“Oh.”
One little word but a thousand unsaid things behind it.
Our thoughts returned to less happy places, and a mixture of disappointment and odd sadness filled me.
I bobbed around on a lake of melancholy, unable to fully understand who I was, where I was, or what I wanted to become.
“We should sleep.” Kissing the top of my head, Elder let me go and climbed out of bed. Hoisting his trousers back up to his waist, he disappeared into the bathroom. The splashes of a tap filled the suite before he returned and shed his remaining clothes.
His tie was ripped off, the shirt shrugged free, and trousers abandoned on the floor.
Turning out the light, he kept the curtains open, and the night sky painted him in a ghostly silhouette of starlight and streetlight.
Climbing into bed, I waited until he rested on his side. I didn’t know if he wanted me to go into the other room. To give him space. Was I allowed to touch him?
He removed my questions by pushing my shoulder until I lay on my side just like him then hooked his arm around my waist and dragged me into his front.
I didn’t expect a hug or after-care. I didn’t want him to give me something he wasn’t comfortable giving.
But when I wriggled away, his embrace turned harsh with no way out. “Stay. I need to feel you.”
I sighed heavily, wanting to be honest. “I need to feel you, too.”
His slight inhale was the only sound that I’d surprised him. The mattress rocked, and his legs touched mine before his bicep tightened around me, half in protection, half in possession.
I stiffened for a moment, claustrophobia appearing on the edges of my comfort.
He kissed behind my ear. “Relax, Pim. Sleep like you did that first night. Trust me to keep you safe.” His fingers stroked my back, encouraging me to arch into him like a domesticated cat. “Sleep. Tomorrow is a new day.”
Tomorrow was a new day.
Tomorrow was a day for conversation.
Tomorrow was a day for more of tonight.
And tonight was the night I found heaven.
And Elder was a man I’d never hoped to find.
And I was better because of him.
Chapter Twenty-Five
______________________________
Elder
MY EYES KEPT drifting to the hand-painted decorative ceiling three stories above me, picturing Pim still in bed, waking up alone, seeing the origami horse made from a hundred dollar bill and the small note inside.
Only a few words because even a thousand alphabets couldn’t convey what last night had meant to me. What her orgasm had done to me. What her trust had made me feel.
I’d stared at her sleeping form and pondered how to carve out my heart so she could read what was imprinted on there, rather than try to scribble something incoherent.
In the end, I’d decided to keep it simple and almost emotionless.
It was for the best.
For both of us.
Gone for a morning meeting with Selix. Be back soon.
What would she think when she unfolded the origami horse and read those impersonal lines?
“Are you listening to me or what?” Selix cleared his throat, taking a sip of his macchiato as the sun stencilled the carpet around us in the hotel café.
Snapping my mind away from Pim, I matched him with a coffee sip of my own. “Of course.”
“What did I just say then?” He sat back with a cocky smirk on his lips.
I cursed the day I’d asked him to come with me all those years ago.
Should’ve left him on the streets, arrogant bastard.
“You said my mother and uncle are no longer at the Monte Carlo house.”
He scowled as if annoyed to find I had been listening, after all. He didn’t need to know I’d only half listened. Pim had successfully taken up most of my brain.
“Do you know where they’ve gone?” Selix asked, finishing his coffee.
“I do.”
“And are you going to go after your mother? Talk to her?”
I shook my head, smoothing my jeans even though they weren’t creased. “No. No point.”
I hadn’t let myself think about her since that unfortunate evening when I’d told Pim far too much. And I wouldn’t chase around the world as I’d done before, begging for forgiveness.
I’d done what I could.
The rest was up to them.
And if they never wanted me back in their lives, then fine and fucking dandy. I’d continue to protect them from afar and remain in my lonely existence.
I’d survived this long with no one. I could survive lifetimes.
Selix narrowed his eyes. “Family always has a point. If I had one, I wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
Selix had been on the streets because of a clerical error in the Child Adoptive Services after his parents were shot at a local cinema. He had no one…just like me.
I waved away his comment with a jaded hand. “My family prefers to think of me as dead.”