Chapter Thirteen

______________________________

Elder

 

ARRIVING BACK ON the Phantom, I unbuckled and leapt from the helicopter before the blades finished spooling.

The entire flight, I couldn’t stop berating myself for what I’d done to Pim.

How I’d left Pim.

How I’d interrogated Pim.

How she’d been poked and prodded by doctors and interrogated by police about circumstances I wished I could rip from her memory and incinerate—or better yet, prevent from ever happening.

Something about her felt different.

Something not quite right but not exactly wrong, either. Something secretive? Something accepting?

I didn’t know what it was, but as I held out my hand for her to balance herself while jumping from cabin to helipad, she gave me the softest, kindest smile I’d ever seen. A smile that somehow basked me in forgiveness while making me stupidly hope everything could work out, no matter that I had a ticking time bomb inside my skull.

Her fingers tightened in mine as I went to tug away, preventing me from leaving. Having her clutch me did strange but wonderful things to my heart. Her smile turned sweet as chocolate and just as dark.

My cock instantly reacted. I jerked her close only for Selix to clear his throat, raising his eyebrow in my direction.

I stepped back, managing to extract my hand from Pim’s.

She gave me yet another smile—this one slightly self-conscious and apologetic—then dropped her arm.

How could a smile have so many different dialects and conversations? How could I understand the nuisances behind different shaped lips?

The intricacies of human interaction filled my mind before I could calm my overactive thoughts. I wanted to know how evolution had turned a warning signal of baring teeth into what Pim wielded—the perfect beauty of conveying everything she thought but would never say.

Selix moved off toward the bridge as trained staff members came to tether and look after the chopper.

Clearing my throat, I made the mistake of making eye contact with Pim and having my heart suffocate with crushing desire to grab her, kiss her, drag her back to my room, and never let her leave my bed.

Marching away, I didn’t wait for her to fall into step. “Come, I’ll take you back to your room.”

Her smile fell, but she pushed off into a quick stride to keep up. We didn’t speak as we traversed the deck. We didn’t look at the horizon and flocking seabirds, we didn’t pay attention to the milling staff, and we definitely didn’t look at each other as I pressed the elevator button and stepped inside the mirrored box to ascend to her level.

I kept my eyes resolutely on the doors as they closed in front of us.

Pim knew better than to interact.

She sensed everything I was battling, and I was grateful she understood enough to stay quiet and let me get a hold on having her back in my domain.

My skin hummed having her so close.

My hands opened and closed with the need to touch her.

It was a blessed relief when the doors slid open. I bolted into the wide corridors of her deck. Inhaling deep, I tried to delete the sickening lust quickly building into unavoidable.

Pim padded beside me, close but not too close, her presence slowly forming a mushroom cloud of tangles inside me. By the time we stopped by her door, my muscles seized and minor tremors quaked down my legs.

She was back on my yacht.

She was back in my life.

I wanted to fucking celebrate and jump overboard in equal measure.

Turning the handle to her room, I stopped on the threshold then moved to the side for her to enter.

She carried forward then turned sharply as I said, “Well, goodnight then.”

“Goodnight? It’s not even evening.”

“Well, I, eh, I have work to do.” I wasn’t lying. I had a shit load of replanning to do regarding my family. No way in hell would I take Pim anywhere near my family if there was a chance she could get messed up with the Chinmoku. New plans were needed. Better ones.

“Oh.” She rocked on the carpet. “Will you…at least come in?” She glanced beneath thick alluring eyelashes, wrapping her magic around my cock, my heart, and practically yanking me into the room.

Gritting my teeth, fighting her power, I shook my head. “Too much to do. Besides, you need to rest. How long since you’ve slept, showered…ate?”

“They have showers and beds in the hospital, you know. I’m not going to fall into a dirty coma from lack of care.” Taking a breath, she softened. “Please, El. I’d love some company. If only for a little while.”

Company.

Right.

I swallowed a dark chuckle. She expected me to willingly enter a room with her—with lockable doors and utmost privacy after what happened in Monte Carlo?

Silly girl.

Couldn’t she see I liked her way too much to do that to her again? And I liked myself too much to slip into addiction.

Like her?

My conscience rolled its eyes.

Like wasn’t the right word for what I felt for her.

I’d already admitted it was love.

Yet for some reason, that word fucking petrified me.

“You need your rest.” I pointed at the bed. Fresh sheets and fluffed pillows invited sleep and other activities I couldn’t think about. “I’ll send someone to bring you a meal.”

She glanced at the floor then back to me. “You’re welcome to join me for dinner. That is…if you’d like?”

I would like.

But I shook my head again, fighting a building headache from denying myself everything I hungered for. “Maybe tomorrow. In the dining room.” Where we will have an audience, and you’re not in danger of being molested.

“Oh.”

That tiny but destroying word again.

She frowned, her gaze drifting from my eyes to the door handle that I held in a death grip. Her gaze darkened; her body tightened. “That’s new.”

Shit.

Just as she was far too observant when it came to my moods, she’d noticed a change in decorating.

Playing dumb, I asked, “What’s new?” Removing my hand from the handle, I scowled as if it was same old, same old. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do.”

Shit, I do.

There, in very noticeable glory, was a brand-new deadbolt.

It glinted with accusation—straight out of the box and installed by yours truly a few minutes before I boarded my helicopter to find Pim and bring her home.

Precautions were necessary.

She has to understand that.

“It’s just a lock, little mouse.”

Her lips parted at the nickname even as her forehead furrowed. “Liar. It’s so much more than that.”

It was as if she’d already investigated and found it was completely inaccessible from the outside—no key insert, no quick hack, no way to unlock it.

Only the occupant from inside the room could grant access.

With hands balled, she strode straight for me.

I backed away as she tapped the polished silver hardware. “Why did you put a lock on my door?”

I shrugged as if it was no big deal. “There wasn’t one before. I thought you might feel safer.”

“Safer?” She rolled the word around, tainting it with suspicion. “Why wouldn’t I feel safe on your yacht? Why would I need a barrier between us when you’re the only one I trust?”

I rubbed the back of my neck.

Lots of reasons.

Me being the main one.

Allowing a trace of anger to thicken my voice, I replied, “You’ve been through a lot. Excuse me for trying to ensure you continue healing by giving you a safe place that only you can open.”

She crossed her arms—in no way intimidated by my temper or ready to back down. “You expect me to believe that?”

“You don’t have to believe it to be real.”

“But it’s not real.”

I pointed at the lock. “What isn’t real about that? You can touch it, turn it, and once you’ve slid the latch from the inside, nothing and no one is getting through there.” I used the memories of our first night at Alrik’s together, hurting her like a jackass. “I seem to remember your previous accommodations didn’t have locks. It didn’t even have doors. I had to fetch one from the garage before we were able to be alone. I would’ve thought this was a much better alternative.”

Her face froze.

Her breathing stalled.

She stared as if she couldn’t quite believe I’d gone there.

I couldn’t believe it, either, but that was what happened when I was pushed. When I was trying to do the right thing, only for temptation to roar until I gave in.

I won’t give in.

We glowered at each other before a tight smile tilted her lips and she came forward to rest her fingertips on my forearm. “Okay.” Her touch was infinitely gentle but it held the power to decimate me.

I shivered as she shook her head gently. “We both know why there’s a lock on my door when there wasn’t one before.”

“Look, you’ve had a long day. Instead of standing around talking about things that are of no consequence, do as I ask and relax. We’re at sea for the next—”

“It’s so you can’t come in.”

Her interruption stole any understandable language, giving her the perfect stage to unman me.

“You don’t trust yourself. You’ve never trusted yourself.” Her eyes turned sad. “And that’s the true problem, isn’t it? It’s not the fact that you have a mind that fixates on things but the fact you don’t trust yourself to be able to fight it.”

I crossed my arms, chilled to the bone and furious. Deciding to strip her, just like she’d done to me, I muttered, “Your mother was the psychologist, Pim. Not you. Don’t speak about things you don’t understand.”

“I don’t understand?” She cocked her head. “I don’t understand that you would rather leave me than face yourself? That you would rather place locks between us than enjoy a meal together? That you would rather blame me for tempting you than believing you have the self-control to stop?” Placing her hands on her hips, her voice lowered to sympathy rather than argument. “I’m not saying what you live with isn’t hard. I’ve seen how you struggle. I’ve been with you. I’ve watched you. I’ve felt you—”

“Stop, Pimlico.”

“No.” She held up her hand. “Let me finish.” Inhaling hard, she continued, “I may not be trained like my mother, but she coached me enough to see between the lines, and you…well, your problem isn’t that you have the capacity to lose yourself to a sensation. Your problem is you don’t trust that you can have what you want and keep it within reason. You can—”

“I can’t! That’s the whole fucking point. You don’t understand. What I want most is you. And when I get what I want, nothing else matters.” Stalking toward her, I pressed my body against hers.

She didn’t back away. Instead, she held her ground, chest to chest, hips to hips.

And fuck it was the best thing I’d ever felt.

“I want you, Pimlico. I’m about two seconds from taking you, and even now you look at me as if my needs aren’t something to be feared but challenged.”

My jaw clenched at the delicious sensation of her soft curves against my hard edges. I’d give anything to grab her, toss her on the bed, and stop fighting.

It was exhausting living this way.

Didn’t she think I’d give anything to stop battling myself? To give in?

I swallowed my groan. Christ, I’d do whatever it took.

But it wasn’t that simple.

“If I kissed you now…” My eyes dropped to her lips where her teeth indented the plump flesh. “If I touched you now…” My fingers grazed her hips where she swayed on the spot. “If I fucked you now…” I pulled her forward where my hard cock wept for freedom. “I wouldn’t be myself. It wouldn’t be me kissing you, touching you, fucking you. It would be something unhealthy. Something that doesn’t deserve you.”

She sucked in a tattered breath, her eyes molten, nipples peaked. “But it would be you, and you do deserve me.”

“No—” It took every drop of willpower I possessed, but I pushed her away and stepped back. “I don’t.”

The sexual fog that’d slowly wisped around us was so dense I could barely breathe. My skin was on fire. My body in torture. And she’d pissed me off thinking she could psychoanalyse me. That she could stand before me and write a medical script of bullshit, providing me with a cure that meant nothing.

She wasn’t a doctor who could snap her fingers and fix me. And she definitely couldn’t stand there, dangling herself as bait, persuading me to try. To trust.

Trust what?

That I wouldn’t screw everything up again?

“El—” Pim stumbled forward, her fingers micro-beats away from touching me.

If she touched me, it was all over.

Unleashing my temper to full gale, my arm shot up and my hand wrapped quickly around her throat.

Pim switched from turned-on to petrified.

Night and day.

Black and white.

She’d tried to manipulate my flaws to get what she wanted. Well, now I’d do the same to her.

Panic swirled in her fascinating eyes as her fingers looped over my wrists, the hint of nails digging in warning.

My hand shook, my stomach queasy at deliberately making her fear, but she had to listen, had to hear, had to behave. My fingers tightened around the delicate column, feeling the gushing of her blood and rapid heartbeat. “I’m done talking about this, little mouse. It’s off-limits. Do you understand?”

I waited for the panic to evolve into a full-blown attack. For her to associate my imprisonment with whatever torture she’d lived through. I cursed myself for doing such a thing even as I condemned myself for not letting go.

She stopped breathing as my fingers tightened, but her terror never escalated—if anything, it receded—slowly switching the whiteness of her face to flushed bravery. Her eyes remained steady on mine, daring me to go further. Her temper billowed, shoving aside whatever weakness she might’ve felt and facing me head on.

Christ, this woman.

Swallowing hard, I was the one who backed down. Loosening my fingers, I caressed her throat with my thumb in homage and utmost respect. Her pulse hammered, but it wasn’t from horror anymore, it was anger.

Her skin broke out in goosebumps as my fingers continued to pet. I didn’t give them permission. I simply couldn’t survive if I didn’t touch her.

Lust leapt back into my body—a terrible toilsome passenger, twining its limbs through mine, doing its best to turn me into a puppet and obey its mastery to fuck this woman and damn the consequences.

My mouth watered to kiss her. To lick her.

I was so close to giving in.

So, so close.

But I didn’t.

Because I love her.

Dropping my touch, I backed up a step. “I’m sorry.”

“You should be.”

My eyes snapped to hers. I didn’t know what I’d expected, but dripping fury wasn’t one of them. “Excuse me?”

She stood with her hands balled and a wildness in her gaze I hadn’t seen before. Something damning and provoking, something that punched me in the gut and had way too much power over me.

It made me want to bow at her feet and do whatever she commanded.

“You heard me.” Her chin tilted with defiance. “You should be sorry. Not for trying to scare me with your hand on my throat—I’ve learned to control it. Wait.” She held up her hand. “If I’m going to be honest, that’s a lie. I haven’t learned to control it. You’re the one who helped me because you’ve shown I can trust you not to hurt me. That touch from you—on any part of my body—is not only wanted but invited.”

“Pim…”

“If you were looking for a trigger to put me in my place, too bad. That trigger is gone. If I can do that…who’s to say you can’t work on yours?”

Coming toward me, she licked her lips, her eyes dancing over my mouth with a flash of liquid need. “I won’t fight you on the lock. If you had it installed for your own peace of mind, then fine. I can live with that. But don’t expect me to use it.”

“You will use it.” My voice came out harsh—a barbarous demand. “I want to know you’re safe.”

She shook her head, irritation bright on her face. “I am safe. I’m safe around you. Why don’t you believe that? When you next let me into your bed, Elder, I’ll show you.”

“There won’t be a next time.”

“Ha.” Walking around me, she paused by the door, tapping her foot impatiently. She cocked her head toward the empty corridor. “Leave.”

What the hell?

First, she’d invited me into her room, and now, she’d banished me?

I moved stiffly over the threshold. “You’re telling me you’ve rescinded your dinner invitation?”

“You did that, not me.”

“And now you don’t want my company, at all?”

“That was you, too.” Running a hand through her hair, the arching of her body made me goddamn insane. “If it was up to me, you would spend the night. Here. With me. We’d be completely honest with each other. I’d tell you everything you’re dying to learn about me, and you’d tell me everything that made you so afraid of your intelligence and perfectionism. We’d fall madly in—”

“Hold up. Intelligence and perfectionism?” I laughed coldly. “That’s what you think this is? Some glamorous, romantic condition that makes me smart because I have to repeat and repeat until I’m a master at something? That I’m in love with perfectionism just because I crave the best of the best and not because I can’t accept anything less?” I rolled my eyes, another dark chuckle escaping. “Once again, you’re being completely naïve, Pimlico.”

I didn’t ask this time if I should keep using that name. That was her name. Especially when she was acting like this…this crazy.

I was trying to be good.

Why the fuck did she want me to be bad?

“You think if we lived together, side by side in one room, we would survive each other?” I laughed. “That we’d fall madly in love—that was what you were going to say, wasn’t it?”

Pain lashed through her gaze before she tipped her nose arrogantly. “You’ll never know what I was going to say because you cut me off. Love—that silly word. I don’t think I know the meaning of it anymore. I thought you deserved my love.” She tutted condescendingly. “However, you’re quickly proving I might be wrong in the matter.”

My fists pounded to hit something.

How dare she give me something I held so highly, only to rip it away in our first fight.

I wanted to maul her in anger and desire.

A sick, twisted combination that would only lead us further into hell.

I was losing control.

I need to leave.

Pointing a trembling finger in her face, I snarled, “You’re the one messing this up.”

“Oh?” She smiled cavity sweet. “How exactly? How does my understanding and forgiveness screw up your already screwed-up existence?”

My brain misfired as I fought the sudden wash of acrimony. She was pure vexation. “You could stop believing in fairytales for one.”

“I haven’t believed in fairytales for a long time, Elder. I think you’re mistaking me for someone who hasn’t lived with evil. Who doesn’t know true darkness. And someone who isn’t afraid of a little greyness inside you when you’re trying to convince me it’s the end of the world.” She leaned toward me, baring white teeth. “Newsflash, it’s not.”

I almost lost it.

Almost.

It was the challenge and provocation on her face that tipped me off and kept me human rather than a monster.

She was trying to make me angry.

She was trying to make me to snap.

I stumbled backward. “I’m done listening to this.”

“Good.” She crossed her arms. If I wasn’t watching her so closely, I might’ve missed the tremor hidden beneath the airs and graces of indifference. “Leave, then.”

Retorts were hot on my tongue, but I swallowed them back like razor blades. I wouldn’t listen to her half-cocked theories anymore. And I wouldn’t play this game.

My voice thickened with gravel as I straightened, seeking some resemblance of calmness. “Stop thinking the flaws in my brain are something to be embraced rather than run from, Pim. Stop tempting me and making it seem as if I gave in and fucked you—if I shoved you against the wall and stopped fighting myself—that it wouldn’t be the end but only the beginning.”

I invaded her space, inhaling her soft fragrance, our noses close to touching. “It would be a beginning but not one either of us could survive.”

Her gaze glowed with fire. “El—”

“I put a lock on your door for a reason. Use it. If I come by in the night because of some misstep in judgment, I hope to fucking God you obeyed me and locked me out because if you don’t, Pim—if you don’t do this one thing for me, then whatever happens is on you. I carry too much guilt for things I’ve done to carry any more. Especially when I’ve done my best to prevent them.”

Raking a hand over my face, I backed into the corridor and bowed stiffly. “I know my limitations. I suggest you learn yours. Goodnight, Pimlico. It’s a pleasure to have you back on board. Don’t make me regret coming back for you.”

She clutched the door, her body calm despite my cruelty.

She looked me up and down slowly as if assessing me and finding me wanting. Finally, she sighed, pushing the door inch by inch to block me from her. “You say it’s a pleasure, yet you look at me like it’s a curse.” Angry tears glittered in her brilliant eyes. “You’ve been honest with me, so I’ll be honest with you. You came back for me, not out of gentlemanly behaviour or guilt, but because there was no other way for us. Whatever exists between us, Elder—it won’t allow separation—whether physical, emotional, or sexual. And until we either acknowledge that or agree to never see each other again, no locks can stop what will happen. No rules or negotiations will prevent it. I’ve accepted that…I wonder how long it will be until you do the same.”

With just a fraction of space between the door clicking home, and only half her face visible, she murmured, “I suggest you get some rest or play your cello or do whatever it is you do to find peace because until you give in, until you trust, until you allow yourself to live rather than stay chained up the way you have been, you’re not going to be happy.”

Her final words as the door closed were, “And I want you to be happy. With me.”