Christian was in there, buried in a heap of work, but there was no sign of Beanie anywhere.
“Vanessa?” He said when I barged into the workshop without so much as a knock. “Is everything all right?”
“Have you seen Beanie? The storm’s getting worse, and I don’t know if she’s in the house.”
“She was here just a while ago but she was restless to go out so I let her out. I thought she was with you?”
“Oh no,” I said with horror as I realized Beanie must have made her way to the garage. I hurried towards the door, with Alba and Christian following closely behind me.
“Beanie!” I continued to yell for her, but there was nothing.
Sure enough, the doggie door was half open when we arrived, and I knew immediately that she’d gone out of the house.
Ignoring the protests behind me that I could not go out into the cold, I hurried out of the house and met a blast of cold air the second I opened the door. I could barely see anything through the thick blanket of white all over, but I forged through and continued to look for her, the winds drowning out my voice.
The pool was already iced from the snow, so I knew she could not be there. We paroled the entire house, but we still did not find her.
Now, I was crying like a baby and imagining everything horrible, like finding her dead, unconscious body, and it reminded me of the day my mother died. I remembered how I cried so much and thought I was going to die as well.
I felt Christian’s arms around me and it offered me a glimmer of comfort.
“We’ll find her.”
“We don’t know that. She could be gone; she could be dead and we would never find her body because the animals may get to it before we do."
"Okay, okay, take it easy. We won’t find her dead. She’ll be fine. Okay?” He said cupping my face with his one hand which was not holding his cane and all I could do was nod.
Just as I turned around to continue the search even though Alba had warned us to go inside before we caught a cold, Beanie came running out of the woods. Her fur was covered in snow and frost had settled on her cold nose.
“Oh my God! Beanie!” I squealed like a little girl, and she came running right into my arms.
We all walked into the house, and I immediately took her to the fireplace to get her warm. She was shivering slightly, but she was also restless to continue playing around and wagged her tails in restless excitement.
When I looked up from her towards the doorway, Christian stood there staring at me, and there was a tenderness in his eyes I had never seen before. I wiped the residue of tears from my face and looked back down at the dog in my arms. I wondered for how long I was going to run away from my feelings for this man.
Chapter 23
Christian
Vanessacouldnotsleepmuch through the night. Even from my room, I could hear just how restless she was, which made me check in on her every five minutes. The last time I checked in, she was crying in her sleep. The soft, heart-breaking sobs made me feel the pain like I was the one enduring whatever it was she was enduring in her dream.
I could no longer leave her alone, so I lifted her into my arms and carried her into my bedroom.
I was awake for hours while she slept, watching her every move. She was calmer and settled in quietly considerably with me in the same bed with her, and the crying stopped.
I could not sleep myself like it had been for the past two weeks since she solely decided that we should stop seeing each other.
I did not know what brought that on, but if I was a betting man, I knew it had everything to do with my mother. Given that it had happened so soon after she left, it was easy to figure out.
Vanessa moved slightly beside me, and my already hard cock got even harder if that was possible. She was restless in her sleep all night again and at some point, I contemplated waking her up when it seemed like she was crying.
I let her sleep it off though since she needed the rest. All night, I wondered what to do about my feelings for this woman. They seemed to only grow stronger and stronger and nothing I did made them any lesser. It took a lot of my pride not to fall to my knees and beg her the day she broke up with me. She’d gotten so far under my skin that she was now a permanent resident. And I did not want it any other way. I just needed to figure out a way to convince her we were good together.
She moved again in my arms, and this time, I felt it the moment she woke up. Her breath caught slightly in her throat as she realized where she was, and in whose arms, she was lying. I was almost totally sure that she had not been in the right frame of mind when she agreed to sleep in my bed. She was fragile and hurting and I did not want her alone like that, which was why I talked her into it.
She was lying with her back to my front and I could feel, (as well as she could too), the outline of her ass against my hard cock. She’d adjusted so much in her sleep that there was no space between us. And even when she was awake, she made no effort to move away. I stayed put as well. A double-barreled gun could not pull me away from this position.
The atmosphere in the room had changed, and I could feel the tension in the air. And then just very mildly, I would not have noticed if I was not so in tune with her body, she pushed her ass even further against my cock and let out a soft sigh.