“Where are we going?” I asked again as he pulled me into another room, an office, and slowed down. Then he stopped.
“Sit.”
He swung me out in front of him. My legs continued moving long after he’d released his hold on me and I crashed onto the desk, sending a pot of pens to the floor and slipping on sheets of paper when I tried to support myself on the polished wood.
“I’m sitting. Why are we here?” My heart hammered in my chest and I took a deep breath. I was afraid. So afraid. The instincts I’d had the first night I met him returned and told me I was stupid for stoking the flames of his unpredictable fire. I shouldn’t have been alone with him, but as he turned and locked the door, shrouding us in darkness, I knew I wouldn’t be getting out until I had my teacher’s permission.
“This is as far as I got before I changed my mind.”
“Again?”
“Again.”
“So there’s more. There’s somewhere beyond this office. Whose office is it?”
“I’m in charge of your education and I don’t want to be.” He flicked a lighter, introducing a bright orange glow into the room as he rounded it, lighting candelabras and leaving me waiting for him to continue. “Not because I don’t like you or because you’re beneath me. But because you…” he trailed off and cleared his throat. “You’re my cousin, you’re a lady and the life we lead is no life for a lady.”
“Then give me the choice. At least give me the information I need in order to believe you.”
He shook his head, placing the lighter back into his pocket before he removed his jacket and placed it on the back of the chaise lounge in the corner.
“It doesn’t work like that. Trixie, there are six-hundred years of lessons to give you. I have to decide what you need to know and in which order you need to be taught. You have to be patient. You have to give me time to figure this out.”
“What am I supposed to do in the meantime?”
Elias looked at me from across the room, his eyes sliding to my feet pressed firmly to the carpet in case I needed to call on my adrenaline and chose the flight option. He licked his lips as his eyes rose softly up my calves to my thighs, over my hips, my waist, my breasts, lingering on my neck before his eyes met mine again. They were dark, almost black like they had been in the forest before he’d kissed me. He’d been thinking about it then, and he was thinking about it now.
“Just enjoy being an Ashford.”
“So I can go back to work?” He shook his head. “Can I at least go home?”
“No. Your survival is now essential and you’ll remain here until otherwise instructed.”
“My survival is essential now? So it wasn’t before?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
He dragged his hand through his hair, his usually rigid movements a lot more relaxed, like he was a different person. His shoulders had a slight hunch to them, he had a shadow of stubble on his jaw as the flicker of the candles danced over his features, and his eyes appeared like giant sparkling onyxes that had been beneath the sun for too long. He looked tired.
“So what did you mean?”
He looked at me again, his eyes taking a quick sweep of my body, and then another. He couldn’t help it. He wasn’t aware he was watching the way I breathed, the way I moved, the way I held myself as I leaned against the desk. It was subconscious, which meant it was real. This was something he hadn’t been trained to deal with—attraction. Want. Desire. He hadn’t felt those things before, which was why he was shutting me out. Elias had been taught to read and adapt to any situation, any human emotions he encountered, but he hadn’t been taught about desire. How could he have? How could you train someone to reject something that was as innate as breathing? Ruby could have taught him to control it. She could have given him the tools he needed to reject his base needs and primal urges, but she hadn’t. Had she intentionally given me a way in?
I licked my lips and stroked the edge of the desk, extending my arms so my back arched. Elias watched; he was lost. It was the most natural I’d seen him since I met him…because he knew we weren’t being watched. There were no windows in here, no corners or crevices to hide the watchful eye of an expectant family member. It was just Elias and me, and it felt…it felt right.
He took a step closer, taking a deep breath to inhale my scent, like a lion would as it stalked its prey. Elias was my lion; hard, rough and fast. Unrelenting. King of the Capital. But there was a softness to him, crying to be uncovered. He took another step, his heel touching the floor before he toes followed, slowly, hesitantly, but still he couldn’t control it. He hadn’t answered my question, but I didn’t care. His actions said more than his words ever could and I trusted him. Beyond the deception and secrets, his hostility and the mind fuck of the last two days that had given me whiplash, I trusted him. I no longer felt in danger; I was no longer worried he would attack. I just wanted him to take another step, and another, until I could reach out and touch him.
“Trixie.”
“Elias.”
There was no command this time. There was no frustration or exasperation. There was only desire and it poured from him in waves as he took another step. His utterance of my name was a cry for help. He was asking me to say no, to stop him from doing this, but I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. I didn’t want to. For the first time in my life I felt alive, and I knew that was because of the man standing in front of me, who could so easily take it all away. Elias stopped in front of me, the toes of his patent Oxfords touching the tips of my pink ballet pumps. Just that tiny little action displayed exactly what I knew we were. The mighty and the powerless. The dark and the light. The immoral and the innocent. The wise and the young. The comparisons were endless, the symbolism infinite and the warning explicit, but I didn’t care. When his hands slid to my waist and stroked in gentle up and down movements, I didn’t care about whatever our shoes were telling us. Placing his hand beneath my chin, Elias’ gentle fingers tipped my head back so I had no choice but to look into his eyes.
He changed all the rules. He was so close I could taste the peppermint, alcohol and tobacco-infused carbon dioxide he exhaled…it captured me. Like I had rough and punishing rope threaded around my body, I was bound to Elias. I had no choice over that. Just the thought of his lips on me, his breath travelling over all the curves and valleys of my body, was warm and intoxicating and beyond immoral. It was wrong. Forbidden. So why did it feel so right? Beneath his penetrating gaze, trapped on the outside of his cold exterior and desperate to find a way in to the warmth I knew he held deep inside, I felt like I belonged. For the first time I felt like I had a home, and it was under threat. I felt like somehow the forbidden could save us both.
I just had no idea what we needed saving from.
She was the piece I’d been missing. She was the final piece of the puzzle that confirmed I had lost it. I had lost possession of my control and, ultimately, my kingdom would fall. I knew that, and I knew I would have to sell my soul to save it, but right now I didn’t care. The outside world meant nothing here. No one could threaten to kill us; no one could ban us from feeling this, and no one could tell us it was wrong. No one could apply the pressure and swaddle us in velvet and gold to persuade us to sever this connection.
It was just us. Just Trixie Ashford and Elias Blackwood. Right now we were just two people trapped in a bubble of want, tangled in a rope of desire that tethered us together and refused to let go. I wanted to knot it into place. I wanted to disappear here forever. For the first time in my life, I wanted to walk away from my destiny. I wanted to break free of the barricades of the city, run away and never return. Happy ever afters existed…there was just no hope for us.
There was no hope.
I wanted him so badly. I wanted him desperately and I had never sacrificed my need for independence before, hoping for a man who would keep me safe and warm. I’d never believed people could be selfless enough to love someone so completely all obstructions fell away and a
ll walls crumbled because they knew they couldn’t win.
Elias drifted away from me, I could feel it. As his arms fell to his sides and he took the first step back, I reached out to grip his shirt. I needed him to stay with me. I needed him to let me in.
“Don’t touch me,” he said, smacking my hands away.
I winced, rubbing at the sharp sting as my eyes filled with tears and the heavy anchor of rejection fell and threatened to sink me.
“Elias.”
“Stop talking.” He raised his hand and closed his eyes. He’d shut me out again. I couldn’t understand what I’d done.
“But I thought…”
“You thought wrong.”
I bowed my head and gripped the edge of the desk, hoping for the support I thought I could lean on Elias for. I thought he was letting me in. I thought he was finally giving in to what Ruby called the inevitable. I thought I was able to get through the defences she’d built for him, but what I’d actually done was make myself look like a fool. He hadn’t faked his reaction to me—he’d just let his head get in the way and separate us.
I stood up and took a step closer to him.
“Don’t.”
He growled. It was both arousing and terrifying, watching his brow furrow to hood his dark eyes, his head dip in warning, and the vibrating animalistic sound rumble through him and warn me against everything he stood for.
“What did I do?” I shook my head. “Nothing, I did nothing. I don’t need your reassurance. What happened to your head? Where did it go that took you away from me?”
“You never had me.”
“Yes I did.”
I knew I was asking for more punishment. I knew I was asking my heavy heart to take more pain when I already felt the ache overwhelming me.
“We don’t fuck the women we respect, Trixie.”
I gasped. His first expletive. It was the first time he’d sworn in front of me and it made me shiver; it made my knees buckle and force me back to the desk, and it set my heart racing as a deep warmth settled and made me lick my lips.
“What?”
“You heard what I said.”
“Why? Isn’t that kind of the point?”
“That I’ll fuck you because I respect you?”
He’d said it again. Why did that one word catch me off guard? Why did it give me chills and boil my blood simultaneously? There was something so incredibly arousing about a gentleman—a man who stood tall and proud, who had morals and beliefs and respected women beyond what we often deserved—using a word that made me think of filthy deviant acts I hadn’t entertained the idea of until he’d said that one damn word.
I nodded.
He laughed, like he did first time he’d called me stupid and succeeded in hurting me. It hurt now, because I knew he thought I was stupid, even if he resisted the urge to throw the word at me.
“No, we don’t fuck the women we respect, Trixie, and you’ve been raised better than to open your legs to the first man who makes your heart race.” He did make my heart race, but I knew I’d had the same effect on him. A quick glance down confirmed the fact. He wasn’t disgusted by me—quite the opposite—and yet he was denying us what we both wanted based on what? “You’ve got two choices. You keep looking at me with those big lustful eyes, begging for me to strip you bare and take you across this desk. Or you shut the fuck up, turn the fuck around and get out of this office while you can, demanding the respect your name deserves.”
I felt my bottom lip tremble as tears surged to my eyes to blur my vision and drip onto my cheek. Now he’d made me feel easy, when all I’d done was act on something I thought we both wanted. He’d made me feel cheap and unworthy of the respect he told me to take from him. I couldn’t do that. I didn’t feel like I deserved the name, and definitely not the respect that came with it. I pushed off the desk gently, pulled my cardigan tight around me and walked away from Elias. I could hear him grunting on every exhale as I crossed the room. Whatever he’d just done, it’d had a powerful physical effect on him, but I would have taken that over the psychological and emotional battering I’d just taken at his sharp words. I didn’t close the door behind me when I left the office and walked mindlessly out into the hallway. I could feel him watching me, but he didn’t come after me. I didn’t want him to and I hadn’t expected him to, although a part of me wished he had. Grabbing the blanket off the floor of the terrace when I stepped back out onto it, I wrapped it around me and went in search of my brother. I wanted to run, and he’d asked me not to. With every minute I spent with Elias, it became harder to believe we weren’t bad people. It became impossible to believe we weren’t monsters, because I’d just been seduced and rejected by one, and he controlled more people than I even knew existed.
I knew where Trace would be. He’d built a house a few years ago. It was a simple one, just across the field to Ashford House. He’d built it as a place to escape, a place to hold some modernisation instead of constant tradition the estate demanded. He had flat screen TVs, pool tables, games consoles, and a bar the length of the ground floor complete with flashing neon lights and pole I’d never seen occupied—thankfully.
I knocked on the door and he opened it almost immediately.
“Did he tell you I was coming?”
Trace nodded, a regretful expression on his prematurely aging face, and pushed the door open for me to enter.
“I don’t like how close you are with him. I thought you were on my side.”
“Let’s pretend I’m Switzerland. Elias and I are close, but you and I are close. You’re my sister and that comes with a loyalty in its own league.”
“Do you have any idea how embarrassing this is?” I asked, passing him to slump onto the sofa. “He’s an arse for warning you. For telling you what happened. I want to go back and erase time and he’s discussing it with my fucking brother.”
“Language.”
“Give me a break.”
Trace handed me a bottle of beer and sat on the sofa next to me, swinging his beer between his legs as he chewed his bottom lip and prepared to diffuse a situation I just wanted to let erupt. He looked relaxed here; he was wearing sweats instead of his all-black suit; his hair was a mess, he had a few days of stubble on his jaw and he looked years younger than he had when I saw him yesterday.
“It isn’t exactly a treat for me to hear about it either. Elias and I are paired, much like you and he are. There are things we can only talk to each other about, certain rules that have to be abided by and, honestly…he was pretty cut up that he’d hurt you.”
“No he wasn’t.” I felt the tears threatening again and my throat felt tight as I continued. “He tries to hurt me and then locates a little remorse afterwards. That’s not how it works and I don’t deserve that. He dragged me through the house, he took me to the office, he threw me onto the desk and he spouted the shit that charmed me into submission just so he could burn me.”
“He took you to the office?”
I stared at Trace and blinked once. Elias had told him his own version of what happened and I was in the dark again. Why was me being in an office a bigger deal than what Elias had done?
I threw my hands in the air and pushed the tears back, just for a little while longer. “I can't do this. I’m going to bed.”
I stood from the sofa, placed the bottle on the table and headed up the stairs to one of the three spare rooms in Trace’s private little home. He got some privacy. I got none. I couldn’t even process what had happened before the entire family knew about it, with a distorted story from the man I couldn’t escape from, and I couldn’t even talk to my big brother because of his loyalty to the king.
I couldn’t take any more.
I needed to get out.
I fell onto the bed and cried myself to sleep looking at the full moon outside.
I was getting this all wrong. I’d never done this before, dealt with a woman who spoke out of place because she could. I’d never had to worry about anyone but myself and
the job I’d been raised to carry out. I hadn’t meant to hurt her—it was why I’d called Trace. Because I knew she would turn to her brother for comfort and I knew he would be able to support her the way she needed. He did it for a living. I hadn’t tried to hurt her; I’d tried to protect myself and in the process, I’d shed an Ashford tear. I should have bottled each and every one and handed them to Ambrose to drown me with. It was another sin I’d have to seek penance for. When I’d hung up the call to Trace I left the office, reminding myself how close I’d come to giving Trixie a truth in a way she didn’t deserve. I’d have to do something. I had to give her something and I couldn’t keep stalling. Ruby would be angry, Richard’s resentment towards me would only escalate, and my father would be disappointed in me after everything I’d done to make him proud. I would stay in Ashford House tonight. I would suffer a sleepless night, the heavy ache of watchful ghosts trying to lead me in conflicting directions—all of them right, just in the wrong way. I would suffer the pain I’d put Trixie through and I would try to fix us both when the sun rose and a new day began.
A knock on the bedroom door stirred me from sleep and I turned, opening my eyes to see the sun bursting through the gap in the curtains. I got out of bed, padded to the door, and opened it to see Trace, beaming with his usual charisma and brandishing a weighted vest.
“Want to sweat it out?” he asked.
I wondered for a minute why I was here and not at home, in the breakfast room after a gym session and shower, watching Lola plate up my breakfast. And then I remembered Trixie.
“She’s fine,” Trace answered my unasked question and shook the vest. “It’ll do you good.”
I sighed and nodded, turning to pull on some clothes while he waited, swinging the vest from his index finger. When I’d pulled on some shorts, a t-shirt and some running shoes, I grabbed the vest, and we headed down the stairs together.
We’d been running partners when we were at Sandhurst. It was another family tradition and, much to everyone’s surprise, Trace and I got on well; we bonded over hours of running and performing gruelling navigation and now, with partnership and joint-reign an impending possibility, we’d become friends.
Elias (GRIT Sector 1) Page 12