The Stand-In Girl He Couldn’t Keep Chapter 08
I thought Steven wouldn’t be coming back that night.
But while I was drifting in and out of sleep, I felt the blanket lift gently.
The next second, I was pulled into a scorching embrace.
Steven kissed my forehead and the corner of my lips softly, as though afraid of waking me.
I truly couldn’t understand him. Just hours ago, he’d told Sophia I meant nothing to him. Yet now he was acting like I was incredibly precious to him.
Nothing about his behavior made sense.
For the next half month, he spent every single night at my apartment.
It was so abnormal it almost felt unsettling.
Before this, we’d only seen each other three or four times a week at most.
After my hands healed, he stopped restraining himself, too. That night, the second he stepped out of the bathroom, he leaned over and pinned me beneath him.
Honestly, ever since I stopped loving him, I’d grown resistant to intimacy with him.
But I had no choice and could only pretend to welcome it.
Luckily, halfway through, Sophia suddenly called.
I felt a secret rush of relief, thinking I had dodged a bullet.
But Steven only glanced at the screen before looking away, showing no intention of answering.
I tried to prompt him. “What if Ms. Hardy has an emergency? You should head back and check on her.”
Perhaps my eagerness was a bit too obvious.
Steven saw right through my desire to push him out the door. His face darkened instantly, and his voice carried an undeniable edge of anger. “Eleanor, you’re trying to drive me away at a time like this?”
“Do you really want me gone that badly? Are you that eager to push me into the arms of another woman?”
Only then did I realize I’d said something wrong. I hurried to fix it. “How could that be? I was just worried something might’ve happened to Ms. Hardy. After all, she’s the person you care about most.”
But my explanation didn’t satisfy him.
Hovering over me, he stared straight into my eyes and asked in a low voice, “Eleanor, do you still love me?”
I kept up the act. “Of course I do.”
He pressed harder. “Then why don’t you show even a shred of possessiveness toward me?
“What kind of woman pushes her man toward someone else while they’re in the middle of being intimate?”
I answered weakly, “Didn’t you tell me to behave and not upset Ms. Hardy?”
Steven froze abruptly.
He seemed utterly bewildered by his own reactions—unable to comprehend why, even though I was doing exactly what he asked, he was still furious.
He couldn’t understand why he cared so deeply about whether I felt possessive, nor why my telling him to leave sparked such intense anger within him.
The more he couldn’t figure it out, the more agitated he became.
He leaned down and bit my lips fiercely. The force of his movements grew abruptly violent, as if he were trying to unleash all of his restlessness and inner turmoil directly onto my body.
It wasn’t until three in the morning that he finally let me go and fell into a heavy sleep.
But two days later, Mom had already closed her eyes forever.