NIRELLE - Chapter 55: Chapter 55

LUCIEN
I look to my side to see dozing off. She looks so delicate, and even now, when her head is bobbing back and forth, my heart is telling me that I need to help her so her neck does not hurt, but my mind is screaming and stopping me from inching any closer to her. I have no idea what was going to happen if I got close, but I was not willing to find out. I swallow and try to make fear go away. I am a full-grown man, and I can control myself fully. I inch closer to her and catch her head before it can go down to the floor.
She lay in my hand so comfortably as if it were a bed. I looked at her and how she had changed from the days she came here. She was not afraid of anything, stepped into the place, and was more worried about our intimacy than me being a monster. She was broke but tried her best not to show it. Her phone vibrates on the table in front of us, and my eyes catch the name that pops up: Cassian Wolfe.
My jaws feel clenched at the sight of that man. I wish he had not tried to come close to her. I wish she would stay away from him. She had told me to trust her to get all of this done, and I want to; I want to believe that she was not just a girl and Enoch had been wrong, but I can't stand that Cassian is the person she would be going up against.
'Are we going to meet up soon? I miss you,' the message pops on the screen and lingers for a moment before the screen goes off. The words said in his voice were lingering even more in my mind; I was so focused on it that I only realised she had woken up when she jerked away as if I were some kind of dangerous thing.
"I am sorry," she said, wiping off the drool from the side of her mouth. "I must have fallen asleep."
I want to tell her that it was okay and understandable to fall asleep during a movie marathon, but the words do not form in my head or mouth. My mind is so focused on the fact that she and Cassian might be exchanging such intimate texts behind my back. Was it a crime to truly give her a chance? Had I been wrong?
"What is going on?" she asked. I turn to her slowly and point to the phone on the table.
", I am going to ask you this once and never again," I let out slowly, hoping she would be honest with me and that her response would be something I would like.
"Okay," she says, nodding, encouraging me to say whatever it was that I wanted to.
"Do you chat regularly with Casian?" I ask, and she nods as if that were normal.
"He keeps on messaging me, and I do not want him to think I have caught onto his act, so I respond," she says, taking up her phone. She taps on the screen, and I can see her fingers moving furiously over the screen. It seems like she was sending a message to him. She drops the phone back on the table as if nothing had happened.
"How regularly?" I asked her, and she seemed stunned that I was asking her something like that.
"I will say it a few times a day; why do you ask?" Does she not know what was wrong, or did she think this was normal? Was she playing me? Had I fallen asleep, and was this a dream? Had I been thinking so much about her that I had totally forgotten myself? What is happening right now?
"Why do you ask?" She urges again when I do not say anything in response. "Did something happen? Something I should know about?"
"Don't you think it's weird that you, a married woman, are chatting so freely with a free and unmarried man?"
"What?" Her expression was the one I was supposed to have, but she seemed genuinely shocked. "What are you trying to say?"
"I mean, it's weird, don't you think?"
"Mr. Vexley," her tone was direct, and I did not need any interpretation to get what she meant. "What are you trying to accuse me of? What are you trying to say? Why don't you just say it directly to my face instead of trying to put me gently?"
"I am not saying anything."
"Oh, because you are absolutely trying to hint at something, why don't you just say it?"
", don't get mad." That was not what I wanted to say next, but her expressions were a bit scary to me, and when she got mad the other time, it took a lot to clean it up.
"I am out here trying to gather up dirt on Cassian to help our case, and you think I'm cheating on you with him?" She stood up and clapped as if I was being ridiculed. "Cheating on you with him? I already told you I do not need any sexual acts, and you think if I were to engage in it, I would go with him? Cassain Wolfe?" Her tone was rising in anger, and now she was pacing.
I did not know when it happened or how, but I was now standing and trying to calm her down from pacing around. "How can you even think of this?"
I push myself forward, and I am holding her hands in mine. If I didn’t do it now, I might never know what it felt like.
She looks startled by how close I am standing to her and tries to run, but before she can, I hold her waist and lean in. I expect her to flee, but she just stands there stunned, not doing or saying anything until my lips touch hers, and they are nothing like what I expected. I know I should not be doing this; I should be talking to her and trying to straighten this out, but I just couldn't control myself again.
She didn’t kiss me back, but she didn’t pull away either, and that was far worse.