I am not alone

"Then maybe you shouldn't let other men touch what's mine, so easily."

Whoa, okay. That was a much less violent response than I was expecting. The way I thought, he would have strangled me first then think about what I had said. Maybe it wouldn't be too hard to cool him down.

I put my arms back around him and leaned my head against his back as I felt his firm chest. I spoke before he pushed me away again, "Don't worry about that. That was just a show Luke put on to get you out of there. He has never behaved like that before or I would've broken his teeth by now. Don't you think so?"

He forcefully removed my grip again, turned around to face me and said, "What do you mean by 'a show to get me out of there'?"

I moved back a couple steps, now that I had his attention, I didn't have to stick to him like an octopus. I replied to his question, "You know, you were trying so hard to hold yourself back from lashing out at her for what she did. We had to get you out of there before you used your knife and fork to cut her human flesh."

He pulled a disgusted face at the picture I had just drawn in both our heads.

"I am not a cannibal, Eli."

"Yeah okay, that wouldn't be pretty but you get the point. He said he could get you to walk out of there and asked if I could stop you later. I don't know why he was so sure that you would walk out, never to come back to that horrendous dinner because I was expecting you to come back guns blazing, to murder us all."

He ended up laughing when I was done talking and I failed to see what was so humorous about what I had said.

"Don't worry! He knew that because he knows things that you don't know."

Huh? What things? So I asked, "What things? What don't I know?"

"I'll tell you when you need to know. It's nothing important."

I felt a deja vu as I remembered he had said something similar when I had first asked him about my nickname. I was still suspicious about what he was hiding but I let it go because I didn't want to push him so hard. He was calm now.

"Do you think you can sit through the rest of the dinner?"

"I didn't think I could but I realize now that I am not alone there. That, for some reason, is making me feel better than before."

"Obviously, you aren't alone. Now, let's go. I told Ari we would be back by the time he finishes his crab cakes."

"Don't make promises you can't keep, Bee."

I paused for a second because I was stating to notice how often he called me 'Bee' outside of our bedroom. He would always stick to 'Eli' or very rarely 'Ana'. The trouble was from the fact that I liked him calling me 'Bee' so often. Ugh, I hate feelings. I snapped out of it and replied to his earlier statement, "Well, I can surely try to keep them."

I pulled his arm to make him walk with me and he just let me.

We had come back to the ground floor and were walking down the corridor that led to the dining room. I was still holding his arm and we probably looked funny considering it looked like I was dragging a sulking child to school. Atleast, that's what I felt like I was doing.

"I think the crab cakes are long gone. They are probably eating dinner now, Bee."

"Yeah, maybe. So what?"

He stopped walking abruptly because of which I jerked and almost fell. He held me by my shoulder and prevented me from tripping.

"What the hell, Miraj?"

"Sorry, I didn't time that well."

"What are you doing, anyway?"

"We are already late for the next course so what would it matter if we go later."

"What--"

My sentence was cut off before I started as Miraj brought his index finger to my lips in a shushing gesture. He grinned as he held my face in his hands and bent down to kiss me. His lips were cold-really cold- probably from standing in the balcony. It started out as a slow kiss with just our lips diving into action. But later on his hands started moving downwards and he pulled me into his embrace by wrapping his hand around my waist.

I put my arms around his neck and pulled him down to bring his face closer. I had this sudden urge to just melt in his arms and merge my body with his. He took a few steps towards me and forced me backwards and as I walked I felt a wall at my back.