His Woman (18+)

Chapter XXXIV

THE BASEMENT

Stop being so hard on yourself, sweetheart. It's okay to cry.

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CHAPTER XXXIV

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“Araceli.”

I continued speed walking down the hall with the laundry basket balanced against my hip, pretending that I couldn't hear him behind me.

“Araceli,” he groaned, not even having to run or jog like I was doing to keep up with me. “Don't make me call you a third time.”

I froze in my steps, letting a sigh slip past my lips once I realised that I couldn't run from him. Why was I trying to run from him?

I hadn't seen Daniel - like physically seen him - for five days now and I didn't know if I liked it or not, but I knew it had everything to do with me.

I was avoiding him.

I said that I was trying to recollect my thoughts, but in reality there was nothing to recollect. I felt insecure. Even though Pablo had reassured me and told me that I held some kind of meaning to Daniel, I couldn't help but always think back on Samantha's words.

She was his in public. And we were running around behind closed doors. Why was he keeping me a secret when he was pretty open and showy with her?

I felt his hand on the small of my back and didn't put up any resistance as he pushed me towards the empty laundry room, closing the door shut behind him.

I placed the empty laundry basket on top of one of the washing machines before turning to him. He was watching me before I looked at him, but he wasn't affected by the fact that I had caught him staring. He honestly had no shame.

Slowly he looked up to meet my eyes, showing me that he was being completely serious and that he didn't have time for my games. It even surprised me that he came after me at all.

“Have you been avoiding me?” he asked, cutting straight to the point as I flinched back at his harsh glare on me.

My first inclination was to tell him no, but then I remembered what he said in the kitchen a couple days ago.

“All I want is for you to not lie to me.”

I sighed and turned around, quickly getting back to work as I took the clean clothes out of the dryer and dumped them in the basket.

“It's more like cheating on you honestly,” I said, cringing back into myself. Why would I say that? Out of all the things I could've said, why that? I quickly turned to look at him, not hesitating to reassure him. “With myself.”

The look on his face never changed. Just pure confusion. For a second, I even started asking why he chose to sleep with me out of all women on his behalf. That only added to the list of questions I was still working through with myself.

He let out a sigh of frustration and ran his hand down his face. “You're confusing.”

“I'm confusing? You're confusing! Like, what is this? What are we doing? Why are we keeping it a secret? Why don't you want anyone to know about this? What's going on? Are you ashamed of me?” I finally exploded, dropping the basket onto the floor and turning around to glare at him.

He looked up from his hands, his brows furrowed before a smirk played onto his pretty, pink lips. “You're the one that wants to keep this a secret.”