by Riley Ashby
I lost myself in the familiar story for hours, sitting in comfortable silence with this strange man who had managed to put my plan on the back-burner without even trying. Why was he suddenly being so nice to me? I couldn’t bring myself to worry about it too much, not with this book in my hands. Not with the chance to relax laid out in front of me. The room was warmed by the sun, my chair was comfortable, and the book acted as an intimate friend.
I felt happy.
When Castel appeared in the doorway, frowning, I sat up so quickly that my feet thudded against the floor. Ellery looked up, the lines in his forehead deepening when he noticed his bodyguard. He stood and walked toward the door, beckoning me to follow him. I kept my head down as I passed Castel and headed to the hallway.
“I have a lot of meetings this afternoon I’d rather you didn’t hear,” Ellery said. “I’d appreciate it if you entertained yourself this afternoon.”
That was it. I had blown my chance. I let myself get distracted by a chess game and a pretty book, and now I was being sent back to my bedroom like a bothersome child.
I was surprised enough that he walked me all the way to the bedroom and outright shocked when he walked in. He strode straight to the closet and tapped a switch underneath one of the shelves.
“Flip this,” he said, and a door slid open in the wall. This time I jumped, nearly dropping the book. He almost laughed in response. “Go straight through and turn left when you reach the intersection. That'll take you straight to the library. You can get in there even when I'm not in my office.”
Just like that, the anxiety I had built up over the walk dissipated. This was greater than any dress he could have given me. “Any time?”
“Yes.”
The silence grew thick between us as he hovered. I bit my lip, waiting for him to leave, not wanting him to go. He stepped closer, eyes firmly on my face. “It was never my intention for you to get hurt. You should know that.”
My fingernails curled into my palms. “You can still stop it from happening.”
“I wish I could.”
I wished he would do a lot of things.
He stepped forward, closing the distance between us by only a few inches. I inhaled sharply and didn't let it out. He loomed over me as I cursed myself for freezing up. This was my moment. He was right there, practically inviting me to make the first move, but I couldn’t make myself close that final distance. It didn’t feel right. I couldn’t bring myself to move, even if it meant saving myself.
We stood for an eternity, but I was frozen. I never exhaled.
“Thank you for the book,” I muttered meekly, and I thought disappointment flashed in his eyes.
Pursing his lips, he stepped back and walked out of the room.
“The party is tomorrow. Be ready when I come for you. Your dress is hanging on the door.”
I went to collect her precisely at seven o’clock the next night, pleased to find her waiting for me. She was stunning in the short black dress and towering red heels I had picked out. It was simple but classic. I was still confused about the previous day; she had sought me out then completely froze. I assumed she might want to try and seduce me, convince me to keep her, but when I encroached on her space in the bedroom, she could barely even look at me.
Reminding myself of what I had to do tonight, I tried to be cold, but my hand reached for hers of its own accord.
“Let's go.”
Her face emotionless, she ignored my proffered hand as we walked to the garage. Castel opened the door for her, and she slid into the town car.
“Thank you, Castel,” she said with a smile, and I scowled. Why was she talking to him? Castel, for his part, replied with a curt nod. He was pleased to see her go. He’d be even happier when we were back here, without her.
I took my place at the other end of the bench as Castel pulled the car off my property.
“Why are you so upset now?”
Our eyes met. She was smiling faintly. I tried to force myself to relax, folding my legs and lacing my fingers in my lap.
It was useless. She would be gone in a few hours. There was no point in holding back anymore.
I reached across the bench and pulled her to me. She gave a surprised yelp.
“I don't like you talking to other men. At least don't address them by their first names.”
She squirmed, but I held her firmly in place. Her thigh was pressing against mine.
“That seems like a strange rule, since you’re about to hand me over,” she said. We leaned slightly to the right as Castel took a curve a little faster than I liked.
“I still own you for a few more hours,” I growled at her.
She didn't flinch, but some level of acceptance dropped over her face. “If you insist.” Her voice was hushed.
“I do.”
I pulled her closer. Her hands flew up to press against my chest. My lips grazed her jaw, and her eyes fluttered closed.
“Why do you keep doing this?”
I let my hands fall to her thighs, which were barely covered by the skirt of her dress. I had the sudden urge to order the car turned around so I could clothe her more thoroughly. I didn’t want anyone else’s eyes on her.
“I only have you for a little bit longer.” I licked the hollow at the base of her neck. The skin prickled under my tongue. “I'm taking advantage.”
She made a sound akin to a laugh. I pulled back to look at her.
“What do you find so funny about that?”
She sighed, not meeting my eyes but leaning into me a little closer. “You’re acting as if this is something you have no control over.”
I grabbed her chin and forced her to meet my eyes. I loved holding her like that, the power it gave me directing her gaze toward me. “Don't forget, this is a choice you made. I gave you the option to leave. Twice. You’re not here because I stole you or held you against your will. You’re here because of your misplaced sense of loyalty and not because of anything I did. Remember that.” I let her go so she could nod. I returned my hands to her thighs, greedy to feel the whisper of her skin underneath my fingers. She pressed her forehead against my chest.
“I don't understand what you're doing,” she said. Her breath was warm through my shirt. I slipped my fingers beneath the hem of her skirt but didn't go any farther. I wanted to savor the sensation.
I'm trying to figure it out myself.
This was the last time I would be close to her. It didn’t matter what I said or did; no one would believe a thing she said. The partition was up, so Castel couldn’t see or hear us.
I had power here, maybe for the last time.
I unclicked our seat belts and pulled her onto my lap. Her legs spread across my hips without protest, the hem of her skirt straining against her thighs.
“We can pull off right here,” I whispered as I pressed my forehead into hers. “I’ll drop you at home. We can take him instead.”
She put her hands on my face, ran her fingers across my five o’clock shadow. Her lips were a whisper away. “Have you never sacrificed for a person you love?”
I ran my fingers under the hem of her skirt, pushing it up over her ass, pressing into her cheeks as she gasped against my face. Her hips rocked forward, and I rose up to meet her, feeling my cock press against the zipper of my slacks.
“You have no idea what I’ve sacrificed.” What I’m sacrificing right now, giving you up.
She pulled my face closer, our lips brushing, but still she wouldn’t close that final distance.
“Tell me what you want,” I said, looking for her to admit it, needing her to ask. I kneaded her thighs, her ass, pulled her closer against me, there in the back of a moving car as we barreled toward a meeting I couldn’t miss. Even if she toughened up and told me, it wouldn’t matter.
“Keep me,” she begged.
I lurched forward to kiss her, our mouths already open and tongues reaching to meet each other’s as we collided for the first time. And this, this was what I had
been missing. What fantasies I had been teasing myself with for days. More than just her lips on mine or our chests pressed against each other but this connection that had existed from the moment I first took her chin in my hand. I wanted to hold her there, but I couldn’t stop my hands wandering across her smooth skin, trying to memorize every curve.
Her hands slipped around my neck, clutching me close as my own hands slid up her back. I grasped the zipper of her dress and began to pull, determined to take her right now if that was what it took. If this would be my only chance.
She pulled away, stealing my breath, sliding off my lap as she pulled her skirt back down around her legs. She pushed a finger against her lips, wiping away smeared lipstick. She refused to look at me.
“I’m not yours,” she whispered.
I wiped my own lips and pressed a hand into my crotch, willing my arousal to dissipate. My gut told me to pin her down on the seat and force her legs apart, rut against her like an animal in the few minutes we had left so she would remember the feel of me between her thighs later tonight when a very different person had taken my place. But she pressed her knees together, arms folded across her chest, staring out the window.
“Sit with me,” I said, my voice low. “For a few more minutes, you don’t have to be afraid.”
She didn’t react. She was barely breathing. But then she shifted, pushed herself across the seat, and slid against my chest as I wrapped my arm around her shoulders.
“It’s been a long time since I wasn’t scared,” she said. Her voice dripped with resentment and bitterness. But I couldn’t comfort her, not any more than what I was already doing here. I wasn’t her savior. I was never meant to be. There was someone else who needed my help. And if that help came at the expense of this woman’s life …
I would have to live with that for the rest of mine.
Something about Ellery swept away every storm wall I had built around myself.
When he hadn’t come for me that morning, I set out looking for him myself. I told myself it was about the seduction, my little half-formed plan, but the disappointment that filled me when I couldn’t find him went deeper than that. I reminded myself I wasn’t allowed feelings. Certainly not in this situation. I went back to my room and willingly locked myself inside. My attempt at seducing him had been so laughably bad, the way I had frozen the second he got close to me. I kept waiting for him to make that first move, the way he had every other time, but he didn’t. He held himself back.
I attempted to relax and read, but my skin wouldn’t stop thrumming. Every place he had touched me burned like wildfire. I contemplated throwing the book across the room, but the mere idea of destroying a valuable copy filled me with dismay.
I checked the door multiple times, tracing the path from my bed to the entrance over and over and wiggling the handle, making sure the door was locked from the inside. I was grateful to not be locked in but couldn’t bring myself to leave the door unlocked. I wanted the security of that heavy door between me and the man that lay beyond it. I also wanted to fling it open and run down the hallway, burst into his office as I had done before. But when I gently tried the handle at lunchtime, it was locked. I could have knocked, but I didn’t bother.
It wasn’t that I was afraid of him, at least that wasn’t the only reason for my apprehension. It was also that looking at him felt like pulling at the thread that bound my heart. The feel of his hands as he picked me up off the ladder when I tried to climb. The way he smiled as he looked at the book I chose then handed it to me with such reverence I could tell he had read it many times.
You don’t know him, I reminded myself, my brain skipping like a broken record over that unconvincing thought. There was no reason I should feel anything for him. No reason my lungs should fill to bursting every time he took my chin in his hand. It was the way he looked at my legs as I walked around his office but didn’t try to come after me again. The way he smiled when I clapped, caught off guard by the secret door and the gorgeous room it revealed.
Once I convinced myself to stop checking the door, I sat on the bed and steeled myself. I wrapped my arms around my body and found that empty place between my lungs, next to my heart, where I sent every feeling and sensation that threatened to mar the shiny veneer I counted on to keep me safe.
I didn’t have any razors. I had never been a fan of blood. But I did go into the bathroom and run the water in the bathtub as hot as it would go. I stuck my wrist underneath the water and held it there until I couldn’t stand the pain anymore.
Then I let it run some more.
And the more it burned, the more excruciating the ache became, the lighter I felt. There was a sudden breaking within me, like the snapping of a twig, and I experienced this great overwhelming rush of … placidity. Like the surface of a lake after the ripples from a thrown pebble had subsided. I released this breath I didn’t realize had been sitting in the bottom of my chest since Ellery showed me the library, since that first real smile had stolen my face from me.
I shut off the water, tentatively dried the tender skin. The towels were soft as air, but my angry red flesh protested all the same. I found some soothing aloe cream among the pharmacy left on the sink and applied it with as light a touch as I could manage. Then, only then, was I able to lie back in bed and read my book.
I could pour out every emotion I didn’t want to feel into my books. The things happening to the characters were safe. Joy was never cut short because you could read the scene over and over. Any tragedy could be re-written simply by starting the story again. The characters existed outside their emotions, subject to the whim of the reader. I could make myself feel or not feel whatever I wanted by losing myself in them.
Once I was empty, I dressed myself and applied my makeup with a steady hand.
I was steel. I was granite. I was ready.
And then he held me against him in the car, and everything came undone.
*
I let myself inhale Ellery's gentle cologne for the rest of the ride. He kept his hands beneath my clothes but didn't wander, a possessive touch I found I didn't mind. It made me crumble like sandstone. My thighs stuck together where my arousal had dampened the skin, reminding me that I had succeeded and failed all at the same time. He wanted me, but he wouldn’t keep me. He was giving me to someone else. I was already gone.
He took my wrist at one point and ran his fingertips over the raw skin where I had scalded myself, a puzzled frown on his face when he finally met my eyes.
“You did this to yourself?” he asked, but his face told me he already knew. I pulled my arm back to my body, hiding it against my stomach.
He went rigid, snapped to attention as if he had been shocked. He grabbed my chin. He was always grabbing my chin.
“Do you like being hurt?”
The question caught me off guard. I had expected a reprimand or some kind of judgment, not this gentle interrogation. And it wasn’t just that he was asking … it was what he asked. Not “Do you like hurting yourself?” but “Do you like being hurt?”
I opened my mouth, hoping a reply would materialize, but nothing happened.
The car slowed. He tensed and I took the opportunity to free my face from his grip, turning my head to take in the gatehouse where the town car had stopped. With the partition raised, I couldn't see what was in front of us, but Ellery dropped my wrist and reached forward to lower it as if he sensed my curiosity. The modern home before us was in stark contrast to Ellery's old-world style. It was brightly lit, so much so it would be clearly visible from rather far away.
“It's a garish piece of shit,” he said, reading my face. “Repairs every other week. He still likes to host, show it off. Stop that.”
I jerked my hand away from my mouth; the nail polish on my thumb remained mostly intact.
He turned to face me, his expression suddenly sober. “Sophie, be careful in here. Chase Reilly is not a nice person. Watch your back. Don't drink anything I don't give you myself. Don't e
at anything. And do not leave my sight.”
I nodded mutely, suddenly more afraid than I had been since first meeting Ellery. He ran his thumb along my cheek again, leaving stardust in its wake.
I grabbed his hand as he reached for the handle. “We don’t have to go in,” I choked, a desperate last attempt.
He shook his head resolutely. There was no unwillingness or regret in his eyes, only stalwart determination.
“Yes we do.”
He yanked me out of the car a moment later. Castel stood by the door, pulling him away for a long moment while they talked in hushed tones. I shifted from foot to foot, my arches already aching in my shoes. Heat dripped from the air, but my skin was cool. I breathed deep, hoping to steady myself, but it only made me dizzy.
As we walked up the grand entry staircase, Ellery stalked ahead of me without even a backward glance. I realized part of the reason for my discomfort was the frigidity that began rolling off him the moment we stepped outside. Every trace of affection he had shown me in the car was gone.
It shouldn’t have hurt me. It was what I expected, after all. It shouldn’t have mattered, but it did.
The door opened to a wide hall. I had expected staff to greet us, but instead, a pale man with a floppy mop of blond hair grinned at us. He was dressed in a suit, but the top button of his shirt was undone. A tie hung loosely around his neck. His skin had the dewy sheen of someone who had been drinking for several hours, eyes rimmed with red.
“King! I see you brought us a treat!”
I tensed as this man's eyes zeroed in on me, drinking me in. I was suddenly furious that Ellery had insisted on me wearing this tiny dress that showed off every curve of my body, putting me up for auction before I even opened my mouth. Ellery put his hand on the small of my back in a gesture of dominance. I pressed back into his palm.
The man I assumed to be Chase leaned in close. I recoiled from the scent of whisky rolling off him, but there was nowhere to go. Ellery held me in place.
