CHAPTER - 5

LOVE IS... ANNOYING

'I love you. You annoy me more than I ever thought possible. But I want to spend every irritating minute with you.'

"So, I've prepared this little questionnaire. You just have to answer these questions and based on your answers, I'll find the perfect girl for you." I beamed as I told Ashton about my perfect plan. In reply, he gave me a bored look and looked back at the TV screen where a very boring game of football was currently being played.

I satisfied myself and my self respect with the thought that maybe his boredom was due to the boring match and not me, even though I was sure that I was wrong.

Clearing my throat, I moved my laptop to the table and stood in front of him so I was blocking his view of TV. Not bothering to even acknowledge my presence, he shifted to his right to focus back on the idiot box, I followed suit and again blocked his view. He moved left with a sigh, I moved right. This ducking, sighing and moving process went on till he stopped moving and a wicked smirk covered his face.

Just as I opened my mouth to tell him to answer my questions, he opened his mouth. "Actually..." he drawled as I waited for him to complete his sentence while what he did at that moment was move his eyes from my toes to head, making them linger on my breasts. He continued, "I prefer looking at your breasts than the match, anyway." In reflex, I crossed my arms over my chest that resulted in a tremendous growth of his smirk. Blood rushed to my cheeks at his words and his eyes that were wandering from my face to my breasts were not helping at all. Just as I opened my mouth, again, to give him my golden advice of keeping his mouth shut, he beat me to it and said with an amused look, "You do know, that this little action of yours just enhances your breasts more, right?"

A gasp escaped my lips and acting on reflex, I uncrossed my arms and let them lose at my sides. I was red, I knew that. All the blood had rushed to my face because of the perverted jerk in front of me. What should have been done or said at that moment to make him shut up was not something I could think of. In fact, I had no clue as to what I should have done. I had never been in such highly perverted and ill-mannered surroundings. Running my fingers through my messy hair that were still intact in a bun, I looked around his living room in complete helplessness.

After taking a few deep breaths in an attempt to calm myself, I looked back at him and found him looking at me with a smirk on his face. That stupid, stupid smirk.

Ignoring his unnerving looks, gorgeous eyes and annoying smirk, I asked in my clipped professional tone, "Could you kindly co-operate and answ-"

"Could you kindly ask me whatever the f*ck you wanted to ask and get over with this sh*t?" He interrupted me and asked with a mock stern look, as if all the delay was my lone fault.

I gaped at him in disbelief of how someone could be so irritating. Seriously, what in the world was wrong with him? "Oh, God!" I groaned in annoyance that was immediately soaking every cell in my body, which made me close my fists in a death grip. My reaction just made the smirk on his face grow if that was even possible and he looked proud of himself. I stopped myself from hitting him or simply running out of his apartment and forget about this dreadful meeting entirely. What had I landed myself into?

"Miss Uptight, I go by Ashton, Ash-ton, not God!" He rolled his eyes at me, and my mouth fell open at the latest insult thrown my way and the cocky compliment he had flattered himself with.

I scowled at him and said, "I liked you better when you were all rude to me because now you're plain annoying."

At my reply, he did what he had been doing since I met him. He smirked. "So you liked me, huh?"

"Is that all you got from whatever I just said?" I asked with wide eyes. Why couldn't he pay heed to the words 'rude' and 'annoying' and probably, feel a tad bit bad for making a girl feel like this?

He nodded and replied, "I'm a pro at perceptive hearing."

I huffed in annoyance and decided to ignore him. "Okay, the first question is..." I cleared my throat as I sat down on the recliner near the coffee table and placed my laptop on my lap.

He threw a pillow towards me and I looked at him in bewilderment after catching the pillow. At this action of his, I was offended. "What? What is your problem? I haven't even asked the first question yet. What in the world is your problem? Let me inform you, Ashton, I'm not someone who will bear violence. Your behavior is just unacceptable. When I reached here, you're rude and you shut the door at my face thrice." I showed him three fingers to emphasize on my words along with showing him how highly annoyed I really was and continued, "You didn't even acknowledge my presence and went inside your room for two hours and slept while I was here, cleaning your apartment. And now that you've agreed to do this assignment, you're not giving me any answers and being highly irritating. Seriously, what is your problem? Do you want me to go away? Just say so, and I'll go away from here and abandon this project but just stop with your behavior." Throughout my rant, I kept looking at him dead in his intense eyes as he stared back at me.

"Don't you want your fetus to be safe?"

"Huh?"

He rolled his eyes to show his annoyance as if the question he had replied with was the most obvious reply to my rant. "Keep that pillow between your lap and your laptop. Direct exposure of too much heat that a laptop radiates on your skin can lead to many problems that you might not even know," he informed me and I took in his words dumbfounded. He raised his eyebrows at me after I didn't reply for a minute and kept looking at him. "You can thank me later. Start with your questions. I do not have all day."

"Umm... yeah," I mumbled, biting my lips in embarrassment of giving a very embarrassing but true rant. I felt a bit relieved too as I had, finally, vented out my frustrations whose root cause was the guy sitting in front of me. But then there was slight irritation due to the fact that he had not considered it necessary to answer any of my questions. With a sigh, I picked up the pillow he had thrown at me and kept on my lap as I placed the laptop over it. "So..." I started, keeping my gaze fixed at the Word file on the screen. "What type of girls do you like?"

"Dogs?"

My head snapped up towards him and I looked at him incredulously, "What?"

"You are talking about girls or dogs?" he asked, looking at me with a challenging gaze, while all I could think about was the fact that this guy was simply unbearable and really very weird.

"Of course, girls!"

He looked at me with his cocky, victorious smirk and leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. I resisted a little sigh that was threatening to escape from my lips because of the way his shoulders were hunched up and he looked so broad in that particular posture. His voice successfully distracted me from his very attractive body structure as he said, "But as far as I know, dogs have kinds or breeds, not girls."

Rolling my eyes at him, I groaned in annoyance. "You know what I mean. You like blondes or red heads or brunettes? Short girls or tall girls? Shy or rebels? And stuff like that."

"See!" He exclaimed in victory. "You girls, yourself, discriminate among yourselves and blame the guys for being like this. If you girls call other girls as 'b*tch' or 'sl*t', it's perfectly fine; but when a guy calls some girl by these names, the guy becomes ill-mannered. Hypocrisy." Just as I was about to comment on his observation, he added, "Kind, type and all that bullsh*t doesn't matter to me. The only thing that's required is a vag-"

"Okay, I get it," I interrupted him loudly so he couldn't complete the word. I quickly chose to change the topic and said, "The next question is, what do you like to do?"

He rolled his eyes at me and snorted. "I'm back to school," he said in a deadpanned voice.

"Why am I even here?" I muttered under my breath feeling completely exhausted.

His lips twitched up ever so slightly as if he was enjoying my humiliation sprinkled by my reactions, but that lip twitching disappeared as soon as it appeared. "I like to travel to different countries." My eyebrows rose up at his answer and just as I was about to sigh in little satisfaction of receiving at least one proper answer from him, he added, "I get to bang girls of different countries."

"You are an animal," I commented with irritation in my voice, as I typed the first and only sane part of his answer.

"Correction - I'm a beast," he replied in a smug voice.

I shook my head at his cockiness which was honestly very amusing for me at the same time as it was highly annoying. "Anything else that you like?" I asked in a bored tone.

"Size bigger than or equal to thirty four; the bigger the better." It took a moment for me to understand what he was talking about and when I did, my eyes became as wide as saucers and my mouth chose to gape open in complete disbelief of what I was hearing. Before the sane message of 'changing the topic as soon as possible' could reach from my brain to my vocal chords, he added, "You look like a thirty four C to me. I'm right, aren't I?" My cheeks went on the spree of going red for the umpteenth time in the last few hours. My mind straight out refused to come up with any kind of reply and I was left to stare at him in complete ridiculousness.

'How could he guess it so correctly?' I wondered.

Seemingly happy with my discomfort, he leaned back in his chair and answered his own question smugly, "Of course, I'm right. Apparently, I'm not a pro at perceptive hearing only."

After this comment from his over smart mouth, just like my vocal chords, my brain decided to stop working too and I ducked my head to look back at my laptop screen in an attempt to simply ignore all his attempts of embarrassing me. He was doing a great job at it so far and my burning red cheeks were a proof enough of it.

"C'mon, don't be embarrassed. That's the perfect size." He smirked at my humiliation as my jaw clenched slightly in anger.

Clearing my throat, I looked back at the laptop screen even though my cheeks were still burning red and tried to ignore all his comments. "So, the next question is..."

He interrupted me by laughing lightly. It was way too obvious that he was enjoying every bit of this meeting while I was dreading it all. I gazed up to look at his face as the sound of his light laughter filled my ears for a few seconds. He had a nice laugh; laugh that sounded pleasant to ears and made him look charming, unlike the rude self he had been since I entered this place.

A very simple fact that I concluded, and added to the list of 'Things Ashton Parker likes to do' was - Annoying Liana Moore.

--

After utter torture of two hours which included uncountable urges of either tearing my hair off or making Ashton's lips disappear anyhow so that he could not smirk any longer. My urges included slapping some sense into his head whenever he gave any kind of perverted remarks in every answer, no matter how serious the question might be. The most tempting one was to run away from his apartment and never returning back.

The fact was that in these few hours my patience had reached new levels. The unbearable test that I had been giving made me worthy of every award of the highest decree. I really deserved it.

With a final sigh, I shut the flap of my laptop and ran my hand over my face.

It was done. Finally.

I looked towards Ashton, who had been sprawled on the sofa in the same way since the beginning of our question - answer session. He looked deeply interested in his phone. "There is this one last question that I wanted to ask."

He shot me an irritated look and looked back at his very interesting phone. I took that as a sign of 'go ahead' and asked him, "Is there any ex-girlfriend or ex-lover of yours whom you would like to give a try in this task?"

My this question sparked slight interest in him as he looked thoughtful for a moment. "There was Candice, she was wild in bed but then she had a terrible habit of crying after every round," he said as if remembering his previous ventures. "Then there was this Italian hotness, Elma, sexy and gorgeous but a little stiff in bed." The distaste of recalling that bedroom encounter was clear on his face. I stopped myself from groaning in annoyance and rubbed my fingers on my forehead. "Oh there was one, Alexandria..."

"Stop it. Please!" My patience gave up and all but yelled a bit. He looked slightly taken aback but quickly covered it in a smirk. Huffing, I told him in a calmer voice, "I'll take that as a 'no'."

Chuckling, he shrugged his shoulders. "Your wish."

I nodded and told him, "I should get going now. I'll come back tomorrow with portfolios of few girls that you might be interested in." With that I got up from my seat and picked up my laptop to pack it in my bag.

"Where do you think you're going?" I halted as his rude voice reached my ears and I turned to glare at him.

"What now?" I groaned.

He looked up at me with an amused look and said, "You asked me way too many questions for my liking and you should be grateful that I answered all of them so nicely." I rolled my eyes at his statement as both of us knew that his answers were anything but nice. "It's not just you who has to work with me. I've to bear you for the next twenty days, Ms. Moore; and going by my experience of past few hours these days are going to be annoying as hell and unbearable." I gaped at him in disbelief at how ironic he was being. He was teasing me and he was obviously succeeding.

My eyes narrowed at his innocent expression and I shot him an innocent smile of my own. "I agree on that one, but I really can't help my perverted mind from having dirty thoughts and my highly stupid mouth from saying every idiotic thing that occurs in my teenage head. Oh and the very thought of every sexual conquest I have had in the many countries that I have travelled just makes me much more horny. But, I'll try my best to keep my pee pee in my pants." I grinned as I was happy to have my sarcasm back to me and a virtual hug was given to it as a welcome gift.

In reply, he tightly pressed his lips together as if trying to control his laughter and scratched his beard a bit. "Pee pee? People still use this word?" This time he didn't control his laughter while I glared at him in the best way I could. With the back of his hand, he covered his mouth in order to stop his laughter. I liked to believe that one of the contributors of stopping his laughter was my deadly glare that was fixed on him. "You prove my guess work wrong every time you try to insult me," he commented when he had managed to stop his laughter. "Now, you look like a four year old to me." He grinned and for a split second, I forgot all about the insult he had thrown my way, yet again and got blinded by his beautiful grin; his pearly whites and how completely opposite he looked when he grinned as compared to what he had been portraying himself as in front of me.

But the loss of my senses was merely for a split second and I recomposed myself and informed him, "You're so annoying."

He chuckled and bowed a bit. "I'm flattered."

I huffed in annoyance and said, "Ask whatever you want to ask. I do not have all day." I mimicked his words and shot him a smug look as I went to sit on my earlier seat, opposite him.

He smirked as he observed my reactions and said, "As you are such a huge believer in sh*t called love..." I mentally snorted and he continued, "...are you in a relationship?"

For some reason, his question caught me off guard even though there was nothing surprising in his question. Wasn't it obvious that this question would rise in such an assignment? My first intent was to shake my head in a 'no' and tell him that I, too, am a firm believer in the fact that 'love is sh*t', but my mind was fast enough to tell me that I couldn't do that if I wanted to succeed in this assignment.

'Would he agree to this if he knew that I was so out of a relationship and love now?'

No, not at all.

'But, all you need to do is stop hating love for merely the next twenty days and bring back the old 'Liana' who was so madly in love once and who could write a bible on love.' Stephanie's words echoed in my head as I stared at Ashton who was waiting for me to reply.

"Yes," I answered without pondering anymore and gave him a fake smile. "I'm in a very happy relationship since the last six years and I'm very much in love with him." He raised his eyebrows at my answer and I continued, not paying heed to his facial responses, "Nolan." I swallowed the huge lump in my throat as I brought his name to my lips after such a long time. "His name is Nolan Maxwell." Again, for a split second, my mind wandered to the unwanted and untouched territory but I was quick to bring it back by smiling a little at Ashton. "Anything else?" I asked.

He didn't say anything for a moment as he kept looking at me skeptically. In the meantime, I kept my face as straight as I could. Eventually, he decided to stop studying my face and asked the question that I dreading, "What is love?"

"Love is..." I explored my brain to find the most suitable word in my mind dictionary that would fit in the definition I was trying to say; the definition that could make the jerk, sitting opposite me with a smirk on his face, believe in 'love'.

"Bullsh*t?" He offered with a huge arrogant smirk on his face and no matter how much I agreed with him on this particular matter, I couldn't agree and instead of nodding my head in agreement, I scowled at him. His smirk grew bigger and he leaned away from me, gazing at me with his piercing grey eyes. "Finding it hard to make me believe in love when you yourself don't believe in that sh*t, huh?"

My eyes widened a bit at his statement. 'How does he know that?' I wondered. 'Am I so damn easy to read?'

With his piercing grey gaze fixed on my every move, I realized that 'being the devil's cupid' was going to be a lot tougher than I had eventually thought.

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A/N

I'm back! Yayy!
Terribly sorry for the long delay but I hope you all would like this update as it had only Ashton & Liana. :) This story is going to progress soon. Till then, enjoy Liana getting annoyed with Ashton. I'm sure he is enjoying every bit of it. :D

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