“Just treat me like a human being. Why is that so hard for you, Conway? I’m sure you’ve been with lots of women. You know how to get them into bed. Why can’t you do that with me?”
“You think I buy them flowers and tell them they’re beautiful and shit?” he snarled. “No, that’s not what happens. Conway Barsetti gets pussy the second he walks into a room. Women throw themselves at me everywhere I go. I’ve never fucking swept a woman off her feet in my entire life, alright? I like it that way. It’s ridiculous for you to expect to be any different.”
“You bought me for a hundred million dollars…I have to be different.”
He turned his gaze out the window, breathing through his rage. His chest rose and fell rapidly before he controlled it.
“How long do you expect to keep me, Conway?”
“Right now…I’m not sure.”
“And you say I’m your fantasy, right?”
He slowly turned back to me, his eyes not quite so hostile.
“I can be your fantasy. But you need to be mine. That’s what I’m asking.”
He stared at me for a long time, never blinking his eyes.
“I want to feel beautiful. I want you to touch me gently. The first night we were together, you did everything I wanted. That’s what I want all the time. I want you to treat me well. I want you to be a friend. When we first started working together, you were an ass sometimes…but you were also very sweet. That’s what I want, Conway. If you start to treat me that way…I can be what you want. I’ll make you feel wanted. I’ll make you feel like a king. I’ll say your name in bed or when your cock is in my mouth. I’ll be what you want half the time, and you be what I want half the time. If this is a lifetime commitment, we should be what we need to each other.”
He finally sat on the edge of my bed, his powerful muscles tense underneath his t-shirt. He rested his elbows on his knees and leaned forward. He stared out the window before he released a quiet sigh.
“Do you want to know about the first time I saw you?”
He finally blinked.
“I was sitting in a bar drinking scotch. I’d hit rock bottom, and there was a note from Knuckles sitting on the counter in front of me…”
He turned his gaze on me.
“An entertainment show was on TV, and they did a brief segment on you. They showed some pictures of you, talked about your fashion show, and showed a video of you before some award show…I thought you were the most handsome man I’d ever seen.” Perhaps I should have kept that information to myself, but I decided to share it with him. This relationship would never change unless I made it change. “When I saw you in person, I thought the same thing. But then you opened your asshole mouth, and I realized you were too good to be true. You were harsh, arrogant, and rude. But that didn’t change my attraction to you. When we have sex, I enjoy it. I try not to…but I do. I understand you don’t want intimacy because it affects your work, but I’m asking you to make an exception for me. If I’m your fantasy, the inspiration for the greatest designs you’ve ever made, then perhaps I can inspire you even more. Perhaps if you take a chance, I can lead you to even greater success. I know there’s a connection between us…you’ve felt it too.”
He turned away when I finished speaking, rubbing his hands together as he stared out the window. He stared into the darkness before he shifted his gaze to his hands. Callused and corded, his hands belonged to a real man. His forearms were long and chiseled, and his biceps stretched his t-shirt. The lines of his body were so hard he seemed to be chiseled out of stone. “I don’t like the idea, but I admit what we’re doing now isn’t working…”
“No, it isn’t.”
He continued to stare at his hands.
“I know you act like a bad guy sometimes, but I don’t think you really are. I think you’re a wonderful man, but you try to hide it to protect yourself. I think you have a heart, but you’ll die before you let anyone go near it. I see it the most when you’re with your family. If someone were to lay a single hand on your sister, you would murder him with your bare hands.”
“Just because I love my sister doesn’t mean I’m a good guy, Muse. Think about all the things I’ve done to you.”
“And all of the things you’ve done for me…”
He looked out the window.
“I’m not saying you’re perfect. You’re complicated. That’s fine. But I don’t think you’re as bad as you pretend to be. So stop pretending with me. You can be you when it’s just the two of us.”