CHAPTER TWELVE || ELI
The dreams hadn’t let up. Instead, they had shifted.
I’d had a few more of that dimly lit shop, filled with the smell of leather and lamp oil—of Nicolas coming to meet me there, always with a scuffed boot or a broken heel that required immediate mending, his eyes on me like I was something precious.
But there was another dream, too—of us together in a field of lavender, far from the village where we lived.
The sun was overhead, catching Nicolas’s hair and turning it into hundreds of shades of brilliant gold.
His eyes—still a light blue, but somehow less electric than the Nicolas I knew in real life—crinkled at the edges when he laughed at my jokes.
The pain in my chest came back each time. It had lessened, but it was still there.
In fact, the only time I’d ever dreamed of Nicolas and woken up without pain at all was when he’d been in my arms.
Though I hadn’t mentioned the dreams to him—not since our disastrous first date, when I’d overshared big-time. The problem was the dreams themselves, of course. They made me feel as though I knew him far better than I did.
It was a small miracle I hadn’t scared him off.
Perhaps I should have been warier of him, but Nicolas in real life turned out to be oddly… nice. And just as attentive as he was in the dreamscape. More so, perhaps.
“Hello, Doctor,” Nicolas greeted me exactly seven days after our trip to Disneyland.
He stood beside the doors to the Emergency Room and held out his hand expectantly.
I gave him my duffel, filled with my work clothes, and he shouldered it like it weighed nothing.
He raised his eyebrows, studying me with a warm smile on his lips. “Did you save any lives tonight?”
He always smiled when he asked me that, as though there was a private joke I wasn’t getting. For some reason, it seemed to amuse him that I helped people live through things that probably should have killed them.
“No more than usual.”
“So modest,” he said, chuckling. “We’ll work on it again tomorrow.”
“I have tomorrow off,” I reminded him. “The next four days, actually.”
His eyes widened. “Oh, yes. You told me that.” He chuckled again, shaking his head. “I suppose I just fell into a routine. It’s odd how quickly that happens.”
Nicolas had been picking me up every single morning.
I’d been working double shifts all week because one of the other doctors was on vacation.
He got back tomorrow, thankfully—which meant I finally had a day off.
I planned to sleep in, but I was sure Nicolas was looking forward to my time off just as much as I was.
After all, it meant he could do something else for the night besides waiting around for me to leave work.
When we got to the car, he hit me with, “What’s your biggest irrational fear?”
“Wow, we’re going deep tonight.”
He was like this every single day: intent on asking me questions.
He inclined his head. “If you don’t mind? I want to know who you are.”
There it was—that strange combination of unselfconscious honesty and directness. It was hard to say no to, especially because he hung on every single one of my answers like they were made of gold.
“I know the feeling,” I said, shaking my head. Then I hesitated, realizing I was actually going to answer his question. “It’s not… irrational, exactly. But it is a fear of mine.”
He was quiet as he put the car in reverse and backed out of the parking spot.
We snaked around the parking garage in silence.
This time, I’d gotten off work on time, so it was nearly four in the morning and few people were around.
When he didn’t speak by the time we reached the exit, I realized he was waiting for me to continue.
“I’m afraid I’ll never really know someone.”
He looked at me sharply. “Pardon?”
I grimaced. “My exes—pretty much all of them—were hiding things from me. The last one was married, with a wife and kids. I had no idea.”
He nodded but looked unnerved. “I see. Deception troubles you.”
I snorted. “That’s one way to put it. I don’t like liars, but I always seem to end up with someone who has a secret that ends up ruining everything.
The ex before the last one was a pill popper.
He tried to get me to swipe some especially tantalizing narcotics from the hospital pharmacy where I was interning.
And the one before that—” I broke off, realizing I didn’t want to talk about Eric at all. Instead, I asked, “What about you?”
“Fears or exes?”
“Since I just spilled all my dating-life drama and made myself look like a walking dumpster fire, it’s your turn.”
His expression darkened. “You aren’t a walking dumpster fire, Eli. You couldn’t be, if you tried.”
“Nicolas, come on.”
He sighed. “Just one ex—a very long time ago. I loved him, once. But apart from that, it’s just been sex.”
He said it so casually, as though he had no idea how that sounded. Sometimes he said things so off the wall it was as though he were an alien from another planet.
Or a creature from another time and place.
I still hadn’t brought up his lack of a pulse. His blindingly fast movement. The fact that he only seemed to breathe when he spoke.
Shockingly, those questions didn’t really roll off the tongue. And I got the strong sense from him that he didn’t want me to ask—that he was afraid of it, in fact.
And somehow, that mattered to me more than it should. I wasn’t sure I cared what he was as much as I wanted to know who he was. And even then, I couldn’t stay tense around him, as if my body understood on some irrational level that he was harmless to me, regardless of what he was.
“What did I say?” Nicolas demanded when I’d gone quiet for several long moments.
He frowned, as though trying to puzzle it out—but he kept his eyes glued to the road.
Perhaps because he remembered my reaction the first time I’d been in the car with him behind the wheel.
With a sigh, he added, “I said something strange, didn’t I? ”
“You just admitted to being emotionally unavailable and into casual sex with a string of meaningless partners,” I confirmed.
“Ah. Perhaps you can help me by saying something equally off-color?”
I snorted and shook my head. “Nope. Sorry.”
“You mentioned once before that you’ve dated a long line of ‘fuckers’ and ‘assholes,’” Nicolas said, arching an eyebrow at me. “You’ve mentioned the pill popper and the married man. Surely at least one of them has a juicy story attached?”
“You’re relentless.”
“You truly have no idea.”
“There’s one ex—the first one. He was… really bad news. I had a hard time getting away from him. And he recently found out that I moved back somehow…”
I trailed off, suddenly horrified by my own words.
What on earth was I doing? Was I about to tell Nicolas about the ominous text messages? That was completely insane. Talk about top-ten ways to scare off a guy.
And despite his obvious oddness, I didn’t want Nicolas to go anywhere.
It was just fresh in my mind because I’d gotten two more text messages last night, one right after the other: Who is the blond man, Eli? And then: You know you belong to me, not him. Don’t make me hurt anyone.
Nicolas glanced at me, concern stamped across his expression. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” I said, too quickly. “It’s nothing.”
“Your pulse is pounding,” he murmured. “It’s something.”
“You can hear my pulse?” I asked, desperate to change the subject.
He shook his head, grimacing. “And now you’re frightened.”
“Maybe give me some credit,” I shot back, grateful for the opportunity to get annoyed. It was so much better than feeling helpless. “I don’t scare as easily as you think. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be in this car with you.”
He pursed his lips. “True.” He paused, then added, “If it helps, things didn’t end well with my ex, either. Though unlike in your case, it was my fault things… ended.”
The way he said it, so simply, was surprising. Usually, everything he said seemed to have about a million miles of subtext lurking beneath the surface. Or he acted like the world was there simply for his amusement. That he would baldly admit fault for anything on purpose was… well, odd.
He was trying to comfort me again, I realized—trying to make me feel less alone. Less vulnerable. And he’d done it by sharing a bit of himself.
I sighed. “I don’t miss him. He was… a jerk. And unstable.” I barely suppressed a shudder. “He was violent.”
Nicolas’s hands tightened on the wheel. “What’s his name?”
“Eric.”
“And what’s Eric’s last name and social security number?”
I rolled my eyes, but I wasn’t sure if he was kidding or not. “He’s in my past, Nicolas. What I was trying to say is that I don’t miss him. But I do miss belonging to someone.”
“Belonging to someone?” Nicolas glanced over at me with a frown. “You like your men feeling possessive of you?”
“No,” I said immediately. “Definitely not. It’s the quiet moments I miss—naps together on the couch, watching a movie, cuddling up under a blanket, cooking a meal together. I miss those things. And when he was good, Eric was good.”
“And when he was bad…?”
“Look, I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
I was surprised when he pulled up to our street and parked right in front of my house. I had been so focused on the conversation that the drive had seemed to take no time at all.
He hesitated, then threaded his fingers through mine. His skin was ever so slightly cooler than mine—hardly even noticeable. What was noticeable was the distinct lack of pulse. But his eyes were intent on mine.
“There is nothing I wouldn’t do to protect you, Eli. You can tell me anything, and I promise you, I’ve done worse. I cannot and will never judge you.”
I swallowed hard.
“You seemed frightened when you were discussing Eric.”
“Because you could hear my pulse?”
“Because I have eyes,” he corrected mildly. “You went pale. And your voice—I could hear the fear. He scares you, even still.”
I dropped my gaze. His words, though true, caused fresh shame to course through me. How could I have ever made a mistake like letting myself get close to Eric? And now, after all this time, I was still letting him frighten me. Still letting him control me. It was pathetic.
“Hey. No, don’t do that,” Nicolas said softly.
He put his hand on my chin and, with exceeding gentleness, raised my eyes to meet his.
“I don’t like liars either, Eli. If these men deceived you, it’s a testament to their own shortcomings, never yours.
” He paused. “If this Eric ever tries to hurt you again, I promise you that I will end him.”
A chill danced up my spine. I wasn’t sure how serious he was. A strange, awful feeling crept through me that he was deeply, intensely, deadly serious.
He hesitated. “You must have gathered there are things about me I’ve not been forthcoming on. You’ll know everything in time. I’m not Eric, nor any of the other foolish men who squandered your affections. Were you mine, I would attend to your every need and desire. You would fear nothing.”
“That’s a little intense for a Tuesday morning,” I said weakly, aiming for a joke.
It fell flat.
My pulse hammered in my throat, and when it became clear he wasn’t going to do it, I acted first.
I kissed him. It had been a week and he hadn’t made a move—but then again, neither had I. And it was silly of both of us, because it was perfect.
He froze for a split second, then relaxed into it.
His lips were soft and warm against mine.
It wasn’t passionate—I wasn’t in a place to be thinking sexy thoughts, not even about him.
Instead, it was a kiss that, I hoped, told him that perhaps he was another of the foolish men I had given my affections to.
I pulled back, not sure if I should laugh or cry. I flashed him a smile that trembled at the edges. The streetlight caught his eyes, making them gleam strangely.
They were oddly reflective—just like they’d been the very first night he came to my home and watched me from the trees. I now understood it had to have been him. Odd, how frightened I was then. I didn’t feel even a hint of fear now, even though it was another subtle hint that he wasn’t quite human.
“Goodnight, Nicolas.”
The smile on his lips was soft. “Goodnight, Eli.”
He exited the car and opened my door for me, only taking a moment to dart around to my side—way faster than a regular person would’ve been able to move.
I climbed out and stepped past him. I walked up the drive, feeling so many emotions I wasn’t quite sure what any of them even were. I pulled out my keys and unlocked the front door, then slipped inside the house.
Just before I closed the door, I turned back and saw that Nicolas still stood on the sidewalk, watching me with a strange mix of hunger and longing on his face.
I shut the door and locked it with shaking hands.
With my back to the door, I closed my eyes and let out a long breath.
What was I doing? And why did I want nothing more than to keep on doing it?
As impossible as it was, it was certain in my mind that Nicolas wasn’t human. Not even remotely. He was something else altogether.
Probably something dangerous. But I wasn’t entirely sure I cared anymore.