Page 57 of The Artist
“Sweet dreams, Victor,” Aubri called while I took the stairs three at a time to the second floor.
I didn’t enter my room right away. Aubri’s words that Belle fancied Jonah still gnawed at me, so I decided to take a quick shower to cool my temper before joining her in bed.
CHAPTER 15
Angry Sex
Belle
Mason was cold when he came to bed. Both literally and figuratively.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
Touching his arm, I furrowed my brow. “Your skin is cold.”
“I took an ice-cold shower.”
“Why?”
He shrugged and lay down on his back staring at the ceiling. “I needed to cool down.”
“Oh, I see.”
We lay quiet for a long moment with him looking up and me on my side watching him.
“So, you would marry someone like Jonah, huh?”
The hairs on my arm rose from the underlying anger in his tone. When I didn’t answer, he turned his head and watched me. His blue eyes seemed almost black from how large his pupils were in the subdued light.
“What? Did someone cut out your tongue?”
“Why are you so angry?”
“I’m not!”
“Look, it’s not like I’m in love with Jonah. All I said is that he seems like a cool type of man.”
“Then why don’t you go fuck him?” As soon as Mason said the words, he turned back to look at the ceiling with his lips tightly shut.
“You don’t mean that. He’s your sister’s husband.”
He ignored me, so I explained, “This is a misunderstanding. I don’t want to have sex with Jonah. That’s not what it was about. Freya and I were discussing types of men and I’ve always felt that Jonah is both kind and intelligent. Those are qualities that matter to me.”
With his eyes narrowed, Mason glared at me. “So, if Jonah is kind and intelligent, then what am I? Mean and stupid?”
Propping myself on my elbow, I lowered my voice. “Mason, people are trying to sleep so keep your voice down and stop putting words into my mouth. I never said that you were stupid.”
“But you French think that you’re smarter than everyone else, don’t you?” he said through gritted teeth.
“If you mean in general, then yeah, that’s true. It doesn’t apply to me, though. I wasn’t even smart enough to become an academic, remember?”
With hard movements, Mason used his hands to arrange his pillow and propped his head higher. “Just answer me this; why did you have sex with me last night if you’re not attracted to me? I told you I didn’t want you to feel like you owed me anything.”
“It’s not that I’m not attracted to you. My conversation with Freya was about marriage, not attraction.”
His face scrunched up in a grimace. “How can you separate the two? Who in their right mind marries someone they aren’t attracted to?”
