by I. T. Lucas
As he moved over to the side, Ella pulled down her bra and sweater. Wiping her tears away with the sleeve, she chuckled. “I’m glad I didn’t put any eye makeup on.”
His text got an immediate response, just not the one he’d been hoping for.
“We are out of luck. Roni and Sylvia went out to a restaurant.”
Ella let out a relieved breath. “I’m glad. I didn’t feel like socializing. Do you have anything we can make dinner from?”
“I have frozen pizzas.”
“That would do. Are there any veggies to make a salad from?”
“There might be some lettuce and tomatoes.”
“And an onion too?”
“I think so.”
“I can make a garden salad from that.”
He pushed to his feet and offered her a hand up. “Come on. Let me feed you.”
52
Ella
Crap, crappity crap, and double crap.
Julian wouldn't be as understanding and sweet if he knew the real reason for her freeze-down.
Washing the lettuce leaf by leaf and then spending an inordinate amount of time chopping vegetables for the salad, Ella was buying herself a little time to sort out her thoughts and hide the maelstrom of confusing feelings away from Julian’s attention.
One thing this episode had made abundantly clear was that Logan hadn’t compelled her desire, and even if he had, he hadn’t compelled the lack of it toward others.
As soon as Julian allowed his natural dominance to emerge, she’d responded.
Oh, boy, how she’d responded.
Ella had never been so aroused in her life. Up until now, the most intense cravings she’d experienced had been while reading some of the naughty romance novels she’d pilfered from her mother.
And that had been before her ordeal.
Since then, all she’d experienced were short-lived, anemic flares that had fizzled out almost as soon as they’d started, and she hadn’t touched a romance novel since her rescue.
Fictional alpha males excited her. Real-life alphas, less so.
Not Logan, not Romeo, and certainly not the Russian. Only Julian had ever gotten her so hot and bothered.
So why had she freaked out?
Some of it had been her bad memories of lying under the Russian and trying to dissociate her mind from what was happening to her. Her eyes shut tightly, she’d pretended that she was one of the heroines in her mother’s novels, and that the man with her was one of those sexy billionaires.
Sometimes it had worked, making things a bit easier, but not always. Some of it had been about enduring and counting the seconds until it was over.
So yeah, that would have been the most likely explanation for her freak-out, and what Julian believed had caused it.
Ella wished it was.
The truth, however, was that her freeze-up had been mostly the result of shame and guilt.
If Logan wasn’t compelling her attraction, then it was coming from her, and that was troubling on so many levels. If she could feel that way toward a monster clad in a pretty skin, then she really didn’t deserve Julian.
She’d felt so much better about herself when compulsion had been the most likely culprit.
Now, it was back to the darkness theory.
She was attracted to Logan because something inside her resonated with him. Carol thought that it was his dominance, but that wasn’t likely. Forcing a kiss on her hadn’t aroused her, it had repulsed her.
Still, she couldn’t deny that his uber-alpha quality played a big part in it.
And what was the deal with not responding to Julian until he’d turned caveman on her?
She was damaged goods, that was the deal.
Leaning over her shoulder, Julian glanced at the cutting board. “Are you making salad or confetti?”
“Oh, I wasn’t paying attention.” She looked at the tiny pieces. “It looks like salsa.”
He chuckled. “Don’t worry about it. I like salsa. I wonder how it will taste on top of a pizza.”
“Ugh, gross. What kind of pizza are we having?”
“Mushrooms and sausage.”
She made a face. “Sounds yummy.”
“Do you want something else? I can heat up a marinara pizza.”
“No, that’s fine. Where do you keep your oil and vinegar?”
He opened one of the top cabinets. “Everything is here. Do you want salt and pepper?”
“Sure.”
When the oven beeped, Julian pulled the pizza out and put it on a cutting board. “Do you want a movie with your pizza?”
“I would love to.”
That way she wouldn’t have to talk to Julian and answer his probing questions.
Perfect.
It would take some intensive and creative thinking to come up with plausible answers that weren’t lies, but at the same time didn’t reveal the embarrassing truth.
Creativity was not restricted to artsy pursuits.
Pulling out two large plates, Julian loaded each with three slices of pizza and brought them over for Ella to add the salad. “Only a little for me. I’m not that fond of salads.”
She cast him a sidelong glance. “Perhaps I’ll change your mind about that.”
“I doubt it.” He lifted the two plates and carried them to the living room coffee table. “My mother is a vegetarian, and she tried her best to convert me.”
Ella followed him with the cutlery. “Yeah, I can see that. You even like meat on your pizza.”
Which Ella thought was gross, but she was in the minority. Judging by the supermarket frozen pizza aisle, pepperoni was the most popular.
“Don’t most people?” Julian went back to the kitchen. “Can I get you a drink?”
“Do you have Diet Coke or Sprite?”
“I have the non-diet variety.”
“That’s fine.”
She eyed the Snake Venom beer he’d brought for himself. “Magnus likes that one too. I don’t know how you guys can drink it.”
“Immortal metabolism. Regular beer is like piss water for us.”
Popping the lid of a coke can, Ella wondered whether she would develop a taste for that super-potent beer after her transition.
She certainly had a taste for the super-potent immortals, except she was too much of a chicken to do anything about it.
“Okay.” Julian reached for his tablet. “Let’s see what’s playing on Netflix.”
Too hungry to care about what they were going to watch, Ella picked up a pizza slice, flicked off the pieces of sausage, and took a big bite. It was very good, although in her state of hunger anything even remotely edible would taste gourmet.
Julian turned to her. “Did you see that Fifty Shades movie everyone was talking about?”
Mouth full of pizza, she shook her head.
“Do you want to watch it?”
Why was he suggesting such an awful movie? For sure he didn’t want to watch it. Did he think she would get aroused by it?
Finishing chewing, she shook her head again. “I read the book, and I didn’t like it.”
He arched a brow. “It was all the rage.”
“I know. That was why I picked it up. I’m not some literary snob. I liked the love story and the way it was told, but I didn’t like the premise.”
“The rich guy, poor girl thing? Or was it the dominant-submissive interplay?”
Julian seemed surprised, which was understandable after her intense reaction to his mild show of aggression from before. Apparently, though, he had only a vague idea about what went on in that book.
“The Cinderella trope is very common in romance, and it’s an overused one, but I have no problem with that if the story is good. And I also have no problem with the kind of games the guy in Fifty Shades liked to play. What bothered me about it, though, was that the girl wasn’t into pain, and she didn’t enjoy it. What’s sexy about that? To me, it seemed abusive.”
Shaking his head, he raked his fingers th
rough his hair. “I didn’t know that. The movie trailers were misleading.”
Ella picked up another slice. “Maybe they changed it in the movie and had her getting off on the abuse. But even if they did, I still wouldn’t want to watch that. Just not my cup of tea.”
There was a big difference between dominance and sadism, even a mild one like in that book. The first one aroused her. The second one repulsed her.
53
Julian
If Julian was confused before, he was more so now. He needed time to piece together the crumbs of information Ella had revealed here and there, and from that to forge a key to unlock her secrets.
That she was keeping them, he was sure of. It was in her eyes when she averted them while answering his questions with half-truths, and it was in the sad expression that usually followed.
Whatever she wasn’t telling him was eating her from the inside, and yet she was guarding it with fierce determination.
Scrolling through the selection, he chose a romantic comedy, something about a Valentine’s Day mishap.
“Is that good?”
Ella nodded with a mouth full of pizza.
Feeding her made him feel as if he’d done at least one thing right by her, and wasn’t that pathetic.
He was a twenty-six-year-old, well-educated guy who thought of himself as fairly intelligent and open-minded, and yet figuring out what made Ella tick was eluding him. Part of it was her great acting skill, and the other part was that he was predisposed to buying her badass, confident act because it was so much easier than digging deeper and discovering that she was suffering on the inside.
With a sigh, Julian clicked play and lifted his first slice, deciding to eat it slowly in case Ella was still hungry after finishing all three of hers. She hadn’t been kidding about being hungry and was already on her second one.
Or maybe he should just put another one in the oven. Yeah, that was a better plan.
“I’ll be right back. I want to heat up another pizza.”
She smiled up at him. “Good idea. Ray will have some when he comes back.”
A wave of jealousy washed over him. Why the hell was she concerned about fucking Ray?
Forcing a smile just until he turned around, Julian walked into the kitchen and pulled out a plain cheese pizza from the freezer.
Note to self. Stock up on meatless pizzas. And vegetables.
Back in the living room, he sat on the couch and lifted another slice. Pretending to watch the movie, he went over what he knew.
Up until today, Ella had responded to him with minimal excitement. The one time he’d momentarily lost control and had shown a little aggression, she’d lit up like a flare. But it hadn’t lasted long, and she’d frozen up on him.
If her problem had been a troubling flashback, then how come she’d gotten into it in the first place?
Shouldn’t any show of male aggression trigger her flight or fight response?
That had been the assumption he’d based his entire approach with her on, but apparently, he’d been completely off the mark.
Except, a girl who’d been forced into unwanted sex, who had her choices taken away from her, shouldn’t respond to dominance, not unless it was something she’d enjoyed or rather craved before her abduction. Ella hadn’t had any sexual experience prior to that, good or bad.
But evidently Ella had never been interested in those kinds of sex games. While every girl and her mother and grandmother had read the Fifty Shades book and enjoyed it, Ella hadn’t.
It wasn’t her thing.
Damn, he was so tired of guessing, tired of walking on eggshells, and tired of feeling like a martyr.
They had to have a frank talk, with Ella opening up and telling him what was going on with her. If she said she needed more time, he would wait patiently until she was ready. But he had to know where he stood.
Ella nudged his elbow. “Your pizza is ready.”
The beeping hadn’t registered because his mind had been somewhere else. “I’ll get it.” Julian rose to his feet.
Ella lifted her eyes to him. “Do you want me to pause the movie?”
“No. It’s fine. I wasn’t watching anyway.”
In the kitchen, he pulled out the pizza, put it on the cutting board and sliced the hell out of it, dividing it into twelve tiny triangles just because he needed to keep his hands busy.
When he brought it to the living room, Ella clicked the television off. “Do you want to watch a different movie? I admit that this one is quite silly even for a chick flick.”
“It’s okay. You can keep on watching. I’m just not in the mood.”
Ella put down the slice of pizza. “Is it because of me?”
His first instinct was to protect her fragile feelings and lie. But he was so done with that.
“You are confusing me, Ella.”
She nodded. “I’m confusing myself.”
As her despondent expression twisted his gut, he took her hand and entwined their fingers. “What’s holding you back? Are you still fearful? Does intimacy with me scare you?
Looking at their conjoined hands, she lifted them both to her lips and kissed his knuckles. “I’m not afraid of you, Julian. I never was.”
The sweet gesture melted his heart, but he was adamant about getting to the bottom of this and going soft would be counterproductive. “So, what’s the problem? Are you still getting flashbacks?”
“I do, but that’s not the problem. At least not all of it. I’m stuck.”
“What do you mean?”
She pulled her hand out of his and raked her fingers through her messy hair. “I’m stuck with the dream-walker. I need to pretend to like him, and I can’t be intimate with you while I’m doing it. I just can’t.”
Why the hell not? He didn’t like the idea of her playing nice with the Doomer, but it was unavoidable. And besides, it was only pretend.
Or maybe it wasn’t?
What kind of liking was she talking about? Was she having dream sex with that son of a bitch?
Even though it was going to kill him if she was, Julian had to know. At least the guesswork would be over. Unless he got a straight answer, he was going to torment himself by imagining what went on in those dreams, and that was much worse.
Except, he wanted Ella to fess up without having to force the admission out of her. Instead, he cast a bait. “Why not? Being with me doesn’t mean that you can’t smile at other guys. I wouldn't like it, but that’s my problem.”
54
Ella
“What if I have to do more than smile?” As soon as the words left her mouth, Ella’s heart had plummeted to somewhere deep in her gut.
Why the hell had she let it out, committing herself to reveal what should’ve remained hidden?
And if her guilt and fear weren’t enough, Julian’s expression added another ton of bricks to the heavy load in her gut. He looked as if she’d plunged a dagger in his heart and then twisted it.
If only she could go back in time and stop herself from opening her big mouth.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Define more.”
Cringing, she averted her eyes so she wouldn’t have to watch his anger flare up. “I had to kiss him.”
Surprising her, he let out a breath. “That’s all?”
Okay, maybe she was making a big deal out of nothing, torturing herself over something Julian considered insignificant. Perhaps his age and experience made him more tolerant. If Julian had told her that he kissed a girl in a dream, she would have been majorly pissed. Especially a dream that was not a fantasy but a real mind connection between two people.
“Isn’t it enough? You have no idea how guilty it made me feel.”
“Because of me?”
She nodded.
He clasped her hand. “I won’t lie to you. I’m jealous. But knowing that you have no choice and that you’re not enjoying it helps.”
God, this was hard.
Should
she tell him the truth?
To what end? She would be just hurting his feelings and souring their relationship.
Except, lying added another thick layer of sludge to her guilt, making her feel dirty and not worthy of someone as good and as pure as Julian.
He was so understanding, so mature about this, maybe he would be able to accept her misguided attraction to Logan too?
“The thing is…” She grimaced. “I would be lying if I said that he had to force me, or that I suffered terribly while doing it.”
As Julian’s face started turning red, she quickly added, “I was convinced that he was using compulsion on me, artificially making me feel attraction toward him and preventing me from feeling it toward anyone else.”
Julian’s eyes softened. “It might be true.”
Crap, she was doing it again. Hiding behind an excuse she now knew wasn’t true. “I wish it were,” she murmured under her breath. “That would have explained so much.” And transferred responsibility for her actions from her shoulders to Logan’s, effectively eradicating most of the guilt.
Unfortunately, she could no longer use that to ease her conscience.
“How do you know he is not compelling you to feel things for him?” Hope shining in his soft, blue eyes, Julian scooted closer to her. “If he could so easily compel your silence, I don’t see why he wouldn’t do this. Doomers are not known for their high moral standards.”
She should just let him believe that and shut up. It would save them both unnecessary heartache.
Except, Julian was a smart guy, and eventually he was going to realize the same thing she had less than an hour ago. If Logan’s compulsion had been blocking her from feeling attraction toward other men, then she wouldn’t have gotten so aroused by Julian’s show of assertiveness, or anything else for that matter.
And once Julian figured that out, he would think that she was a liar in addition to being damaged goods who lusted after the worst possible guy.
With a sigh, she pulled her hand away and slumped against the sofa’s plush pillows. “As I said, I wish it were true, but after reacting to you the way I did, I can no longer use this as an excuse. That’s what really freaked me out, not some disturbing flashback. Not this time, anyway. I realized that the only reason I haven’t been responding to you as strongly before was that apparently I’ve been craving intensity, while you’ve been walking on eggshells around me.”