20. The Boyfriend Experience

20

The Boyfriend Experience

Braun: The surgeon is on board. Send me everything the settlement doctor has on Lily.

Isobel glanced up, meeting her father’s eyes across the room. He nodded at her and then raised his phone to make another call. She quickly screenshotted the message and sent it to Oscar, his reply coming moments later.

Oscar: I’ll email you everything now.

The little typing bubble kept popping up and disappearing as he seemed to struggle over a second message. She stood there and waited—they were having a brief break before heading back into the choreography anyway. After several minutes of typing and deleting, he finally sent another message.

Oscar: Thank you.

She had told him she was trying to sort out a way to help Lily, but he didn’t know what that entailed yet. She debated waiting until the plan was more concrete, but now that they had a doctor, it seemed inevitable, so she took a deep breath and quickly tapped out a message.

And then deleted it.

And then tried again, and deleted it again.

And then called him.

“That was painful,” he murmured, picking up on the first ring. “Aren’t you in the middle of work?”

“Just taking a quick break. You’re missing some crucial stuff, you know. Today, we worked out that Cian has been going in the wrong direction every single time we do the turn.”

“The bridge turn or the one near the end?”

“The bridge turn.”

Oscar chuckled, sounding tired. “I was doing the same thing. It’s harder when you aren’t here. Lily’s been trying to fill your shoes.”

She heard a small, feminine voice squeak something in the background.

“She claims she’s great at it, and I’m the one who sucks at following orders,” Oscar relayed. “What else have I missed?”

“Kilian’s mom is literally a world-famous artist, and his whole family didn’t even realise. I told her what to google, and she’s been sending Kilian articles about herself all afternoon since he came home from the settlement. She’s thrilled. Even though she’s being ripped off by the officials.”

“How’d you find out?”

“She gave me one of her miniatures. Just me, by the way. I’m the favourite.”

He snorted. “That appears to be a theme. What else have I missed?”

“Is that Oscar?” Moses asked from directly behind her. He grabbed her hips, spinning her around and pinching her phone away from her ear, hitting the speaker button. “Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” Oscar replied.

And then nothing.

“Oscar’s on the phone?” Kilian asked, appearing at her other side.

“Can I have a painting?” Oscar asked after another few beats of silence.

“You’re going to have to join the queue.” Kilian shook his head in exasperation, his lips curved. “She’s been telling everyone she knows that she’s famous, and now they’re all lining up down the street for a Baek miniature.”

Oscar grunted out a sound of amusement.

“Was that Oscar?” Cian asked, stopping by Moses and notching his elbow on the other Alpha’s shoulder.

They waited for Oscar to say something, but he didn’t.

“I swear he was just chatting Isobel’s ear off,” Moses grumbled.

Isobel tapped the speaker button again, raising the phone back to her ear. “Everyone says hello, but actually, I called you for a reason.” She lowered her voice and slipped off to a quieter corner. “That doctor isn’t just a second opinion. He’s agreed to do the operation. At a hospital in LA.”

“There’s no way I can afford that.” Oscar’s voice was also low. Strained.

“My father is going to front the bill. I told him he could have everything I’ve got saved up and I’d pay him back the rest in instalments. We can smuggle her onto the jet when we come to pick you up right before we go to Mikel’s settlement. It’s only a few hours' drive from the hospital. Elijah already forged her a birth certificate. That’s all we need since the doctor is pulling some strings for my dad.”

He was silent for a long time, and when he spoke again, his rough voice broke. “I’ll pay you back. Everything I have is yours. Everything from now until I die—it’s yours, okay?”

There was no way she was accepting that, but she also knew it would drive him insane to feel so indebted to anyone, so she quietly said, “Okay.”

“Is this really happening?” he asked, so low it was almost inaudible.

“Don’t tell her yet,” Isobel begged. “I still have some more details to work out—like how to get her back to the settlement. Elijah said he had a few ideas, but we were waiting to see if my father could get the doctor to agree before we went any further.”

She caught sight of the others—they had gone back to work without her, probably sensing through the bond that she was in the middle of something important.

“I won’t tell her yet,” Oscar said. “I can’t get her hopes up like that. I wish I had your ability.” The last part rushed out of him on a low grumble. “She’s barely eaten since you visited. I just want to take away everything she’s feeling.”

“I think that’s the first time anyone’s ever said that to me.”

“That they want your ability?”

“Usually, it’s the cool ones they want. Like invisibility, or that mind-speaking thing Bellamy pretends is just a cute party trick.”

“Why are we talking about Bellamy?” he growled lowly.

She chuckled. “First example I could think of.”

“Every time that fucker makes you laugh, I want to kill him.”

“You could try to be funnier,” she said casually.

“I’m fucking hilarious. You should come to one of my fights. I made a guy’s nose explode before break.”

“And it was … funny?” she asked.

“Funniest thing I’ve ever seen.”

She laughed, and he exhaled deeply. “Was that fake?” he demanded.

“You’ll never know,” she returned. “Gotta go. Mikki is contemplating how many push-ups he’s going to make me do tonight from across the room.”

“You’re calling him Mikki now?”

Mikel’s eyes narrowed.

“Only when he can’t hear me,” she squeaked.

“He read your lips, didn’t he?” Oscar sounded amused at her expense.

“Yes,” she groaned. “I’m going to be so sore tonight.”

He released a frustrated, gravelled sound. “That’s just mean.”

She quickly hung up when Mikel crooked a finger at her. She jogged nervously back to the group.

“I think we’ve practised as much as we can without Oscar,” Mikel announced. “Let’s move on to ‘Fix Me.’”

Their first song for the debut album was dance-heavy, but “Fix Me,” their second song, was a ballad, and they had decided it would be their most vocally focussed option. No matter how hard they trained, there was no way they would be able to perform it while dancing. Only four of them actually sang it, and it was far too technical without having all of them rotating through the singing and dancing. They also didn’t want the focus to be away from the song. Kalen had written the lyrics, Mikel had produced the track, and they had all fallen in love with it as soon as they heard the demo. It was the first time she was ever genuinely excited to sing.

“I think you should just line up,” Kalen said, pointing out spots on the floor. “Cian, then Theo, then Isobel, and Kilian here.” The main singing group.

They lined up, and Mikel handed them all microphones. “I know you’re not used to standing still, and you’re used to selling emotion with your bodies, so we’re going to need to work on your expressions. When we film the video for this song—and any shows we do—the cameras will be right up in your face to catch everything.”

They nodded at him, and Isobel caught sight of Cooper striding back into the large sunroom where they had set up for filming. He was on the phone, talking quietly, his eyes automatically snapping to Isobel before drifting around the others, almost like an afterthought.

He still hadn’t tried to speak to her since the night he drugged her. It almost seemed like he was deliberately keeping his distance, but instead of putting her at ease, it frightened her.

“Let’s go,” Kalen said, and the backing track began to play.

Kilian opened the song, his voice a sweet, soft whisper. His sound was vulnerable and strong, a beautiful contrast that always had her breath catching. He was able to project his voice and stretch it out while keeping the sound a gentle brush of air, and it gave her goosebumps every time. He also had a deeper tone, but he didn’t use it much because several of the others had strong baritones.

“Don’t look at each other,” Mikel said, pointing to the cameras. “Look into the lens or to the front.”

When it was Isobel’s turn to sing, Kalen stopped the backing track. “You’re all too self-aware. Theo, stay there. The rest of you come and watch.”

He led them to the screen behind the cameras, where they could watch a close-up of Theodore’s face.

“Can you just sing everyone’s parts?” Kalen called out.

Theodore lifted a shoulder in a shrug. Of course he could. He sang all of their demo tracks on his own.

Kalen started the song again, and Theodore began to sing, doing a terrifyingly good imitation of Kilian’s voice. The camera was zoomed up so close to his face that it took him out of his setting, and she never would have guessed from his expression that he was sitting in a random sunroom surrounded by crew and equipment.

He looked like he was centre stage, beneath a clear spotlight, with thousands of people holding their breath and hanging off his every sweet inhale and sexy rasp. The storm in his eyes was quiet, the darker tendrils of colour through the grey of his iris standing out in high definition.

“Skip Isobel’s section,” Kalen called.

Theodore finished with Kilian’s part and then lowered his head, his long, dark eyelashes sweeping down as he closed his eyes, gently swaying in the smallest of movements like he was listening to Isobel sing, even though it was just the backing track playing. He mouthed the words to the song as he opened his eyes, his pupils expanding and contracting as he focussed again, his tongue peeking out to moisten his lips as he made the briefest eye contact with the camera. Isobel’s stomach swooped, tingles racing through her. He gripped the top of the microphone, his lips brushing it as he sang again, imitating Cian’s raspy baritone. The way he could copy their sounds so perfectly was astounding. He moved through the song, sometimes singing, sometimes swaying, sometimes closing his eyes and sometimes mouthing the words, threading through moments of rare eye contact with the camera until she felt like she was holding her breath and waiting for him to look again. When he finished the song, he dropped his microphone back down to his side and checked his phone, like what he had done was nothing .

“That’s the connection you need to make,” Mikel explained. “We want people to feel like it’s just you and them—not like you’re singing a song to them from a stage, but like you’re alone in a room with them only a few feet away, staring into their soul and singing like you’re trying to communicate with them. Got it?”

“Got it,” they agreed, moving back to their places.

They spent the rest of the afternoon on the song, took a half-hour break and then split into two groups to train with Kalen and Mikel. She would have loved to end her day after that, but there was one more matter that needed to be dealt with, so after she dragged herself through a shower, she knocked on Elijah’s door.

He was already in bed when she slipped in, his tablet in his lap, his hair still damp, dark circles beneath his eyes.

She halted halfway through the doorway. “I can come bac?—”

“We need to talk,” he said plainly.

She closed the door, perching on the end of his bed, her legs folded, bouncing her water bottle on her knee. “You said you had some ideas for how we can get Lily back to Arkansas?”

He nodded, setting his tablet onto the bedside table. He regarded her thoughtfully, his black-framed glasses making him look even more handsome. They just framed his features so perfectly.

“What about Bellamy?” he asked, shocking her. “His family is from the San Bernadino Settlement. He can come and go as he pleases, and didn’t you say he’s been staying there with Sophia?”

Isobel nodded, her mind turning over the possible scenario.

“I can get a passport made for Lily,” Elijah continued, “and he can take her back on a commercial flight and sneak her into the Ozark Settlement. It turns out the company that smuggles out Sao-Yeong’s paintings handles settlement commissary deliveries country-wide. And they aren’t just exploiting Sao-Yeong. I can anonymously blackmail them into leaving one of their vans in town and forgetting about it for twenty-four hours. Bellamy can hide Lily in the back and drive it straight through and back out again.”

“Wow.” She blinked at him. “You’re terrifying.”

He didn’t react at all, merely said, “I know.”

“How do I get Bellamy to agree to this?” she asked. “We’re friends, but we’re not that close. And he and Oscar really don’t get along.”

“Rope him into the deal with Braun,” Elijah said. “He might be taking a back seat for now, but he’s not stupid. Now that we’re competing as a group and the humans are competing as a group, he’s actually third in line in terms of winning.”

“So he can’t back out now,” Isobel mused, nodding slightly. “His father won’t let him. And he’s specialising in acting—so a cameo in one of my father’s movies would be huge.” She nodded. “You might be right. I’ll call him.”

She fished her phone from where she had tucked it into the waistband of her pyjama shorts. She face-timed Bellamy and pulled her phone up, resting it on her raised knee, but it was quickly pushed down again, flattened to the bed.

“Hello?” Bellamy answered, the sound muffled.

Elijah was frowning at her, his cold grey eyes dropping to the lace that bordered her soft cotton tank … and then lower, to the way the cotton outlined the swell of her breasts. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and her nipples gently protruded beneath the fabric.

“Helloooo?” Bellamy drawled.

Elijah made a soft sound of frustration before pulling off his T-shirt and tossing it to Isobel. She slipped it over her head as she grappled for the phone.

“Sorry, hi.” She pulled it back up to her face. “I dropped you.”

“How’s the tour going?” he asked. “Did you all finally wise up to Sato being totally bloody inappropriate for a life in the spotlight and leave him behind?”

“Not quite.” She gave him a bored look. “But actually … that’s who I’m calling about.”

His brows jumped up, his face turning to the side. He tucked his wavy brown hair behind his ear. “I’m intrigued. I’m listening. You have my full— hey ,” He dropped the phone, leaving her staring at a ceiling. “That’s my burger, you little wench.”

“And yet it looks so much like mine,” Sophia’s voice carried through the phone.

Bellamy returned, picking up the phone again. “She made me drive to In-N-Out,” he grumbled. “The guards are starting to get suspicious. They literally searched one of the burgers and tipped out my drink.”

Isobel winced. “So … you don’t want to take on a professional smuggling job?”

He tucked his hair behind his ear again. “Okay, now you really have my full attention.”

“Oscar’s sister is sick. We need to sneak her into a hospital in LA—that part, we’ve got covered. But after her operation, we need to somehow get her back to Arkansas.”

“Carter.” Bellamy deadpanned. “Today, I killed a Coke. Do not put me in charge of a human.”

“We have a plan,” she promised him. “You just need to escort her on a commercial flight from LA on a fake passport, pick up a commissary van from town, and drive it into the settlement. That’s all.”

“What in the James Bond?” he demanded, a short laugh falling past his lips. “Do you hear yourself, you nutter?”

“In return,” she pressed on, ignoring him, “we’ll do a cameo in a movie my dad is doing next summer break. And go to the premiere together.”

The humour dropped out of his face, replaced by serious consideration. Sophia popped into the frame, giving Isobel a narrow-eyed look, a half-eaten burger clutched in her hand.

“Oscar’s sister is a little kid, right?”

Isobel nodded.

Bellamy snatched the burger off her. “Now you can be jealous and hungry,” he said, taking a huge bite.

“You suck.” She flounced off camera again. But a second later, a slipper collided with the side of Bellamy’s face.

With a sigh, he held out the burger, and her hands reappeared, snatching it away.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll do it. I want a contract for Braun’s movie. I need it in writing.”

“Done.”

“You know the shirt you’re wearing is inside out, right?”

She glanced down, seeing the tag at her neck. “Oops.”

“Just out of curiosity—what were you wearing when you called. You know, before you put the phone down to change.”

“This shirt, but not inside out.”

“That makes sense,” Bellamy drawled. “Who’s sitting there with you?”

“Nobody,” she lied. “I’m allowed to make phone calls unsupervised, you know.”

“I’m trying to decide which one of them would be able to control themselves from bursting into view when I asked what you were wearing a few seconds ago—I thought I had him then, for sure.”

Isobel rolled her eyes.

“Gabriel,” he guessed, undeterred.

“No.”

“Elijah?”

“No.”

“You blinked. It’s Elijah. You’re a terrible liar.”

She scowled. “I’m a fantastic liar.”

“Go on, tell me a lie,” he goaded. “Tell your old buddy Bellamy a big fat lie, Carter.”

“You know, Sophia messaged me last night,” she said.

He leaned into the phone, darting a look to something off to his side. “What did she say?” he whispered. “She loves me, right? It’s just in a way that looks like hate. Right?”

“Dude. That was the lie. Are you okay?”

“That was mean.” He drew back, frowning. “Elijah should punish you. You’re a cruel and heartless person. You know Silva throws darts at a picture of you, right?”

“Damn. I wish he had shown that kind of passion when we were dating.”

Bellamy laughed. “I’d say it was the least passionate relationship I’ve ever witnessed, but … I saw Elijah and Ellis.” He waited for a retaliation from the Alpha sitting across from Isobel, who just kept staring at her, expressionless. When Bellamy didn’t get a reaction, he huffed in disappointment.

“All right, I’ll let you get back to grading papers,” he said.

“Guess again.”

“Solving complex equations?” He squinted at her. “Experimenting on human subjects? I don’t know what that guy does in his free time.”

“I like to read,” Elijah said, still emotionless.

“Thrilling.” Bellamy glanced at something off-camera. “You’re sure she’s banging them all?”

“Jesus,” Isobel muttered, closing her eyes. “How many people have you said that to?”

“Nobody.” Sophia appeared in the frame again. “Except this idiot. He’s actually very discreet, I promise.”

“So how does it work, anyway?” Bellamy asked. “Is there a lotto to assign each of them a day of the week, and the others just miss out?”

“Yes.” Isobel’s tone was dry. “That’s exactly what I do. Every Monday night, I host a lotto.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Elijah’s half-smile.

“Okay, well, this has been enlightening.” Bellamy shared a look with Sophia. “We’re going to go and practise smuggling …” He cocked a brow at Sophia, waiting.

“Tacos,” she decided.

“She’s just using me for fast food,” Bellamy explained, turning back to the camera.

“I know,” Isobel told him. “Bye.”

She hung up and dropped her phone, leaning back on her hands with a deep sigh. Elijah was resting against his headboard, loosely crossing his arms over his bare chest.

“We should talk about the other thing,” he said.

She quickly snatched up her water bottle, popping up the mouthpiece so she could nervously drink. “Okay,” she mumbled.

“What happened to Gabe, Niko, and me is complicated,” he said. “Niko feels responsible for everything because he wasn’t involved with the orphanage. While we were being abused, he was protected by his parents. It took a while for Gabe to figure out how to block off his ability, but he told me that Niko used to warp the whole incident, changing it in his head so that he was responsible for more than he really was. He turned it into his idea that we went back there. It wasn’t. It was mine. He would claim responsibility for killing that man if he could—and not just out loud. He would do it internally if he could trick himself that much. When the people he cares about get hurt, he takes ownership for it. He bottles it up inside and makes it his fault. For someone who’s supposed to be a human lie detector, he lies to himself more than anyone I’ve ever known.”

This wasn’t what she had been expecting. She nodded lightly, not wanting to interrupt, and he continued.

“The officials we were sold to thought Gifted people were dirty. That was a word they used a lot. It was a word Gabe had to hear in their minds a lot—that he was dirty, like an animal. Less than human. A rare commodity but still a commodity. I know you understand that feeling. He worked hard to block out those voices and shut down his ability, but the truth is he never fully separated it from himself. There’s a reason he’s more perceptive than your average person, just as there’s a reason people listen to me and obey me even though I’m low in the hierarchy of the group. It isn’t just because we’re smart. If Theodore cuts himself off from his ability, he’ll still be charming. If Moses cuts himself off, he’ll still argue with everybody and stir up trouble. To be honest, I didn’t fully understand it until Maya told us the truth about those two. But now I see that it’ll always be part of who we are.”

“That makes sense,” she said softly.

“I understand why you used my ability.” He regarded her so calmly, his smoky, spicy scent a calming balm, making her feel like she was somewhere warm and safe. “You feel lost in this group sometimes, with all these strong personalities, and you don’t trust that people will step back and listen to you when you tell them to. Not in a crisis situation. Not the way they listen to me, or Mikel, or Kalen.”

“Can you blame me?” She chuckled hollowly. “After the whole Cooper incident?”

“No, I don’t blame you.” He shook his head. “You’re right, unfortunately. We treat you differently than how we treat each other. We hoard you and protect you and swear to avenge you whether you want it or not.”

“Like dragons guarding your last bar of gold,” she agreed wryly.

“I’m sorry for that.” He winced. “We try to control it.”

“I know … and I don’t hate that I’m protected.”

“That’s why we’ve all agreed that you should use your powers”—he waved at her chest, where her piercing was currently hidden—“whenever you feel you need to. Mine and Gabriel’s included. If we’re being bull-headed, lost to our Alpha senses or bowed by the bond, then use our own power against us. Make us listen. Make us obey. Do what you need to do. You’re powerful, too, Isobel.”

She blinked away the sudden feeling of tears welling in her eyes, a warm sensation of relief flooding through her whole body.

“Did you think you were in trouble?” Elijah questioned, an elegant brow inching up, likely feeling her emotion through the bond.

She shrugged. “Maybe. Kinda. Yes?”

He chuckled, attention dropping to her folded legs for a moment. “I thought Mikki already punished you?”

“About that …” She chewed her lip, lowering her voice. “Will that happen every time I do something he doesn’t like?”

For some reason, Elijah laughed. Loudly . He tossed his head back, his broad shoulders thumping against the bed. He laughed so hard, he had tears in his eyes, and he wiped them away as he took in her shell-shocked expression.

“Sorry,” he managed, still fighting back a chuckle. “Did that bastard let you walk out of there thinking you were going to get a scene every time you upset him?”

“A scene?”

“Pretend punishment.”

“ Pretend? ” She shook her head. “No, that was a real punishment.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” He looked at her so pityingly that she tried to whack him with her stainless steel water bottle, but he deftly caught it and placed it on his bedside table before grabbing her thighs and dragging her onto his lap so that she was forced to straddle his thighs.

His face was now close as he stared down at her with an expression she didn’t quite understand. It almost looked like adoration or indulgence … but with a heavy dose of amusement. His hands were a light pressure against her thighs, fingers spread out as he eyed the tag hanging off the neckline of his shirt, which she was still wearing inside out.

“Mikel doesn’t know how to have a normal relationship,” he said with a sigh. “The only way a partner could get close to him was in a Dominant-submissive setting, by playing with him, proposing a casual scene, or entering into a relationship with the understanding that it would be utterly transactional and that all romance or sex would be as Dominant and submissive. Him punishing you is just him feeling out of control with how he feels about you—you’re not actually being punished.”

“How … do you even know what he did?” she asked, squinting at him.

His hard lips crooked up at the corners. “He texted us, saying you were banned from orgasms for a day and what your limits were for play.”

“So he was just using what I did as an excuse?” she asked.

“To get close to you, to play with you, yes.”

“Hmm.” She eyed him. “Do you like the whole ’Sir’ thing as well?”

His smile broke free, spilling across his lips. “I’d prefer to hear you say my name, or the nickname you use when you think I can’t hear you.”

“Eli?”

He lowered his chin in the barest of nods before lifting it again, staring down at her with a sudden intensity. Something had softened between them. That little thread of intimidation he always seemed to inspire in her had loosened. She spent plenty of time alone with Elijah, but they were usually working.

She was tired, but she didn’t want to say goodnight or end their conversation. It had always scared her, the idea of growing this close to so many of the Alphas, but she was beginning to feel that wall with Elijah crumbling. It was then that she realised it had been her wall.

He wasn’t the only one holding things back between them. She had participated in not allowing things to deepen, to soften, to grow more . She understood why it was hard for him, Gabriel, and Niko to get close and fall into relationships now.

“I like this,” she whispered, flicking her eyes between his, wishing he had taken his contact out. “I like talking to you. I wish we did it more.”

He seemed to stop breathing, his fingers digging into the skin of her thighs. “We can do this as much as you like.”

Her heart was beating fast, her palms beginning to sweat. She was more nervous for this than she was having them strip her clothes off and boss her around.

These soft, fragile moments were more challenging than anything else.

“I don’t want to be claimed tonight,” she said, well aware that she was going to entirely the wrong person for this. “I want …”

She couldn’t say it.

It was too embarrassing.

“All this yearning,” he whispered, one of his hands creeping up to her chest, his fingertips just barely brushing against her through his shirt and her pyjama top. “Tell me what you want.”

She sucked in a deep breath, shaking her head. “Never mind. It’s dumb.”

He frowned, debating whether he should force her to tell him or not. She could tell he didn’t want to shatter this softness between them, but it also killed him not to know something.

“I don’t want to feel like a mate,” she blurted, forcing the words out. “Or a s-sub—I mean, I like that, I promise. I like it when—but I mean?—”

“Will you be my girlfriend?” he interrupted, his eyes going wide like he was surprised at the words that fell out of him. “Be my girlfriend,” he doubled down, recovering from his shock, his hands slipping up to her face, cupping her jaw with long, careful fingers. “Be the person I can be gentle with, or rough with, whatever you like. Be the person I can laugh with. Be the person I can look at and have a conversation just with our eyes. Be the girl who teases me and challenges me. Let me take care of you. Come to my room and talk to me about nothing or all the important things. Tell me how you feel about your dad or how much your feet hurt. Let’s get each other real presents instead of exchanging flowers on our birthdays. Be my girlfriend.”

He tugged her lips up to his, kissing her so softly. “Please don’t say no.”

“I won’t say no.” Her heart was on fire, her throat tight with emotion. She couldn’t believe all of that had come out of Elijah.

“So it’s a yes, then?” He kissed her again, a groan catching in his throat.

“Yes,” she breathed.

He swooped her up suddenly, making her yelp as he stalked to the door and threw it open. He walked down the hallway of rooms, pounding on each of the doors.

“She said yes,” he announced. Everyone appeared in their doorways, most of them looking like they were either getting ready for bed or already in bed.

“To what?” Kalen asked, eyeing her with concern.

Her face was bright red, and she was holding a hand over her mouth so that she wouldn’t laugh, but her heart had gone from burning to melting .

“Figure it out yourselves,” Elijah drawled, carrying her back to his room and slamming the door.

“Are you evil?” she asked him.

“Yes, but I’ll be sweet to you unless you want to play.”

“I want sweet Eli tonight.”

He stopped walking, freezing for the second time that night, his eyes jumping between hers before he seemed to jolt back into action. “The full boyfriend experience?”

“Yes, please.” She grinned as he tossed her down onto the bed. “What do I get?”

“Anything you want.”

“You said you like reading.”

He tilted his head to the side. “I do.”

“Will you read to me?”

He sat on the bed, pulling her between his legs. He tugged off the shirt she wore over her pyjamas, tossing it to the other side of the bed before pausing, catching her jaw and forcing her lips up to his for a slow, drugging kiss that had her head spinning and her breath turning choppy before he released her.

“Get comfortable,” he ordered.

“This is a bossy boyfriend experience,” she said, lowering down and curling up between his legs, her head on his muscled thigh as he pulled the blankets up to her chin.

He turned off the lights, picked up his phone, and seemed to spend a moment choosing the book he wanted before he rested back against the headboard and began to read.

“In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. ‘Whenever you feel like criticising anyone,’ he told me, ‘just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.’”

His voice was a deep and smooth glide of silk, and she closed her eyes, trying to settle into this feeling of comfort, giddiness, and breathlessness. It felt like too much to hold inside her body, but the longer he read, the more she settled, her body growing heavy, his scent seeping into her pores until she felt like she was floating.

His long, talented fingers threaded through her hair absently, and she sank into acceptance, letting go of the feeling that everything was too good to be true.