The Carrero Heart - Beginning (Friends to Lovers)

Chapter 194

Arrick is face down on the kitchen counter counting to ten and trying to not strangle me this morning.

He’s had seven days in this apartment with me, instead of heading off on our honeymoon, because I cannot fly, and he has taken the time off work to do just that. I think it’s probably making him question life in general. Question about everything about marrying me, living with me, even sleeping beside me.

I made him go search for a bakery at five a.m. this morning because I really, really, could not sleep with thinking about lemon meringue pie. He was gone over an hour trying to find one for me and when he came back, I didn’t want it anymore… I wanted cherry, and pizza, and then I fell asleep after eating Cheeto’s instead. I’m supposed to be in the bath he made me, resting, being pampered because I’m bored and restless and the walls are starting to close in on me. I was never really one for long bouts of staying home and doing nothing and it’s only taken seven days for the novelty to wear off.

Without anything to keep my brain occupied, school on hold, sewing is making me frustrated and daytime TV is mind numbing. I haven’t really been able to go out much because I still feel unwell whenever we do go out to eat too often and I can’t drink. We had to drive home to the city as I couldn’t fly, while I have a million restrictions and life is still in limbo.

We decided to make our seven days of honeymoon at home, to chill, be together and do nothing. It has not exactly been my idea of a great week. New York is in rainy season and the view has been grey and wet for days. Take out has become boring and anytime he cooks in the apartment, I start retching. The balcony is too windy to get any air at this time of the year and I have had my limit on laying on the couch watching movies.

“Are you mad?” I wander towards him cautiously, knowing that my last twenty minutes of tantrumming was over the fact my favorite bubble bath made me vomit by smell alone after he ran it, and then when he refilled it with no scent I burst into erratic tears, because he didn’t light any candles and that ruined the whole ambience.

I have no idea what is wrong with me.

The last few days I think I have gone from shock, to meltdown and back again and knowing I am pregnant seems to have unleash a tidal wave of hormones.

“No, Sophs… I’m just… taking a moment.” He stands up and reaches a hand out to me, pulling me into the crook of his arms between him and the counter and rests his chin on my head as I wrap myself around his body.

“You are mad… You look mad, you sound mad.” I whisper quietly, holding onto him for dear life and feeling crazily fragile again. I swear the roundabout of emotions has come at me like a monsoon and I really have no way to cope. It’s a wonder he hasn’t packed his bags and walked out on me. I have been trying so hard to appreciate him more in the last weeks, but this has set everything back. I have zero control of the inner crazy that jumps out of me at the weirdest times.

“I’m not… I’m tired, seeing as you spent most of the night kicking me in and out of bed, because you couldn’t sleep, you were too hot, too cold, too uncomfy, too hungry, too thirsty… I’m adjusting to my new hormonal wife.” Gritted teeth, an edge to the tone.

Okay, yeah, he’s mad.

“Maybe you should go back to work and get some time away from me.” I look up at him endearingly, guilty for being a pain in his ass but he sighs heavily and frowns at me with that cute little half smile and wipes away all the frustration in his face.

“I don’t need a break from you, baby… I need a nap… And maybe we could get out of here later, I think we’re suffering from cabin fever. I could take you somewhere quiet and romantic for dinner, or even a walk?” he kisses my forehead and squeezes me a little tighter, and I curl closer. Inhaling him.

“That sounds like a great idea to me… I feel like getting dressed up and looking sexy tonight. Maybe… You know, we might do some fooling around and relieve some tension?” I whisper seductively and throw him a little lip bite to entice him. Crossing my fingers, he goes for it this time.

I’m guessing the lack of sex might have something to do with some of the agitation in both of us. Arrick has been really weird about sex since we found out. Like he’s worried that it will make me lose this one too and I guess I understand. We are both so afraid of anything going wrong that we have both been really oober sensitive about any little twinge. I have my mom on speed dial, and I have called her about twenty times this week for reassurance.

It’s weird. All those years of keeping her at arm’s length and now I reach for her number the instant I get scared and she puts my mind at ease. Even when Arrick is right here. It’s brought us closer so rapidly in such a short time and opened my eyes to how much I have always needed her. My mom seems to be reveling in this newfound appreciation and texts me every day to check in.

I ‘ve listened to both and tried to rest, eat better and not do anything to jeopardize this pregnancy. Except from occasional bags of Cheeto’s because they’re like a weakness. I am really trying to not be a huge Diva and chase him off, but it’s hard to change the habits of a relationship overnight. Especially when he is in pamper overdrive because I am so vulnerable and fragile with carrying his unborn heir. Arry stops and considers it for a moment and then relents with a heavy sigh, pulling my head up to look at me.

“I need sex… I think we need sex. Maybe if we took it slow, not full penetration but we could do other things, ease back into it.” Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org exclusive © material.

“Please don’t ever use that word again.” I blanche at him in disgust and he eyerolls at me. My juvenile side that he still finds amusing sometimes. How I can be a sexy siren seducing my boy in kinky ways, dressing up in slutty attire for the bedroom and handcuffing him to the headboard; and then on another hand he uses words like penetration and I turn into a cringing child.

“Sometimes I feel like your father, baby…” He sighs.

I know it’s such a dumb thing to react too, they’re just words, but it hits me in a way he never meant, and I can’t believe how crazily sensitive I am. I pull away from him at speed and glare through an instant wave of irrational tears.

“Don’t even…” I burst into full blown sobs and Arry’s face crumbles as it dawns on him what I immediately thought.

“Shit. Sophs, I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry, baby, come here.” He hauls me back to him and holds me close. Smoothing down my hair and cradling me as he sways me, trying to soothe my upset back down again. Me and my stupid messy head, feeling weirded out by his talking about being my father. And you know? Sex, with us and somehow it connects my brain to that, before. All that shit I put in my past.

I can’t even explain it. This is making me crazy and scars I thought I had faced are so raw again that I don’t know which way is up. My mom warned me that this could happen, that memories and feelings might be uprooted because I am pregnant and dealing with becoming a mother. I never expected it like this. It makes no sense to me.

“I know. I’m so dumb.” I sob against him and try to push memories of that bastard out of my head as soon as he starts to filter through, memories of her, my mother, too and I think partly why I have been so touchy this past few days is more to do with that than anything. She has been on my mind.

She was my mother… She carried me in the way I’m now carrying mine and yet she let him do those things and then sent me away when I asked her to save me. She gave birth to me, held me, and fed me until I could walk. She raised me until I was fourteen, but she let him hurt me and walked away when I got free. She didn’t even stand up in court and back me up. She didn’t show up at all.

How could she feel so little for the life she carried in her body? I was her baby once.

If I knew Arrick was hurting our baby, hurting the life inside of me… Despite my love for him… Despite knowing I would never survive without him… I would stab him to death with my favorite shoes. Ones he bought me. I would kill to protect this life and I wouldn’t regret it.

No one will ever hurt my child the way my own parents hurt me.

“Do you think maybe you need to go back and see your counsellor for a while? To talk about the past now we’re having a kid of our own. I mean, it’s bound to be messing your head up in some way, raising questions… Memories. I don’t understand the mechanics of it, Sophs, but I know it’s normal for victims of childhood abuse to go through a second bout of trauma when they have kids of their own.” He sounds so sincere.

I forget that Arrick used to help at his mom’s rehabilitation center for damaged kids and has insight I often forget he has. He knows about this kind of thing from working with her and seeing it from other kids. All locked in that sensitive brain of his that forgets nothing.

“I don’t know… I think it’s hormones or tiredness. I didn’t sleep much last night.”

“Yeah, I know.” He says it in mock jest and frowns at me, forcing me to break my tears with a genuine smile. Reminding me of my Diva self and how much he puts up with.

“I’m sorry that I’m being a nightmare.” I sniff back the emotion and start to get a grip on myself again once more. I have done this so many times this week that I don’t think tears have that much of an effect on him anymore. I think he has accepted that this pregnancy means I cry forty times an hour, as standard.

“I can handle it… Just, maybe we need some sort of signal. If I think I may be about to blow my top I’ll leave the room and go stand naked on the balcony or something, to cool down.” He winks at me.

“I don’t think that would encourage me to stay away from you really.” I giggle at the visual, imagining it would only make me follow him and harass him all the more and he smiles

“I know you can’t help feeling like this… Being like this. Thank god pregnancy isn’t a major long-term thing and it’s all temporary.” He grins this time and I sucker punch him in the abs with a little bit of mock rage.

“I think nine months is hugely long… You get to escape it remember. I don’t.” I sigh in defeat at that thought but he runs his fingers through my hair and cups my face, so he can bring me close once more.

“Phases… There will be other phases, other up and down sides to this. We can handle it. Just, you know, eat the pie when I bring it home after walking the streets for almost two hours searching for it.” That little smirk has me grinning

“I don’t even like lemons… Or meringue.” I admit shamelessly, and he screws his face up in a weird way that sort of says ‘I might get away with strangling you on an insanity plea’.

“I’ll remember that in the future.” He sighs defeatedly.

“Maybe, you need to learn to dismiss some of my demands as crazy and, you know, ignore them?” I offer as a way of giving my boy a break, but the frown only deepens, and he pushes his forehead to mine

“Because that will work… You do remember me telling you to wait ten minutes for pancakes, yesterday right? Because I was taking a shower… Tears, the launching of many an item at me for being ‘insensitive’ to your needs before you sobbed on my lap and offered me a blow job.” He raises his brows and I grimace a little in guilt and shame and look away with a little scrunched up face of knowing

fine well I did behave like that. I was really, really, hungry and then you know, face on his lap I got a little horny too.

“Yeaaaahhhh” I have no answer to that.

“I have learned the art of counting to ten… It works. Sometimes.” He kisses me gently and I surrender to it; there hasn’t been much full on making out this past week and I sag as he lets our mouths entwine, gentle teasing of lips and tongue. Arrick is still the most amazing kisser in the world and I can feel my body heating up with yearning as I pull away. Crazily horny in a nanosecond. Another side effect to incubating a human.

“If you do that, I may maul you.” I breathe hard and he breaks into a smile.

“Maybe I should think about some slow gentle foreplay and see it if improves your cray cray… Lack of it cannot be helping.” He circles his temple jokingly and gets another slap to the abs.

“How one guy can both seduce, and anger a woman, in one sentence, is beyond me.” I giggle at his flinch.

“Go… Your bath is probably cold; maybe a shower is a better idea seeing as you now have Spiderman’s sense of smell. I have some emails and calls to make, then we can figure out our plans for the day and I’ll book a table for dinner somewhere cozy.” He pushes me towards the bathroom with a gentle smack on my ass and I turn to him when I get to the bedroom door.

“I do love you; you know… A lot. I appreciate all you do, even when I am being a Princess.” I smile shyly at him and he smiles back. That sexy half smile with full dimples and hints of green overtaking those eyes. He still as cute and gorgeous as he has always been, it never wears off or gets old.

“Glad to hear it… Now go, I’ll book us a table somewhere that has no weird smells, no bright lights, house music, cheese on the menu, or anything garlic infused.”

I eyeroll at his hint of sarcasm and stick my tongue out.

“You forgot no lemons.” I add with a hair flick and he throws a dish cloth after me as I head for the bathroom.