Titus: Book Two of the Cantrell Brothers Series

Chapter Twenty-Four

This time, she did look at him, but there was only fire in her eyes.

He pulled on the hair at the back of his skull, barely able to grasp the extremely short strands. “Don't start, Anna.”

“Don't start what?” she snapped, pushing at him.

He felt a few stares going into his back and remembered where they were. This wasn't how newlyweds who were expecting a child acted. “Let's go.” Taking her arm, Titus had to drag her outside, the heels of her sandals leaving marks on the tiled floor.

She clawed at his arm, trying to wrench her hand free. ““You've been ignoring me the entire night, always having to talk with one of your friends, and now you want to spend time with me?!”

“At least I don't hit on every guy that I meet on the sidewalk!”

“What?” she sputtered, eyes going wide. “You think I-”

“No, Anna,” he ground out, remembering the look and much too long look that had happened between her and Isaiah. “I don't think. I know.” He lowered his voice and all but pressed his mouth to her ear. “I thought you'd at least wait until the baby's all grown up to start throwing yourself at single men.”

Anna recoiled as if he had just slapped her in the face. “Well, you sure picked one helluva time to quit your decade long abstinence streak. Cass is a little too good for ya though. Don't get your hopes up,” she whispered with vehemence.

He snapped. His temper boiled over, sending the cover of its metaphorical pot flying through the roof and into the air, but he managed to keep his head and ground out, “We are leaving. Now.”

A few people's gazes locked on them, making him slowly lose even more of the control he had worked so hard on maintaining. God, how he wanted her. How he wanted every inch of that rebellious mouth and that flushed face that held an expression telling him exactly what would happen if he went up against a very hormonal and very pregnant woman.

Titus did the only thing he could. He picked Anna up, slung her over his shoulders, waved to the growing crowd of spectators, and walked straight down the sidewalk in easy, everyday steps. She squealed and thrashed in his arms, but he just kept walking, taking her weight with ease.

If they were in any town or city other than Napolm, cops would be called and that would be that. But this was Napolm, a place where a man like himself could do whatever he pleased whenever and with whoever he wanted to.

“C'mon, honey buns. Let's get you home. Don't you wanna go home?” he cooed in a voice that was acidic with its sweetness. “That'd be fun, right? All the fun we have together! All three of us!”

“You are completely overreacting!” she screamed, even going so far as to reach for old Miss Clancy's wrinkly hand for help.

“Oh, I'm overreacting?”

“Did I stutter?” she snapped.

“Because I'm the one who can't go more than a few months without latching my painted nails into another man.” He scowled at the thought, knowing how Anna could get when she was restless.

“That is not-”

“Prove me wrong, Anna. Tell me that you weren't just hitting on Kurt, and I'll put you down.”

She answered with her struggling. Her fists beat at his back, hitting right where it hurt the most, but he didn't mind. Her knees smacked into his chest, but he didn't mind. But what he did mind was that those fists and those knees had been within mere centimeters of Kurt Winthrom and Isaiah Mat's bodies.

“Put me down!” she shouted.

“Nope.”

“Yes!”

“No.”

She answered with a kick. A kick straight to his very sensitive groin area that was semi-aroused. All he could do was drop to the ground in a dry gasp of pain as pure agony rippled through his body. Hands cupping himself, he managed to pull his suffering body to a hard brick wall and lean against its hard surface. The stars wouldn't leave his vision, pain doing the same to his body.

“Oh, my God...” he mewled into his arm, tears almost streaking down his face.

Anna's sorry gaze met his, and almost was not his friend. Almost was too close when he was around her. Almost letting her see that he was some weakling who couldn't handle his own was something that would ruin what he had been working on for almost a decade now.

He stood up, walking bow legged to where she was muttering apology after apology. “We are going home. I'm going to ice my broken balls. And you're going straight to bed.”

“Titus, I-”

“Not another word, Anna.”

They somehow managed to make it to the truck without any more bodily harm. Anna turned the radio off. He turned it right back on, tuning the dial until he landed on what was Trace's favorite metal station and blasted it. With every mile that passed, his head began to hurt, the music much too loud. But he kept it there.

“You can yell at me if you want,” she mumbled as soon as they were inside the house.

“Nope.”

“Seriously, Titus.” She sounded upset now. “Just yell at me, for Christ's sake!”

Titus kept his back turned to her, looking outside the patio doors at the calm night. The outside was nothing like how he felt. Inside, he was dying with the realization that she might never love him as more than just a friend. He wanted to scream – needed to, but this was Anna. She might make him see red on more than one occasion, but he never screamed.

“No.”

She was silent after that and just went to the kitchen where he heard her take the pitcher from the fridge and pour a glass of water into the new glasses they had gotten as a wedding present from his parents. Thick cylinders, the glasses were dark blue and solid, always clunking against the wood whenever he or Anna put one of the glasses down.

They were nice glasses; so were the plates. The crock pots, afghan blankets, wine trays, pie sets, salt and pepper shakers, coffee bags, scrapbooks, and the giant picture of them on their wedding day that was hanging over the fake fireplace was all nice; but he didn't feel nice.

He felt tired, and he hurt. It didn't matter that he got done with work and was greeted with Anna everyday or that she played the part of being a wife. She didn't love him after all these years, and with every day that passed, Titus was beginning to believe she never would.

She gave whatever she had to strangers in that naïve wave of hers, but when it came to him, she was a locked up box with a broken key. But he was beginning to realize that he was like that too, always showing Anna his best self and not the man that was underneath his perfect shell, because he knew that she would hate the angry man inside.

He'd given her a little taste of that tonight, and it'd gotten him here. Here on the thick mat right at the front door. That thick mat was nowhere, and he wasn't making any progress. Even after living in the same house with her for over a month, he still hadn't gotten any closer to his goal. Times like now just kept weakening him with the fact that Anna might never feel the same.

“I'm going out,” he said, waiting her to ask him where just to show that she cared just the tiniest bit.

She didn't ask.

He left, closing the door a little more roughly than usual. It hurt to know that this could have been avoided. He had been immature because he hadn't gotten what he wanted. If he kept things going like how they were now, he'd never get what he wanted; but it was a change of pace, and something told him that maybe – just maybe – a change of pace was maybe just what Anna needed to get that final, little push.