by Seven Steps
Phineas
Dimensions Origins
Book 2
Seven Steps
Copyright ©2017 by Seven Steps
All rights reserved by the author.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locals, or persons, living or dead, is wholly coincidental.
No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, recording, by information storage and retrieval or photocopied, without permission in writing from Seven Steps.
Edited by Genevieve Scholl
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Interior book design by Seven Steps
Proudly Published in the United States of America
Also by Seven Steps
Science Fiction Romances
Saving Kiln – Venus Rising Book 1
The Fall of Arees – Venus Rising Book 2
The Martian King: Venus Rising Book 3
Night of the Broken Moon (A Venus Rising Companion Short Stories)
The Escape (A Venus Rising Prequel)
Time Bomb – Dimensions Book 1
Free Fall – Dimensions Book 2
Collision Course – Dimensions Book 3
Leilu – Dimensions Origins Book 1
Phineas – Dimensions Origins Book 2
Taklin – Dimensions Origins Book 3
Contemporary Romance
The Last Rock King
Peace in the Storm
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Phineas
Dimensions Origins
Book 2
Chapter 1
The white, floor length dress shimmered like a sun kissed sea, throwing rainbow confetti prisms onto the walls. Leilu fingered the top of the sleeveless, sweetheart neckline, her mouth slightly agape in awe as she stared at herself in the mirror.
“It’s beautiful!” Leilu’s excitement funneled into soft words, whispered to the glass.
“You make it beautiful,” Phineas said.
And he believed it. She was so gorgeous it made his chest ache. Her long blonde hair had been brushed out, and fell in waves over her shoulders. Her porcelain skin glowed warmly in the light. He watched her watching herself, as if she didn’t know she was beautiful until just then.
How could she not know? I’ve known since the first time I saw her.
Sunlight filled the floor to ceiling windows in Leilu’s room, though it was nearly dinnertime. It was the six months of the year where the sun didn’t set on planet Cyreen. Night wouldn’t touch them for another six months.
After coming through the dimension portal two weeks ago, Leilu had been staying in his father’s massive, and somewhat gaudy, house.
His father, Thomas, hadn’t said anything when he’d introduced Leilu to him. Only turned his back and walked away from them. Phineas knew that particular sign of his father’s displeasure. He was sure that he’d hear more about Thomas’s opinion of Leilu later.
Not that it would change anything.
Phineas knew in his heart that Leilu was special. Not that he knew too many other girls, except for the ones in his class who were colder than ice. But none of them affected him like Leilu did. They didn’t make his heart race, or his chest tight. They didn’t make him want to hold their hands and kiss them. When Leilu looked at him, his entire body got hot. Far, far from ice.
For the past two weeks, he felt as if his life had gained meaning and purpose. They stayed awake talking when they were supposed to be asleep. When he finished his schooling, she was the first person he sought out. She stayed by his side in the lab, helping as best she could as he continued to perfect his fuel formula. They ate every meal by candlelight, just the two of them. He’d never had someone touch his soul with such a light touch as Leilu had. Someone who had gained all of his trust with just a batting of his eyes and a few well placed words.
And yet, when he approached, she froze and her eyes grew wide. It took time for her to warm to him. To feel comfortable with him. Every time she looked nervous, it shattered a small piece of his heart.
When will she learn to love me like I love her?
Six freckles on the back of her shoulder stood prominent against her clear skin. They formed a triangle. A shape that he longed to trace.
Unable to stand the tension anymore, he stood. He watched her watching him in the mirror as he approached, and saw her eyes widen. Her throat flexed as she swallowed, her eyes never leaving him.
He yearned for her to relax. He longed to kiss her, to hold her, and, eventually, to make her his wife. Sooner rather than later.
He stood behind her, smelling her floral perfume, watching the smooth skin of her shoulders turn to goosebumps as he neared. He burned to kiss the goosebumps away. To shelter her in his arms.
He stuffed his balled up fist in to his pocket instead.
Her words came quickly. She always talked fast when he was too near. A sign of her nerves.
“I’ve never had such fancy clothes or rooms before. It all seems too much.”
“There is nothing that I could give you that would match what you’ve given to me.” He took another step forward, expecting her to move away.
She didn’t.
“You listened to me. You talk to me. You make me laugh; make me think. You’ve melted me. I could take a piece of the sun and set it in diamonds, and it wouldn’t be good enough for you.”
A small smile moved across her lips, like a ghost, making his stomach clench. She turned around to face him.
“You say such beautiful things.”
She said it as if she didn’t believe his words. As if he was telling lies, when it was the most honest he’d ever been. He wished that he could hold up a mirror that would show not just her outer beauty, but her inner beauty. She had a kind, gentle personality that was balm to his soul.
How could she not see that?
His eyes scanned her face. Of their own volition, his hands moved from his pockets and wrapped around her slim fingers. He felt her freeze beneath him.
Why are you so afraid, little one?
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. He forced himself to let go of her hand, feeling her loss like the loss of a limb. “I should have more control. I shouldn’t be so close.”
She shook her head, her eyes turning from apprehension to fear.
“It’s not you. I just get panicky. Where I’m from, men are so … rough. When they touch you, it hurts.”
“I would never hurt you,” he said quickly.
“I know. It’s just my nature, I guess.”
He
took in a shaky breath, his lips buzzing for the taste of her. Before he could act on it, and scare her half to death in the process, he took another step back. Her sweet scent mesmerized him; pulled his brain to want to do more than talk. But he couldn’t. She was too innocent. Too fragile. He had to keep some distance between them. At least for now.
“I’m sorry. I’ll slow down.”
“No.” She stepped forward, closing the space between them. “I don’t want to slow down.”
She threw her arms around his shoulders, and he felt her body tremble beneath him. She was shaking like a leaf.
The temperature in the room rose by a thousand degrees.
What is she doing?
“I want you to know that I love you, and I’m grateful that you brought me here. I get nervous, but that’s not because I don’t care. It’s because I’m not used to being loved.”
He looked deep into her eyes, watching the blue irises dilate. His pulse pumped hard in his ears. He tried to put mental space between them.
“You don’t have to do this,” he said. “I can wait.”
“I don’t want to wait.”
His words turned choked. “You’re shaking.”
She shook her head, dismissing his words. “Phineas, I need you to help me. I need you to teach me that love doesn’t hurt.”
He stopped breathing.
She moved her mouth closer to his. He smelled the oranges she’d had for lunch on her breath. Her lips were only a breath away. His lips buzzed in response.
“Teach me, Phin. Teach me what love is.”
He tried to hold back. To think of her feelings. To show restraint.
But she was so sweet in his arms. So warm. And she looked at him with such love. It was such an innocent request.
How could he refuse?
He bent his head and kissed her. Softly. Innocently.
A small taste.
It wasn’t enough.
Her shivering stopped, her body quieted, relaxing into his arms.
He once believed that there was nothing higher than the Eminence on Cyreen. But he was wrong. There was something higher. It was Leilu.
His kisses turned ravenous, like a thirsty man taking his first drink. She was everything he wanted. Everything he needed. She wanted him to teach her.
How could he deny her?
A knock on the door broke them apart, flinging their eyes to the door.
Josephina, the house manager, stood there, her eyes wide in disbelief. She, somehow, found her voice, and cleared her throat.
“Mr. Zorg, your father would like to see you.”
Chapter 2
“Phineas, you are going to drive this family’s reputation into the ground!”
Thomas Zorg glared at his son with eyes the color of fire and brimstone. His blond hair had long turned white in his old age, but he kept his athletic build and domineering presence. Both father and son were dressed similarly in white suits, colored cravats, and highly polished white shoes.
“I only want to be a scientist, Father,” Phineas replied, running his fingers through his short blond hair in frustration. “How is that driving the family’s reputation into the ground?”
“We are leaders in the fuel industry. We lead. We don’t get into the trenches with the soldiers and the ditch diggers. Now, you will give up the dream you have of discovering this,” he waved his pale hand dismissively, “next big oil thing, and you will join me to learn the ropes of the business side of Mega-Corp.”
“Father-”
“It’s that girl, isn’t it? The one you brought here from who knows where. She is the reason that you won’t obey me.”
Phineas’s blue eyes darkened to navy storm clouds.
“Leilu has nothing to do with this,” he growled. “Keep her out of it. She’s the only one around here who talks to me. Who listens to me. Who-”
“There.” Thomas Zorg pointed one long finger at his son as he stepped around the mahogany desk. “That’s it. That defiance. Before she got here, you would heed me without question. But now I see a change in you.” He stood directly in front of his son, his amber eyes blazing. “She’s turning you against me.”
Phineas’s breath caught. His father was a force of nature. Standing in front of him was like standing in the face of an oncoming hurricane. All biting wind and lightning and thunder. Phineas’s eyes dropped to the floor, and his shoulders curved inward in submission.
“No, sir.”
Thomas grabbed Phineas’s chin, yanking it upward so that their eyes met.
“You look at me when I’m talking to you, boy!” Thomas bellowed. “Now, is she turning you against me?”
Phineas’s face turned hot with anger. Leilu didn’t deserve those words. She deserved to be placed on a pedestal. Her father wouldn’t even dignify her by saying her name.
“No, sir. She’s not turning me against you.”
Thomas’s lips tweaked upward in a ghost of a smile.
“I don’t believe you, Phineas.”
“I’m telling the truth.”
Phineas’s heart thudded slowly in his chest. There, in his father’s massive office, lives were created and broken. Anything that Thomas Zorg took as a threat to his glorious fuel empire was immediately eliminated. If he thought that Leilu was a threat…
Phineas shuddered. He didn’t want to think about it. He couldn’t. There was no life before Leilu. There would be no life if she was gone.
“We are a family, Phin. Do you understand what that means?”
Phineas’s stomach clenched. He heard the mantra before, and it usually meant that he had to do something he didn’t want to do.
“Yes, sir.”
“Tell me what family means.”
Thomas leaned back on his desk and crossed his arms over his chest, leveling Phineas with a glare that could peel the bark off a tree. Phineas shifted his feet, trying to stand firm against the force of his father.
“Family means that nothing can come between us.”
A slow smile settled on Thomas’s face. A sure sign that he thought he had won the argument.
“That’s right. And right now, that girl is coming between us. Us. Me and you, Phinny. I can’t let that happen.”
Phineas felt as if he’d just been stabbed in the gut by a very large knife and his father was about to twist it.
“I want that girl gone by breakfast.”
A wave of nausea overwhelmed him. He knew he was going to be sick.
“Do you understand me?”
He didn’t want to cry. He tried to stop it. But the thought of living without Leilu made tears well up in his eyes. He felt his whole body heat in embarrassment, and he stared at the book case that sat next to the window instead of at his father. He wiped away the tears that burned his eyes. He hoped his father didn’t see, but he knew that he was not so fortunate.
“Phinny, I asked you a question.”
His left leg bounced anxiously. He wanted to throw himself at his father’s feet. To beg for Leilu to stay. But that would be unmanly, and, if there was one thing that his father hated, it was when a man didn’t act like a man. Thomas respected strength, courage, honor, and bravery. Tears, pleading, and begging were not going to work with him.
“Phinny, I am going to ask you one more time. Do you understand me?”
His embarrassment at his own tears and his fear of his father congealed into anger. How could his father send Leilu away? Didn’t he know how deeply Phineas cared for her? He balled up his fists and jammed them in to his pockets, frustrated beyond measure. There was no way out. If his father wanted Leilu gone, then Leilu would have to go.
He felt bile rise up in his throat, and he swallowed it down again.
“Yes, sir,” he whispered.
“What was that?” Thomas stood and held his hand up to his ear. “I didn’t seem to catch it.”
“Yes, sir,” Phineas said a little louder.
“Good. That’s my boy. Now, go clean yourself up. You�
��re going to sit in with me on some business meetings for the rest of the day. Get your mind elevated. You’re dismissed.”
Phineas’s lungs expelled a hot breath. He wanted to run from the room, to flee from his father’s presence, but that, too, would be frowned upon. He took a deep breath and turned to walk away from his father with what was left of his dignity.
A pair of blue eyes and a shock of blonde hair appeared in the doorway before they quickly sprinted away.
Leilu. Has she heard what my father said?
He walked faster than he should have, anxious to know what she’d heard. What she thought. Even with his quickened pace, each step seemed too slow, and he found himself jogging the last few feet to the door. He looked left and right, and spotted her long blonde locks bouncing behind her as she ran down the long ivory hallway of his father’s mansion.
“Lei!” he cried out, running after her. Dread filled his gut. She must’ve heard what his father had said.
His gut clenched.
What must she be thinking?
She had a head start, but he was faster and quickly reached her, turning her in his arms and holding her tight. Hot tears drenched his shirt, her shivering body clinging to him.
He shushed her and kissed her forehead before leading them into a nearby room and closing the door, each of her tears breaking his heart a little more.
“It’s okay,” he soothed her, running his hand down her back.
When she’d first arrived, she was pale from lack of sunshine. But there, in the Eminence dimension of Cyreen, her skin had tanned. Her blonde hair streaked with highlights. In his eyes, she had gone from beautiful to being a deity. He’d spent the last two weeks worshiping at her feet. Feeding her, giving her the most expensive clothes, and comforting her. They’d spend long hours in his lab, splitting their time between experimenting and long conversations about life. And, when they were tired of talking, he would dream of kissing her lips with the upmost reverence; his only goal was to give her the pleasure that a goddess like her deserved.
