Heart In A Cage

36

Isabella

I'm astonished that I had gone to work for days without a headache after hearing Dalia compose a new list of threats to Andreas on her spontaneous visits to the store. He had made some kind of unclear point on the couch that day, then followed up her tragic incident with a kind offering of taking her home. She made it clear that the only thing she'd consider is stabbing me in the chest.

But my chest doesn't feel panic-stricken, rather...heavy.

Finally awakening to the morning light shining through a sliver of an opening between the drapes, I try to leap up from the bed and begin my preparation for work which, disappointingly, I've missed out on for too long and substituted with entertainment.

That attempt of beginning my day productively is a total failure; with some effort to completely open my weary eyes and discover why I can't get up, I find that the weight on my chest is Andreas. His thick hair is in my view, face nuzzling in the space between my neck and shoulder.

"Get off." A jab to his shoulder doesn't help. His arms slither beneath and secure my back, encompassing me. I exhale and pointlessly push him away. "You're too heavy."

He grunts, clearly unmindful of compressing me to death, then grumbles with a raspy morning voice, "Quit moving."

"We have work."

"Give your boss a lap dance if you seek forgiveness for abandoning your duties."

"Bastard." My fingers rake through the thickness of his hair, massage his scalp, and receive husky groans in response. I don't mind that he's squishing me, but in a few more minutes his heftiness will make sure my shallowed breaths become no breaths at all.

For a moment, I leave my fingers weaved into his hair and watch him.

He readjusts his position, and asks, "Very important question: did you end up sleeping with someone during the time you endlessly went to the club?"

"No." I didn't expect that sucking him off and abandoning him with the claim that I'd fuck someone else would be a returning thought after weeks. I may have been quite touchy with a few men, but under—what seemed like at the time—everlasting shafts of rainbow light and between speakers blaring mesmerizing music, how could I not fall into the sway of dancing bodies?

He becomes too much over me. I pluck his hair in painful request that he gets off.

He flips us over, and I land onto his chest with a yelp.

"Ask politely," he growls. I use his chest as a surface to hoist myself onto elbows, and he stares at me through droopy eyelids, his lips tugged up at the corners.

"I don't do nice." I pinch his nipple and earn a hilarious gasp.

"And you don't do that." He reaches forward, grabs my thighs, and yanks them forward until I'm wobbling and sitting on his abdomen. His knees come up, hands pushing me back so his thighs become my backrest.

Panting at the outburst, I pull forward and throw my elbows to either side of his head.

I expect him to spin us around, lock me into a new position.

His teeth reach toward my breast. Stunned, I instinctively block his mouth with a palm.

For a moment, we look into each other's widened eyes. A wind of shock blasts between us, our movements halted, every limb frozen in time while our brain's share the same realisation that I've audaciously pressed my hand to his lips.

Then his eyebrows cross, and my back—within a staggeringly short time frame of being launched backwards with rough hands and the force of a burly body—is on the mattress.