Pim was wearing on my self-control. In the elevator down here, I’d pressed myself against the glass wall and pretended I wore a straitjacket to prevent reaching for her. In the short walk across the lobby, I’d resisted the urge to bite my knuckles every time I glanced at her perfect ass.
If she broke my remaining restraint, then at least I had a room to vanish into before the world saw me snap.
I made the mistake of looking at Pim’s hips again as she moved in front of me, climbing seductively onto a velvet flocked bar-stool. I was so used to seeing her barefoot or in flat sandals, I hadn’t taken into consideration just how fucking sexy she’d be when wearing heels. How her natural step would switch from temptation to pure fucking addiction.
“What can I get you?” the bartender asked, his hair shaved on the sides and crew cut on top. His uniform matched the rest of the hoteliers with its sleek navy waistcoat and deep blue embroidery.
The colours reminded me of the ocean and how much I missed being on it. If I was on the Phantom, I would strip off my suit and dive into the cool waves. I wouldn’t come up for air until I’d suffocated every piece that had no willpower left when it came to Pim.
Gritting my teeth against the urge to count the stitches on his lapel or shove away an extra bowl of nuts on the bar because the numbers were even rather than odd, I waited for my date to order.
However, she glanced at me instead. The heavy weight of silence settled over her. Her eyes pinched with apology and worry—hinting she was used to talking to me but wasn’t ready for this—wasn’t ready for eager bartenders, five-star hotel escapades, and upcoming sexual encounters.
She was strong. Yet I kept forgetting how terrible her life had been, how much she had to overcome just to sit here with me and not sob into a martini.
Accepting her need not to speak to strangers and understanding her crutch because I had my own, I ordered for her. “She’ll have a tequila sunrise.”
Her lips parted.
I didn’t know if it was in approval or denial, but I added, “Make that two.”
“Right away, sir.” The bartender turned to create our drinks while Pim’s eyes remained locked on mine.
“What?”
She shrugged, taking a napkin from the bar and curling the edges. “Nothing.”
“It’s not nothing.”
“I just—”
I reached out, stilling her hands on the napkin. “Just what?” Her skin blazed beneath mine, electric and intoxicating. Touching her made me want to touch more and more and fucking more. I wanted to stroke, lick, and adore every inch. The itchy, overwhelming need crackled in my blood, begging me to let go and just give in.
To forget this sham of a dinner and go back where prying eyes wouldn’t judge. To layer Pim with warnings about how close I was to snapping and make this her fault when I finally broke.
But I didn’t.
I wouldn’t.
Letting her go, I nodded in thanks as two glasses of orange juice, tequila, and grenadine were placed in front of us. “You can use silence on others, Pim, but not on me.”
She sipped her drink, wincing at the potent taste of alcohol while avoiding my question. Giving her a few moments, I drank my own. The tartness of citrus didn’t help my on-edge mood.
A soft whisper beside me. “You don’t drink.”
I stilled, placing the glass back onto the bar, and turned to face her. “How do you know I don’t drink?”
She glanced at me shyly. “At Alrik’s…you refused the drinks he offered.”
She’d noticed that? Huh. What else did she notice? “That’s because I refuse to endure social niceties with a jackass.”
Her shoulders tensed, her mind going where I didn’t want it to go.
Touching the delicate skin of her wrist, I murmured, “A dead jackass. He can’t hurt you anymore.”
She gave me a sharp smile, changing subjects. “You don’t drink on the Phantom.”
“Because I have a better alternative.”
“Weed?”
“That and other things.”
“Your cello.”
“Yes.”
Her eyes lit up, narrowing in calculation. “You told me that first night that you have many laws ruling your life.” She sat straighter as if she’d been building up to asking me this. “What are they?”
I sighed, taking another gulp of my drink.
The tequila didn’t sit well, but I took another gulp anyway.
This was my fault. I’d answered her previous questions, which gave her the illusion that I’d answer more. I’d told her about my family. She’d witnessed how much my own mother hated me. She already knew countless things about me. So much more than I knew about her.
Our understanding of one another was lopsided.
It couldn’t be allowed to continue.
Pushing my drink away, I crossed my arms. “No more.”
“No more?” She tilted her head. “No more what?”
“Answers.”
“But—”
“No more until you answer some of mine.”
She eyed me, worry creeping over her features. “Answers to what?”
“To everything.”
I had an encyclopaedia of things I wanted to know; questions I was desperate to ask. But first, she had to understand that just because I chose to be a gentleman and not enforce our prior agreement, she still had to pay me in other ways, not just her secrets.
The bartender had left his post to talk to an elderly woman by the window. Behind the counter in regimented racks and blue lit displays were oxidised black metal spoons, pressed napkins, and cocktail stirrers emblazoned with the hotel emblem.
Hotel property but with no value attached. Things guests used and pinched without a second thought.
Let’s see what Pim does…
I smiled. “Before we talk, you’re going to do something for me.”
“I am?”
“You are.” Pointing at the display with my chin, I said, “Steal me a spoon.”
Her eyebrows shot up, highlighting how flawless her skin was, how she didn’t need makeup to make her green eyes pop or hours with a hairdresser to ensure her hair tempted me constantly. “Excuse me?”
“Remember our agreement? You’d steal things for me?”
“I remember you saying such things. But I don’t ever remember agreeing to them.”
I smiled. “Oh, you agreed to them by indulging me. Besides, did you think your silence prevented your eyes from answering me? You’re forgetting I can read you, Pim, just like I’m guessing you can read me.”
She pursed her lips, neither confirming nor denying my belief that she was a master at understanding body language.
“Besides, you’ve already stolen a few things on my behalf. That makes you a thief.” I leaned closer, keeping this conversation strictly between us and not the diamond glittery gentry around us. “And a thief needs practice.”
The scent of her skin shot up my nose, grabbing me around the cock. I swallowed my groan as she shifted closer, her neck lengthening into a swan curve, begging me to bite.
“I have that one hundred dollar bill you turned into a house. Can I give you that?” Her voice wavered, soft with mirroring desire. “Surely, that’s worth more than a stupid spoon.”
My heart raced as she shifted closer.
Her knee against my knee.
Her body heat against my body heat.
I forced myself to stay still even though my vision turned hazy and all I could focus on was her. Her smell. Her voice. Her temptation.
“I don’t want money. I have plenty of money.”
She inhaled sharply, a slight shudder working down her spine. “What do you want then?”
Fuck, that was a loaded question.
And one without a simple answer.
“If I told you what I truly wanted, you’d run out of this place so fast I wouldn’t be able to catch you.”
She pulled back, eyes locking onto eyes
. She licked her lips, and I fought every fucking instinct to kiss her. I knew she’d taste of tequila and orange juice. I knew she’d be warm. I knew she’d kiss me back.
Christ, this is harder than I thought.
Straightening, I swiped my drink and finished it in two long pulls. “What I want, Pim, is for you to steal me a spoon.”
She shuddered as the heat between us sputtered out thanks to my avoidance of everything we danced around. “A spoon?”
I rubbed my mouth with the back of my hand, enjoying this game because it put me back in power while stripping her of hers. “Yes. Specifically, a black spoon from behind the bar.”
“But you have countless spoons on the Phantom.”
“That’s not the point.”
“What is the point?” Her growing belligerence made me hide a smirk that she felt secure enough to show attitude and annoyed because it made me even harder for her.
I lowered my voice to a rumble. “To make you obey me.”
She swallowed, staring long and hard.
Time stood still.
The hotel faded, shimmering with lust and rapidly straining boundaries of date etiquette. Who the hell cared about dinner and conversation when just the idea of spreading her over the bar, barking at everyone to leave, and taking her right here, right now almost made me come?
That fantasy was too good, too real.
I rearranged my rapidly hardening cock as she finally dropped her eyes and slid off the bar-stool. Her tension said she didn’t approve. Her cocked eyebrow said she’d obey…with vexation.
“Just one?” Her tone reeked with sarcasm. “Are you sure that’s enough?”
I let her surly remark go without reprimand. “Just one.”
She didn’t say another word as she huffed then moved around the bar, keeping an eye on the attendant who continued to speak to his elderly customer.
She moved like the ocean I loved. Like a river tumbling over pebbles, cashmere and velvet, never splashing, never breaking, journeying somewhere new.
The fact she did what I asked, all while her fire never extinguished fucking ruined me.
How had she been kept as a possession for all those years and never broken? How could she be treated so terribly but never allowed them to ruin her? Did no one else see what I did? See the empress in mortal form? See the warrior so much braver than anyone?
Fuck, if she moved and spoke and put me in my place so quickly after captivity, what would she be like a month from now? A year from now? I’d be the one on my knees begging for any attention she’d bestow.
Not dallying, Pim strode past glittering glasses and expensive bottles of liquor to the object of her theft. With swift fingers, she plucked a long-stemmed black spoon from the rack holding its brothers and sisters, and without shyness or fear, turned to face me.
The lights designed to entice patrons to buy bourbon or brandy from their richly decorated decanters dazzled over her face. She looked as if the stars had fallen from the sky and found a new home upon her skin.
Trapping me in her hot stare, she smiled once then inserted the utensil down her cleavage.
I gulped.
My legs tightened.
My body hardened.
My heart went a mile a minute.
This girl was too dangerous.
This girl was hell itself.
Swiftly, but with every authority, she walked back toward me just in time for the maître d to announce our table was ready.
Chapter Twenty-Two
______________________________
Pim
THE SPOON HAD long since switched from cold metal to warm friend.
It nestled between my breasts like an emblem of who Elder was turning me into.
I’d stolen for him.
I’d headed from the bar with something that wasn’t mine and sat at a table with no guilt.
Sure, the hotel had thousands of spoons—and most would go missing over time or be thrown away from overuse—but I’d taken it without requesting, and I would keep it with no shame this time.
Unlike the photo frame, I didn’t itch with the need to return it. I relished in its weight inside my bra. Somehow, it became a talisman of power. I sat taller. I breathed deeper. I became alive with its magic wedged against my breasts.
The breasts I used to hate as they made men beat me.
The breasts I used to despise because it made me female when I wanted to be nothing. I wanted to be no one with no physical form, no pain, no blood or body to hurt.
But now…sitting with that spoon kissing my skin and Elder sizzling with everything he bottled up, I unlocked another part of me.
A part that was finally grateful to be a woman. Thankful I hadn’t given into death’s delightful siren and had survived. Life was better. Life was mine to steal and manipulate and decide.
I wanted to hug myself with how exciting the world suddenly seemed. How many opportunities and missed experiences I had to compensate for. I wanted to steal another spoon. And another. And another. I wanted forks and knives and vases and figurines. I wanted to take and take—to take back what was stolen from me.
Elder didn’t speak as we sat facing each other over an intimate table swathed in shadow and cloaked in privacy. A single candle flickered on the navy table cloth. A white rose beside it almost as perfect as the origami dollar ones Elder had perfected.
The air was heavy with everything we didn’t say.
He knew something had happened to me.
And I knew he battled far more than he let on.
We read each other—holding entire conversations in nuances and flickering eyelashes, building our own decisions and theories without asking for the truth from the other.
“Hello, I’ll be your waiter for tonight.”
I flinched in surprise as an unwanted interloper ruined the heightened atmosphere between Elder and me.
Elder tore his eyes from mine, smiling curtly at the stylish young man with a white cloth over his arm and crisp notepad and pen.
The waiter tipped his head. “Are you ready to order? What can I get you?”
My ears rung as Elder snatched up the unlooked at menu and barked a command. His seductive timbre entered my hearing, but his words didn’t compute.
I didn’t have a clue what we’d eat as my ears stopped working in favour of my eyes imprinting every little thing about him. The way he sipped his water after the waiter left. The way he fiddled with his silver wave cufflinks. The way he tried to stop looking at me, but within a few seconds, his eyes found mine again and couldn’t let go.
I had the same affliction.
He was gravity.
He was the moon, and I was the ocean, and together we couldn’t look away for a moment.
He hadn’t asked for the spoon, and I hadn’t attempted to give it to him. It was our little secret and probably not the only reason his gaze travelled to my chest more than once, lingering on me in a way that made me hot and cold and wet and tingly all at the same time.
Our appetiser arrived.
A crispy wonton base with tuna ceviche and crème cheese.
Once again, we held no conversation as Elder gathered my plate and placed two of the delicate appetisers in front of me.
Using my fingers, I placed one into my mouth. My appetite had only one thing it was hungry for, and it wasn’t food. Once again, that terrible word lust had twisted me up and made me believe I was cured enough to want what I desperately hungered for.
My taste buds came alive as the subtle flavours grabbed my attention, finally giving me something else to focus on than just Elder.
He chewed slowly. His eyes closed for a moment, enjoying the light but aromatic food.
My mouth watered as his powerful throat rippled as he swallowed. My teeth locked together as his hands flexed to gather his napkin. When his head turned to survey the restaurant and fellow diners at their own oasis of eating, I studied his perfectly formed ear, the rouge blue-black curl on his forehead, and th
e roughness of his five o’clock shadow.
Did the ceviche have illegal substances in it? Why was I suddenly so aware of every little thing about my dining companion?
And why hadn’t we spoken?
Why was I afraid to speak when only a few glances revealed what our words never would? We ached for one another. We bruised for one another.
I’d never been a girl who needed physical contact to feel loved. My mother wasn’t a hugger, and I was more suited to never being touched after my miserable history.
But Elder’s presence tugged on me.
I didn’t like being on the other side of the table. I wanted to be beside him. I wanted to be able to touch him.
Table-cloths and fine dining were still a novelty after my dog bowl and chains. I was an imposter in this world.
I needed Elder close like he’d been on that first night when he’d tried to give me a penny for my thoughts. That first meeting when he brought about the end of my world.
I needed him to shield me from the whispers of my past, hissing that I didn’t have permission to eat in a place like this. That I didn’t have a license to think I was a woman rather than a pet.
He was the one who made me believe. He was the one who nudged me closer to confidence.
Our main meal arrived.
Elder had ordered the same for both of us: cauliflower puree with seared scallops, garnished with things I couldn’t name and herbs that detonated on my tongue.
Silence was a third entity as we ate and stared and ate some more.
My stomach tangled with food and fancy. Tension born from questions…
What will happen when we go back to our room?
What will we do when we’re alone?
I forced myself to eat every delicious mouthful all while Elder glued me into place with a stern look and a frown that never stopped shadowing his gorgeous almond eyes.
It was only once we’d finished our meals and our dirty plates taken away that he sat back, dabbed his mouth with his napkin, and switched his scowl for determination.
Hundreds Page 15