Once we were untangled, he led me over to a different lift. The doors were so discreet I hadn’t even noticed them the last time I’d been here. And tonight I’d been a bit busy for sightseeing. I was just staring blankly, but the pressure of his hand at the small of my back propelled me forward.
“Make yourself at home,” he told me. “I need to clean up and finish my work. But I’ll be with you as soon as I can.”
It took a moment or two for the implication of his words to sink in. “Wait, you live here?”
“I have several houses. This is one of the places I stay when I need to.” Since I was still nonfunctional, he pressed the button for me. “See you soon.”
A few seconds later, I was blundering into his apartment. Or rather “one of the places he stayed in.” While it had clearly been decorated in a no-expense-spared way Caspian favored, it was nowhere near as opulent as One Hyde Park. In fact, in billionaire terms, it was positively monkish.
No personal touches, but I hadn’t really expected it. The austerity, if nothing else, was Caspian: the emphasis on smooth wood and polished stone, the slightly overwhelming sense of space created by the high ceilings and the triple aspect windows. The Sahara noir marble floors—beautiful though they were—were slippery and chill beneath my feet. Which meant my most overriding impression of Caspian’s penthouse was that it needed a goddamn rug or two.
I penguin-shuffled into the bathroom, which was yet more marble, relieved, if you could call it that, by granite and gold, and reluctantly divested myself of Caspian’s shirt. Then tried to figure what he’d written. Which wasn’t actually that straightforward since it was either upside-down (if I used my eyes) or back-to-front (if I used a mirror).
In the end I took a photo with my phone. I was trying to get a good angle on the words, but it turned out to be a pretty good angle on me. I’d twisted round to expose the writing, so my body was all sleek curves and sharp edges. And for once my bony bits and squeezy bits were working in harmony instead of contriving to make me look like a knobbly gazelle. My leg was conveniently in the way of my junk so it wasn’t porny—more suggestive with the laddered thigh highs, the smudgy bruise shadows on my flanks and the vulnerable ridges of my clavicles. This was so getting a grainy filter and going on Instagram.
I zoomed in so I could see what Caspian had written. It was two lines, curling neatly over my hip a bit like my tattoo: what will the creature made all of seadrift do on the dry sand of daylight; what will the mind do, each morning, waking?
Well. So much for an Oxford education. I had no idea what it was from. I could have googled it, of course, but that would’ve felt like cheating. I touched the loops where the ink was already blurring. Kind of a shame to wash it off straightaway. Except Caspian would be along at some point and I didn’t want to greet him smelling like the bargain basement option at a bordello.
He had one of those walk-in shower room type things, with about eighty multidirectional settings for water to blast you unpleasantly in the face. When I found one that wasn’t overwhelmingly painful and hitting the right parts of my body, I had a hasty wash and enjoyed unparalleled views of the London skyline. It felt weird to be soaping my bits and staring at the dome of St Paul’s but…that was my life now.
Curtains, I was starting to realize, were a poor people invention. If you were rich enough, you just got to move the world out of your way.
As I dried off, I fretted slightly about Caspian being witness to the carnage that was my hair post-shower. But then I remembered I’d vomited on his feet, shown him my arsehole, and begged him, on several occasions, to spank me. So probably he could cope with my duckish floof.
There was, however, still no sign of him, which left me at a loss. He’d said I should make myself comfortable, but I wasn’t sure where to start because everything was showroom perfect. And showroom anonymous. I only managed to figure out which bedroom was his because there were suits in the wardrobe. And it felt all kinds of creepy having to look.
I did have a little wander, in case I’d missed where Caspian really lived. But no: all I found was a series of empty, pristine rooms, and a door I couldn’t open.
Which was weird, right? Edging into super weird.
Because why was it there? What was behind it? And who the fuck did that? It wasn’t even like he’d known I was coming, and thought to himself, Better secure my priceless collection of Fabergé eggs before Arden accidentally breaks them.
It was just there. A locked room permanently in his apartment.
I mean, was Caspian a vampire, and this was where he chained up his blood-doll? Or was he your regular, common or garden kidnapper? Maybe he was a masked vigilante and this was where he kept his cape? Or he was one of those conspiracy theorist types and the walls would be covered in maps and newspaper clippings, connected by bits of string.
Or probably it was a room he happened to have that happened to be inaccessible. And I was massively overreacting. After all, he didn’t owe me unfettered access to his past, his heart, or the place where he lived. I wasn’t Judith, running about Duke Bluebeard’s castle, believing love was the answer to every question, and the key to every lock.
Well, apart from the bit where I was ransacking Caspian’s apartment.
Literally looking for a key to a lock.
So I could open a door that was at least eighty percent metaphor at this point.
In any case, I was foiled. And trying to bash my way in cop-show style didn’t work either. It just hurt my shoulder. Hurt my shoulder quite a lot, actually.
So I retreated to what I’d concluded was the master bedroom, and slipped under the cool, crisp covers of the huge and ridiculously comfortable bed. Gazed out of the unavoidable windows.
How did Caspian feel as he lay here? Masterful? Like a corporate emperor?
Me, I felt small. Squashed by the vastness of things. And haunted by a room I couldn’t get into.
I was so sick of crashing against all the stuff I didn’t know about Caspian Hart. Of feeling that however close I got to him there was always another barrier. Secrets he’d never tell me. Parts of him I couldn’t reach.
And that…honestly, it sucked. Because all I wanted was to throw wide the chambers of his heart and fill them full of light.
Oh fuck.
I was totally Judith.
Except my Duke would barely let me through the front door. Let alone into his torture chamber or near his lake of tears.
Rolling over, I intended to put my head under the pillow but then I spotted a book on the floor, partly hidden by the spill of the bedclothes. It was a battered paperback, with a pulpy cartoonish cover and big bright lettering that proclaimed it: Downbelow Station.
It was so much the last thing I would’ve expected that I found myself wondering—in what was, admittedly, a slightly messed-up way—if another lover had left it.
Picking it up, I peeked inside. What I think they always called a bold hand in Victorian novels had written To Arthur, with love, L in the front. Neither the name nor the initial seemed connected to Caspian in any way. Which meant I knew even less about him than I thought. Or he’d picked it up in a charity shop one day. Or it wasn’t his at all and the maid—of course he had a maid—had dropped it.
I leaned over the side of the bed, like I was a little kid again, checking for monsters. Nik told me he would pull the duvet over his head and hide. But, me, I always had to look. There were no monsters under Caspian’s bed. Not even normal things like fluff or hair. What there was, though, was a battered cardboard box, which I dragged out by one of the flaps.
It was full of books like the one I’d found on the floor, all of them tatty and yellowing, with fairly cheesy cover art. Barring a few classics like Verne and Wells, it was mostly the sort of sci-fi I checked out of after three pages of “Grand Mardok Ooler Thon Thistlethwaite was sitting at his Steinway grand, while the gardleflumps gambolled majestically around the anterior viewport of his nebula class star destroyer.” Though some I recognized by being told a lot I should read them: Asimov, Russ, Vonarburg, Bradbury, Heinlein, Bujold, Engh, Le Guin.
I nosed through in search of any more mysterious dedications but came up empty. And finally put the box back where I’d found it. I’d already spent enough time going Sam Spade on Caspian’s belongings. Downbelow Station, however, seemed fair game, since it had just been lying there. And I desperately needed something to stop my brain eating itself with unanswerable questions.
So I made myself a little nest and snuggled down to read. There weren’t any gardleflumps but it was sufficiently dense that Caspian’s arrival felt like reprieve. I heard the door open and close, and then the sound of the shower.
Waiting for him in his bed was weirdly nervous-making, not least because I couldn’t guarantee the first words out of my mouth wouldn’t be Are you a serial killer or a bigamist and, if not, what the fuck is that locked door about? Which I didn’t think was the best way to initiate that conversation.
Finally, Caspian came into the room, hair damp and raven-sleek, a few drops of water still clinging tantalizingly to his neck and shoulders. He was naked except for the sexy billionaire pants he favored (and I favored too because they framed some of his best bits so very nicely) and he blushed a little when he saw what I was reading.
“I didn’t realize I’d left that out,” he said.
“I wouldn’t have taken you for a sci-fi buff.”
“My father was.” He climbed into bed beside me and gently coaxed the book from my hands. “This was one of his favorites.”
“It’s, uh, really serious. I’m not sure I have a clue what’s going on.”
I felt a bit like the we-both-reached-for-the-gun scene in Chicago: my voice was saying things, but they didn’t seem to have anything to do with me. Though if I was doing an unconvincing impression of myself, Caspian showed no sign of it. “It’s probably best to skip the history chapters at the beginning.”
“Why are they there, then?” Like, for example, the locked door in your apartment?
“I’m sorry, I don’t know.” For all his casual act, he touched that tatty paperback with such care as he put it back in the box. “I just know this story so well it feels less like reading. And more like…visiting old friends.”
Oh fuck. That was adorable.
And reminded me pretty sharply that Caspian was a human being, not a puzzle I was trying to solve in thirty seconds or less. There’d be plenty of time to ask him about his living arrangements.
Especially now I actually had access to them. Which was a big step for both of us. Even if it had only happened because it would have been majorly harsh to pack me back off to One Hyde Park when I was half naked and covered in come.
Anyway, I didn’t want to argue with him. I wanted to do cuddly post-sexing things with him. Afterglow not after-row. And, besides, immediate demands for explanations and no-holds-barred access to all the areas of the property was what a detective did during a murder inquiry. It wasn’t how a guest behaved.
At least, not a guest who wanted to be invited back.
“Caspian?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“I’m about to kiss you. Is that okay?”
He looked a little bewildered but nodded.
I leaned over. He was very still indeed, his hands curled in his lap. I let my breath brush his lips but, at the last moment, I reared up and kissed his nose instead.
He gave a startled laugh, lashes flickering. “What was that for?”
“You do it to me all the time.”
“Your nose invites me. But I meant the kiss.” He paused. “Regardless of locale.” He’d gone all cool and dry, which made me think he was secretly amused. That, and the hint of a smile in the curve of his mouth.
“I did it because I like you.”
“You like me?” he repeated, as if he wasn’t quite sure what to do with the information. “Well, that’s very flattering, thank you.”
He seemed determined not to meet my gaze just then. And I was hopelessly charmed by the way he could be so sophisticated—so full of sexual aggression and refined cruelty—and yet undone by the tiniest of tender gestures.
So I took him gently by the wrist and kissed his fingers too, surprised by the way they trembled against my lips. “Yes, it is. I mean, you already know I admire you. Am slightly intimidated by you sometimes. Fancy the living shit out of you. Can’t keep my hands off you. Want to be with you and please you and make you happy.” I inched a little closer over the expanse of bed. Enough that I could get a sense of him: his shape, his warmth, the rhythm of his breathing. “But when you talk to me, when you tell me what you’re thinking and what matters to you…I remember how much I like you as well.”
There was a long silence.
Then: “Go to sleep, Arden. It’s getting late.”
“Okay.”
I was on the edge of dropping off when I felt his hand close around mine in the secret darkness under the covers. I gave his fingers a drowsy squeeze.
“I like you too,” he whispered.
I waited a second or two.
Then: “Go to sleep, Caspian. It’s getting late.”
He laughed at that, his sweet, soft laugh, and it was almost prize enough to guard me from further sleepless speculation about the damn door.
* * *
I awoke a few hours later to an empty bed. Knowing what I did of Caspian’s habits, it shouldn’t have been a surprise.
But, somehow, it was. And it hurt.
I told myself this didn’t mean anything. That it didn’t diminish what we’d shared or the fact I was here.
Except it did mean something. It meant…I was spending my night alone. And suddenly, out of nowhere, I was lying there with my head full of that fucking photo. The one I’d seen in Milieu before I’d run away to Scotland: Caspian and his ex-boyfriend, Nathaniel Whateveritwas, at some fancy event together. It’d been taken long after they’d broken up, and quite a bit before he’d met me…but I wasn’t doing the best job of being rational about it. I mean, it wasn’t so much that the photo existed. It was how good they’d looked in it. Like they were meant to be together, Nathaniel’s hand curled so naturally around Caspian’s elbow.
When he would barely let me touch him at all.
Toga-ing myself in the sheet, I went to look for Caspian. He was in the living room, wrapped in a dressing gown and watching the gray-gold dawn as it broke across the city.
The way the window framed him reminded me of the first time I’d come to his office. I’d been furious then but still the sight of him there had touched at me somehow. He’d seemed at once so remote and so beautiful—a cold-eyed tiger in his corporate cage—and I’d yearned to both gentle and unleash him.
Part of me still yearned to do that.
But the rest of me just felt rejected.
Because it was all very well to stand around looking dramatically lonely when you were, in fact, lonely.
But I was right here.
Right. The Fuck. Here.
I perched on the arm of a chair. “What’s wrong?”
He glanced my way—his eyes all velvet-dark against navy cashmere—and gave me a faint smile. “I’m sorry. I’m a light sleeper and I’m not used to sharing a bed.”
“What about when you were with Nathaniel?”
Fuck, why had I said that? The words clattered between us like a frying pan I’d dropped. He didn’t flinch but a kind of awful stillness settled over him. And I knew I’d gone too far, pushed too hard. Broken nearly every rule in the how not to make yourself look like a jealous, insecure harpy (while not-quite dating a billionaire) book. He would probably never let me get even this close again.
“I’m sorry,” I blurted out. “I’m tired. I don’t know where that came from.”
“Go back to bed, Arden.” He didn’t say it in a nasty way but that was almost worse. As if I was on the other side of the glass with the rest of the world.
“You could come with me?” I didn’t know what else to do so I tried a minxy look. “We don’t have to sleep.”
He shook his head.
“Can I stay, then?” Wow. That was just pathetic. I felt like a broken traffic light, flicking back and forth at random between signals. In my case: needy, flirty, and pushy.
“It’s really not necessary.”
“I want to.” I joined him at the window, watching the silver towers with their fleeting golden crowns.
If I could manage to shut up for five seconds, maybe he’d relax. Put his arm around me. Draw me in close. Let me snuggle. I wasn’t a morning person but if this was what life with Caspian meant…I was game to try.
Then my mouth happened. “Why don’t you trust me?”
There was a brief hesitation and then, with devastating patience, “I do trust you. If I didn’t, you wouldn’t be here.”
“And where exactly is here, Caspian?” My brain was screaming at me to stop. But I didn’t. Couldn’t. And I had no idea if this was coming from my better self or my worst. “In your bed but not in your arms? In your body but not in your heart?”
Oh what was the fuck was I expecting? For music to swell and lightning to flash from the sky as Caspian pulled me into a fierce embrace. Covered my mouth with his and—between deep, desperate kisses—told me in a voice hoarse with passion how much I meant to him. How much he needed me. The light in his dark, the balm of his soul, the jam in his doughnut. Whatever.
He was frowning. “We fucked in my office—which would have been entirely against my better judgment, had you not so comprehensively overthrown it. And now you’re staying in a place where only I stay. What more do you want? What more can I give you?”
“How about the truth? Why can’t you be with me like you were with Nathaniel? How come you can’t sleep at night? What’s”—and the words rushed out before I could stop them—“with the locked door?”
“The locked door?”
“Yes.” I pointed wildly. “The one over there.”
“It’s…it’s not important.”
I made a sound. It wasn’t a very dignified sound. Honestly, it was kind of a scream.
“I just meant,” he said quickly, “it’s a room I don’t use anymore.”
“Why? What’s in there? Your fucking guitar collection?”
He’d gone horribly pale. “No.”
“When were you last there?”
“With Nathaniel.”
“Show me.” I felt like this lurching fleshmonster of a person, sewn together from anger and hurt and confusion. “Show me.”
His eyes met mine in the glass, wavery blue shadows that revealed absolutely nothing. I might as well have tried to fish the moon from its reflection in a pond. “As you wish.”
He crossed the room to the table where he’d left his keys. Picked them up and tossed them to me. Of course I missed them and had to go scrabbling around on the ground. But I got them, minus five to personal dignity, and bolted for the door before Caspian could change his mind.
He followed me silently into the corridor, arms folded tightly across his chest, leaving me to try all the keys as if I was a contestant on the world’s shittiest game show. Finally, though, I found the right one and pushed the door open.
And stepped like Alice into a kinky wonderland.