The Carrero Heart - Beginning (Friends to Lovers)

Arrick’s POV

~ Saving Sophie in the club ~

I wander around the crowd looking for Sophie; agitated, uptight and messed up royally. I told Natasha we should start again, slowly, see how it goes. Back to dating and taking baby steps to see if we can salvage what we used to have so, for right now, I’m still single technically but just that we now have to start seeing one another romantically.

She agreed that we’ve become distant and stale and if we start with the small steps towards finding our passion again, then maybe we can fix what we once had. It all sounded good at the time, to begin with, but that clawing doubt and indecision was soon pushing me to down shots in a bid to get my shit together. Head consumed with Sophie’s absence, and pain biting at me to go find her and kick shit out of any guy that is occupying her down there.

On paper it would all look mature, hopeful, and right, yet here I am, fucked up, feeling like shit, and searching for my best friend in this damn club. Because in all of this, and sitting up there, downing booze like it was going out of fashion as I tried to secure future plans with my once again girlfriend, all I could think about was Sophie down here and her threat of finding some random guy to amuse her. It turned my brain inside out and fueled my fight mode into being a rash asshole.

Is this jealousy? Is this what I have ignored all these years when she was dating other guys?

I know she didn’t mean it, yet the more I sat there turning it over in my head, downing drinks in a bid to numb all my emotion to nothing, all I kept thinking about was her past two years of living wild and reckless and countless sleaze ball boyfriends. The threat no longer seemed empty, and when I couldn’t handle it anymore, I told Tasha I needed to check on her.

I pretty much up and ran after my best friend, because I really could not handle the thought of her with anyone who isn’t me. Now, here I am, like a crazed psycho, pushing through crowds to find her, and I don’t even know what I will do if she has hooked up with someone. It’s already eating me inside out, and now I wish I didn’t drink so much.

I’m such an asshole, all over again, not giving a shit that in one hand I was giving Natasha another chance, then in the other, running down here fueled by my fear that Sophie might find someone else. No further forward in choosing, no clue how the fuck to deal with this.

I catch sight of her dark hair through a gap in gyrating bodies and move forward from here, without thinking this through. I can see the side of her hair, and that dress which has a lot to answer for. That dress should be burned to ashes for all it’s capable of doing to me. I know I had urges for her before tonight, but that dress seems to be the catalyst for all things and focusing hate on it is better than hating what I’ve done to us.

As I push past a large group of drunk women, I get a full unaffected view of Sophie, yet she isn’t alone, and it knocks my lungs to breathless and halts me in my tracks. Some guy has his hands on her, around her and his mouth locked to hers in the most painful sight I have ever laid eyes on and it’s like I get hit in the face with a massive electric bolt. My entire body is zapped with a lightening shock that travels right to my chest, splicing pain across my heart at the sight and I get a reaction I never have in my life.

tear free of the sight of my girl in another guys arms and I can’t tear myself from the object of my all-consuming pain and growing psycho anger, which rages up inside of me in a whole body grabbing kind

The rage and jealous pain is all that controls me in this searing second and I stalk forward, vision red, no longer in control of anything but this need

be fucking damned if

it as a fucking basketball before I let him touch her. Even in my red haze, shoving people aggressively out of the way, I don’t tear my eyes off as I get closer, despite the agony of witnessing this, of them lip to

the chart’s rigid. She isn’t into what he’s doing at all, she isn’t kissing him back, and she doesn’t seem to want his touch. I know my girl well enough to read her, even at a distance, and this

or fear. And

like a bear, strength fueled by adrenalin, a need to get him off her, as I pull her away and aside ungracefully. My temper through the roof raging, so I don’t even know if I literally just dropped her on the floor while caught in a veil of mist. I can’t turn my venomous glare away from him to check on her. My mind is set on complete annihilation and

her, he dared to fucking touch my girl and I won’t let the shithead get away with it. I zone into red rage, blanked

thing and never happens in the ring. My whole career relies on my focus and control and every fight

floor red with his fucking blood. No one in the universe has a right to lay hands on her against her will, and even though this started as a jealous rage, it’s now

full swing and even though he’s down on the ground, I give no actual shits. My aim is not to disable this asshole, it’s to end him for ever laying a fucking

from my knuckles, from his teeth. I don’t feel it. Adrenalin fueling me like a monster, and I will keep going until he doesn’t breathe anymore, and the floor is red with the evidence of his demise. Nothing can dampen this fury and rage until he stops fucking living. I pull back and get ready to give it all I got, seeing only that face on the ground and everything else phased out

front of me, cutting through the blur and focusing with clarity, even in this light and everything in me halts automatically. Her face is a block I will never force through and she has the

readying herself, because she thinks I’m

would never physically hurt

an icy bucket of water thrown on my fire and in a tiny second of seeing her, I’m rendered immobile. Sense and calm flooding me as she opens her eyes slowly and blinks at me unsurely. She makes a religious cross motion when she sees I haven’t moved, thanking god under her breath and despite the

this shit. Can’t ever break her down.

cups my fist with her delicate hands, eyes on me warily, acting like I’m some sort of pot that’s about to overspill or blow. It’s ridiculous; she should never fear me, and I relax a little as she starts tugging me to follow her.

crowds, and she is all I can focus on as my breath starts to pace more evenly and less erratically. That slender body leading me away from my rage, calming my

will ever get to touch you, Sophs. I will always protect you, baby. I swore, didn’t I?