liked that about her. Weird, I know, but I am a guy who likes a bit of rough and once again I wonder if Sophie would be wild in the bedroom and open to rougher, kinkier sex.

Stop! No go! I declare this part of my brain closed for the rest of the night.