Elias (GRIT Sector 1)

by Rebecca Sherwin

  I pulled away from him, throwing myself out of bed to pace the room.

  "Money is everything. Money is power. Money is the ability to build infrastructures that protect the people you claim we kill. Money brings fresh food into the city. Money ensures every person inside these walls have clean water and sanitation."

  "That would be a given if you took the fucking walls down."

  "We will!" He reared up on his knees and slammed his fists to the mattress. "You and me. We'll do it together. But don't, for one second, think we are the evil who started this. We made the only choice we could when we made it. We kept our family safe, we kept our country safe and we continue to do so. When the capital was drowning in poverty and risked going under, resorted to nothing but rubble and dust where a thriving city once stood, we came in and raised it back up. We can't save the entire country right now, but we can start with the place that has the ability to, one day."

  "I don't understand," I groaned, stabbing my fingers to my temples to ease the tension headache that slipped in unannounced.

  "It isn't about the money. I told you, it's glory. It's revenge. It's integrity. It's trust. Profit, fortune, riches...they don't come into it. They weren't Elizabeth's original plan and it isn't what controls the organisation." Elias reached for me, grabbing my elbow to pull me back to the edge of the bed. "You lived a 'normal' life for two years. You were away from the estate, you were penniless, you were struggling. Do you think we could do what we do without money?"

  I shook my head. "No."

  "You were given that life, the one many people live, so when you came into GRIT you weren't blinded by the pound signs that stole our grandfather's perspective. We're different, Trixie. Centuries of honesty and integrity grant us the power to do good. But we couldn't do it without money. Why do you think Elizabeth took control of the bank?"

  It did make sense. I hated to admit it, but it did. I didn't think we did things the right way, but in this world the lines were blurred. There was no simple road to doing the right thing.

  Elias pressed a kiss to the inside of my wrist, pulling me closer as his lips travelled up my arm and his free arm snaked around my waist to hold me to him. I couldn't fight it. I didn't want to. Elias held me with reverence, like I was the answer, the key to salvation.

  "How will we change things?" I asked, slipping my arm around him to cup his tense shoulder. "How will we fix it?"

  "We'll get the walls down. I told you I'd show the world and I want to do it without breaking out of the barricades."

  "But how? What's the answer?"

  "You have to take control."

  I shook my head. "This is too much for me. It's so much responsibility, it's too much pressure. Our ancestors wouldn't grant me the power to do this, I'm not blood."

  His hands slipped beneath my shirt and cupped my backside.

  "You are. It's you, your very existence, that lights the shadows in my dark soul. Your blood brings mine to life. It's that connection, that concoction, that force that will allow us to do this."

  "But how?"

  "We're going to intensify our efforts. We're going to revert to the old ways of apprehension and captivity. I can't promise you there won't be blood, I can't promise you we're always going to get it right, but I can promise you that together we'll take control of the city and we'll drag it out of the abyss. But we have to get out of the estate. Ambrose won't allow the change. He won't allow us to be free. He was trained by his father and he wants the money. He wants the power. He no longer cares about justice."

  "And Ruby?"

  "Ruby has given us her blessing. She gave it to us the day she told you the secret. We were made for each other. We're destined to do this."

  Trixie shivered as I pulled her closer, her body cold from the after effects of betrayal, colliding with mine, hot with hope and searing with amazement for how she dealt with this. Turning my head, I sought out one nipple beneath my shirt, feeling it pebble against my tongue as my teeth caught it. Trixie moaned, arching her back, her fingers flexing on my shoulder.

  "This isn't a play pad," I said, gliding my lips over to her other nipple, repeating the gentle stimulation. "It's our pad. It's our place."

  "Like a love nest?"

  "Yes." I slowly began unbuttoning the shirt, parting it to expose her to me and pushing it down her arms to the floor. "This is where we can be together with no barriers. Nothing can tear us apart here."

  "But you have to take me back to the dungeon."

  "Yes. I still have a role to play and so do you. That won't change. But neither will my feelings for you."

  "But I don't want to kill him."

  Even as she recoiled at the thought of murder, her body spoke to me. Her grip tightened, the vein in her neck pulsed with arousal; her legs closed and she pressed them together.

  "I've got you," I said, slipping a hand between her legs. "It's just a life. There's nothing left for him, but for us? There's a future. There's hope. There's love."

  I stroked her clit, felt it pulse against my fingertips as I eased another finger into her. She hummed breathlessly and bent to press her lips to mine. There was fire; there was so much fire it seared my bones and spiked my blood to an instant boil. I shifted, trying to ease the tightness in my pants, but Trixie read me like I did her. She lowered her hand to cover the hard mass. She stroked and coaxed; she encouraged and took control; she lost control of her body as she took mine. Freeing me, she took me in her hand and worked my cock in slow, firm strokes, rubbing her thumb over my crown and smearing precum down my shaft. I groaned and she swallowed the sound, slipping her tongue into my mouth to explore. Her kiss could have gotten me off. She had me in the palm of her hands and I would have walked to the ends of the earth to feel the love she bestowed upon me. I would have jumped into the fiery pits of hell to feel this pleasure forever.

  "Trixie," I murmured, slipping my finger out of her and guiding her onto my lap. I pressed my feet to the carpet, she set her knees on the bed either side of my legs. She fisted my cock and lowered herself onto it, enveloping me in wet heat and paralysing desire. "Trixie..."

  "Yes, Elias?"

  She dropped her head to my shoulder as she rode me, slowly up and down until my mind began to fizz with the need to take her harder. Fuck her deeper. Love her stronger. I cupped her face and forced her head up. Her eyes met mine and I fell for her all over again. She really was made for me. Everything about her was perfection against my flaws, softness against my aggression, purity against my evil.

  "Marry me."

  She stilled. My cock throbbed inside her. Her walls pulsed around me. Her lips parted, her eyes glassed over; her body trembled as it built to a gentle crescendo. Holding her tightly I rolled us over, slid her up the bed and settled between her legs.

  "What?"

  "Marry me."

  I eased out of her and drove back in, catching her breath.

  "Marry me, Trixie."

  I rolled my hips, catching the spongy spot inside her that made her cry out and shudder beneath me.

  "Be my wife." I kissed her neck. I kissed her collar bone. I kissed her shoulder and bit her clammy skin. "Marry me."

  I wouldn't let her say anything. I wouldn't let her give me her answer until I'd asked her a hundred times and demanded her answer as she came around me. She gripped my back, pulled me closer and her heels dug into my ass to keep me connected to her. To keep us joined. The way we should have been forever.

  "Marry me." I thrust into her again. She drew me deeper and began to quiver. "Marry me, Trixie."

  My voice sounded different. It was thick with the gruff of the pleasure she drowned me in. It was heavy with emotion when I thought about being tied to her forever, history be damned. It was hoarse with the fear that she'd say no, that she'd reject me. That she'd become Tallulah. Or her mother.

  "Marry me," I said one final time as Trixie detonated around me.

  I continued driving into her. I continued allowing her to own me. I ga
ve her more of me with every thrust, until she had everything, her body drawing my release to the surface, her heart and soul making it earth-shattering and more intense than anything I'd ever felt.

  "I'll marry you, Elias," she whispered as I pulled out and tugged on my cock. "I'll marry you."

  With a final growl of relief and release, I refrained from throwing my head back and squeezing my eyes shut, focusing on her instead as I let myself go.

  Marry me.

  Marry him.

  Marry me.

  Marry him.

  I couldn't focus on what he'd asked, what I'd really agreed to, with him buried inside me and, finally, releasing himself onto me. My head was fuzzy and spinning, the confusion of Elias' latest confession mixed with the heady intoxication of his orchestration of my body, and I was tired. So tired. I was in shock, trembling from the aftermath of Elias' lovemaking and stunned by what he'd asked me. The final drops of his cum splashed onto my chest and he fell onto his stomach next to me. His back glistened with the sweat in the moonlight and the muted sounds of his heavy breathing cut the harsh atmosphere. We lay still, unspeaking, as the reality of what had happened washed over us. The air felt tense and I wondered if he regretted what he'd asked. I wondered if I'd given him the wrong answer—if he'd been playing me and I'd fallen into a trap. I wondered if he didn't believe my answer...I wasn't even sure I did.

  "Hey," I said, rolling onto my side to rest my forearm on his back and kiss his shoulder. "Did you mean that or were you lost in the moment?"

  "What?"

  I laughed at his muffled voice and imagined my lion as a sulking, hormonal teenager. I imagined he was a hurricane and I was secretly glad we'd been kept apart. I would have hated him because I would have loved him from the moment I laid eyes on him, when the world wasn't ours to love in.

  "Did you mean it? Was it a serious question?"

  He shrugged, his face buried in the pillow, his breathing slowly returning to normal as the breeze made his sweaty skin cool and sticky.

  "Ask me again."

  "Baby, I already asked you. You already said yes." He hooked his arm around my neck and pulled me to lay beside him. "Time to sleep."

  "I want you to ask me again. I want to know you meant it."

  Elias yawned, but shifted to snuggle me into his side with his fingers stroking my arm, his nose nuzzling my hair.

  "Of course I meant it. Just maybe not like that."

  “Like what? What do you mean?”

  “I mean that wasn’t how I’d imagined it. You deserve better than that.”

  "You know, it was kind of perfect. You asked me to marry you when we were as close as we could possibly get. You asked me when the two of us were one. You asked me without barriers, secrets or multiple personalities. I think it was the perfect way to ask me."

  "So you meant it when you said yes?"

  "I did. We were made for each other, right?"

  Elias nodded and pulled me closer.

  "We were. And right now, we were made for sleep. Close those pretty eyes, Ashford. It's back to business tomorrow."

  "Business?"

  "Shh..."

  Elias was already dropping off to sleep as he tightened his arm around me and hooked his leg over mine.

  What had just happened? One minute I'd been spending the day in the sun with William, then an attack followed where I thought the underground were finally going to get me...then I found out Elias was the underground...and I'd agreed to marry a criminal. The man I loved more than anything in this world. A man I knew very little about. A man who shouldn't be trusted. A man whose power shouldn't be taken lightly. A man who hadn't told me everything, hadn't filled me in and I would soon find out that his betrayal hurt more than finding out I was raised by criminals.

  With a smile on my face and oblivious ignorance carrying me on the cloud of love and happiness, I closed my eyes and slept next to my soon-to-be king.

  The sun was high in the sky when I woke, with a heavy body and a light heart. Elias had asked me to marry him, and I'd agreed. He'd taken my body to obliterating heights, the way he always did when he was in control, and he'd succeeded in helping me place more of the puzzle pieces, simultaneously making me hate the people who had adopted me, while thanking them for creating him.

  I slipped out of bed and wrapped myself in the bed sheet as I padded across the room and out into the day room. Elias was in the kitchen, the vast open space showcasing him like a dark domestic knight. He was in clean boxers and standing over the grill frying bacon.

  "I'm surprised you know how to turn the stove on," I joked as I slipped my arms around him and kissed his back.

  "I've lived as independently as you have, Ashford. I know my way around the kitchen."

  He lifted my hands to his lips before placing it back on his stomach. I remembered. The transition.

  "I can see that. So tell me more about the transition, lion. We met in July, right?"

  "We did."

  "So what did you do in those seven months before that?"

  "I don't think that's a conversation that should be had over breakfast." He turned out of my hold to place the rashers of bacon onto buttered slices of bread. "Can you make the coffee."

  When he tipped his head back to direct me to the coffee machine, I did as I was told. I didn't ask how he wanted it; I refused to be a maid, entertaining the idea that his previous conquests had been at his neck and call. I made it how I drank it; with sweetener and cream. He didn't complain when I joined him at the table...and he didn't complain when I dropped the sheet and dined with him naked.

  "You know," Elias said when we'd eaten and loaded the dishwasher. "As much as I'd like to see you walk around naked all day, we have to get back."

  I sighed, the small part of me that had hoped we'd be able to stay here forever, died like the fading ache that proved Elias had been mine last night. Part of that man was gone, replaced with the leader of GRIT. I missed him, but I'd agreed to marry this man. I'd promised to love all of him, and I wouldn't break that promise.

  "Shower with me?" I asked, taking his hand and linking our fingers together.

  He didn't think of an excuse not to; he didn't offer a reason to refuse. He let me lead him to the bathroom and he climbed in the shower with me without hesitation. He washed me with love and respect, so unlike the way he'd warmed me up with an aggressive touch the night we met. He didn't touch me like I wanted him to; he didn't harden at the sight of my body, and he kept his eyes on mine while he washed me, until he turned me around and lathered shampoo into my hair.

  We dressed in silence, on opposite sides of the bed, after he'd handed me a fresh dress. I didn't think too much about where it had come from, only that I would change into my clothes once we returned to the estate.

  "You've never asked about my mother," Elias said on the journey back home, with my hand held tightly in his.

  Percy was tight-lipped in the driver’s seat. I wanted to ask him about last night but both he and Elias seemed unfazed by what had transpired, so I kept away from the subject.

  "We haven't really had much time to talk about it. I figured you'd tell me when you were ready."

  "She died giving birth to me. I'm sure Ambrose planned on birthing many children, in case I failed, but she lost too much blood and didn't make it out of the delivery room."

  "I'm sorry," I said, kissing the back of his hand. "I'm sorry you never knew her."

  "I've heard about her. She was an incredible woman, a painter. She would have liked you." He smiled softly at me. It was a sight I'd never grow tired of seeing. "You look like her."

  "That's a compliment, right?" I felt the blush rise to my cheeks.

  "It is. She had dark hair like you, and dazzling eyes."

  "I would have liked to meet her. I don't think you get your compassion from your father."

  "He's just stuck in the ways of his father. And maybe I don't have as much compassion as you think."

  I nodded confidently. "You d
o."

  Elias shrugged, growing uncomfortable. How could he know what he'd inherited from a woman he'd never met? We weren't so different. We were both confused about where we came from and what it really meant.

  "I need to call the family for a meeting when we get home."

  Cupping my face with his free hand, Elias leaned over and captured my lips for a soft, searing kiss. I refused to feel bad about him leaving. I knew it was a life I'd have to get used to.

  "You can't!" My father shot to his feet, slamming his fists to the table. "This is absurd!"

  "Calm yourself, Father. I don't need your blessing."

  "No, but you need mine," Richard said, drawing all eyes to focus on him.

  "Has Trixie agreed to stand with you?" Ruby asked, placing her hand over mine and turning to my father. "Sit down, Ambrose. You're making the place look untidy."

  He took his seat, glaring at me across the table as Ruby turned and waited for my answer.

  "She has agreed to be my wife. I'm marrying her out of love, Grandma. We're still working on the rest, but she believes in us. She believes in what we stand for." I cleared my throat, ignoring the stares from all four previous leaders of GRIT Sectors. "She'll come around, she will, but this...this is because we love each other."

  "You cannot marry a woman out of love," my father said. "You cannot marry Trixie because she gets you off and tickles your fancy right now. She's weak, she doesn't have the capacity to do this and once you've married her, that's it. GRIT cannot be run by a Blackwood mistress."

  "I will have no such thing," I spat across the table to the man whose training had brought us here. "I'm with Trixie for life. There will be no one else."

  "Your father is right, dear. What if she can't do this?"

  "Then we're screwed anyway, aren't we?" I said it, but everyone else thought it. "Trixie is the key. If she doesn't come around, we'll crumble. But at least we'll have each other."