Bound by Tension
18

'Hames, she's not a baby, she can be by herself.' My inner mind (if that's a thing) said to me.

"Aren't you leaving?" She stared at me again with bored eyes.

Without a word, I turned around and took my leave. Mom hadn't stopped calling. The call ended but she called again almost immediately. When I was certain I had reached a spot where the noise from the club wasn't going to serve as a disturbance, I finally answered her call. "Hi, Mom." I said in a gentle tone.

"Wow, not a grumpy response. Lemme guess, you're not engulfed in work-related stuff at the moment?"

"Yeah."

"Explains it all," she chuckled.

"Do you need something?"

"I don't need something, someone else does."

I raised a confusing brow at her. Knowing she couldn't see me, "someone?"

"Yes, Amanda. She's here and she has the same complaint as me. She said she has arrived for a while now but you haven't been paying attention to her. You didn't even tell her you're now in Australia while she had a surprise for you today. She wanted to pay you an unexpected visit with the surprise but you weren't home, now she's here, pouring out her anger at me."

"Amanda is so bothersome." I chuckled. "She's absolutely aware of the fact that I'm always so busy. Why on Earth would she pay me an unexpected visit? Did she just know me last week or something?" "Whatever, she's mad at you."

"She's been mad at me for a while now, not a new thing." I shrugged. "Anyway, I totally forgot to let her know I'm in Australia, please tell her I apologize. I'm out with my girlfriend now, we're spending time together so I'll speak with you later. Bye."

"Aww, so romantic. I love you."

"I guess I love you too. Bye."

"You're so stupid." With that and a chuckle, she ended the call.

I chortled, waited for a while to check up on important messages. My email was bombarded with important work-related mails. I wasn't ready to return to work so I only replied to a few of them that were quite easy to handle at the moment, before I finally returned my phone to my front pocket.

I struted back to the club, strolling back to my seat. "Oh no." I muttered, realizing Imogen wasn't in her seat anymore. I was gripped by the hands of fear when I observed the bottles on the table were empty.

I scanned everywhere, scuttling away in search of Imogen. Frustration was already building up in me, I hated situations like this.

I suddenly heard people cheering behind me. I immediately pivoted. Imogen was around a couple of people, mostly men, dancing in the most sultry, seductive, and annoyingly sexy way. Her crazy dance made me wonder if she was secretly an exotic dancer. With one glance at her, anyone could tell she was SO drunk.

A man slowly walked up to her. The stupid smirk he had on reminded me of who he was; the idiot from earlier who had been gazing at Imogen with lust-filled eyes.

I began storming towards them. He already wrapped an arm around her from behind, dancing with her lustfully.

My brain was about to explode, my blood was boiling in 3000 degree celsius. I internally died when he turned her around and cupped her butt cheeks.

Imogen winced, tried to struggle out of his grip which she successfully did then wore a stupid smile, resuming dancing.

The idiot circled an arm around her again, leaning his face closer to her.

I increased my pace, quickly got to him, held his shirt from behind before his lips could make contact with hers, pulling him forcefully. I could feel the veins in my neck had popped out, expressing the high level of my anger as I hit his face really hard with my fist.

"How dare you touch my Woman that way?" I hit him again. This time, it made him fall butt-flat to the floor. I grasped Imogen's arm, gently pulled her towards me but as a result of her drunken state, she lost her balance and almost fell but I held her from doing so.

She pouted, tilting her head and gazed at me with fluttering eyelids.

"Man, are you crazy? I didn't know she was your girlfriend." The man grumbled, holding his already bleeding nose.

"She's my girlfriend and I don't like it when assholes like you touch her in such a crazy and terrible manner." I kicked him without letting go of Imogen.

"Ow, are you crazy? I'm not touching her, get the fuck away." He complained, groaning in pain. The two other Men from earlier scuttled to him, assisting him to stand up.

Imogen was still staring at me with her head tilted, not saying a word.

I drew my eyebrows together at that. For some reasons, that made her chuckle.

"Hames, grumpy asshole." She burst into laughter. I was only letting that go because she was drunk.

"Silly, said you won't get drunk." I pivoted, keeping an arm around her waist to maintain her lost balance.

She still continued laughing, flailing her arms in the air and screaming for absolutely no good reason, not being able to walk properly.

You bet it was as difficult as hell to walk her all the way to my car but I was able to do that successfully.

I loosened my arm around her waist while trying to open the car door, which I did successfully but she almost fell out of my grip. I was quick enough to grab her from falling, shoving her into the back seat.

As I was about to step back and shut the door, she jerked to sit up straight. That startled me, causing me to hit my back against the door of the car.

Groaning, I moved backwards, slammed the door shut, turned around the car to get into the Driver's seat.

Inserting the car key into its hole, I was interrupted from starting the car by a very familiar sound coming from her. She was gagging! Before I could turn my neck to quickly stop her, I was too late- she threw up all over my car and her body. "Gosh, Imogen-" I wanted to yell further but became choked by the putrid smell of her vomit. I couldn't breathe properly anymore, the smell destroyed my nose. I quickly opened the car window, poking my head out to catch my breath from the terrible smell.

After a few minutes of drawing in natural air, I finally brought my head back in, opening all the other windows of the car. Still, the terrible smell didn't leave.

I glanced at Imogen. She was muttering words to herself but slowly shut her eyes and fell on the chair to sleep.

I guess I had no other option than to drive back to the hotel whilst bearing the terrible smell.

***

I finally arrived at the hotel, parked my car, hopped out of it, turned around to the backseat. She was fast asleep and definitely didn't seem like she was waking up anytime soon. Groaning, I picked her up in a bridal, ignoring the annoying smell coming from her.

Still ignoring the smell, I carried her the way in, called for one of my employees here who followed behind me to open the elevator, got into it with me to press the button. After the doors re-opened and we stepped out of it, the woman helped me out with opening the door to our room.

"Hang on," I told her when she attempted to leave. "Come in." I ordered and she nodded, obediently following behind me.

I walked up to one of the sofas, dropping Imogen on it. She stank as hell and needed a bath and new clothes.

"Call other ladies as well to assist her with a bath, get baggy and comfortable clothes for her." I ordered.

"Okay, sir." She bowed politely, turning around to leave.

I cast another glance at Imogen. Though she smelled like rotten egg, she still looked beautiful in her sleep. She curled up into a ball, muttering words to herself again.

"Imogen," I called out. "I love you." Wow, I just said that out? Well... progress.

I found my way to my room, got rid of my clothes then headed to the bathroom. After a long bath and shower, I got out of the bathroom, did my night skincare routine then got into comfortable clothes.

I spend about an hour doing work-related stuff. Imogen and I definitely had a lot of work to do.

When I got bored, I left my room and went to Imogen's room. I knew it was an invasion of Privacy but I needed to see her beautiful face once again to have a good sleep filled with sweet dreams.

I quietly opened the door, got in then strode to her bed which she was sleeping on like a tree would, covered with a duvet. She didn't smell putrid anymore and looked very clean with a neat v-neck gown or shirt, I couldn't see below the neckline.

A few strands of her annoying black and not blonde hair was in front of her shut eyes. I gently tucked it behind her ear, not wanting to disturb her sleep.

She looked so peaceful and beautiful as she slept. I could watch her all day and night long.

I lowered my back. Wait, was kissing her in her sleep going to be a crime? It wasn't sexual harassment or anything of a sort, right? Of course there was no way it was going to mean I was taking advantage of her in her sleep.

I decided to go with a peck and gave her one on her cheek. There, out of love, not taking advantage of her. I patted her head a little, stood straight, stared at her for a few more minutes, then left the room after switching the lights off and shut the door. Gosh, was I ever going to stop loving this woman? Absolutely no.

Now why did falling in love seem so stressful?