Chapter 14 Elowyn
ELOWYN
“Duncan,” I say, closing the door behind me.
The moment it clicks shut, I realize I’m not facing the Duncan I used to know. Not even the one he’s been during my time here.
This morning, he’s The Restorer.
His hair is mussed, fallen loose over his forehead as he scrapes away old varnish with a scalpel. Bent over a canvas laid flat across a wide desk, completely absorbed, the intensity of his focus makes my heart stumble.
My gaze drifts lower before I can stop it. He’s wearing plain clothes that shouldn’t be special, except on him, they are.
His jeans hang low on his tapered waist, hugging his lean frame.
His white T-shirt clings to his defined muscles, mapping them as it also reveals other, sinister parts of his body.
Like the veins coursing his forearms that flex with his every movement.
Or the small stretch of his back that’s exposed whenever his shirt rides up by a fraction.
My mouth waters. I bite the inside of my cheek, suppressing a moan that climbs up my throat. It’s a hardship, with how lust unfurls low in my stomach.
It gets worse when Duncan smooths something on the canvas, using his thumb.
Over and over and over.
Just like he rubbed my clit.
The sight of him is almost enough to push my common sense aside. I’ve forgotten why I came here in the first place.
Him. He’s the reason, a voice screams inside my head.
Right. And the dress. And being dismissed. Belittled.
By the one person my heart has always belonged to.
With my hands on my hips, I demand, “We can’t keep doing this, whatever this is. We need to talk.”
More silence. More of him scraping, concentrating on his work.
He’s more attractive than a cruel man has the right to be.
But as hot as he is, he can’t treat me as if I’m not even here.
“Duncan.”
“Elowyn.” That’s all the acknowledgment he offers, his attention remaining on his work.
Adrenaline makes my teeth knock. My fingers twitch.
My body is urging me to slap him.
I drift closer instead.
“Look at me.” The order comes out in a voice I don’t recognize. It’s the most confident I’ve ever sounded.
Duncan must notice it too. He sets the scalpel down beside the canvas and wipes his hands on his jeans.
Maddeningly slow, he turns to face me. Then he starts walking.
I gulp when he stops less than a foot away. I have to tip my chin up to meet his gaze. Arousal slicks my thighs, my knees wobbling from the scent of his cologne. From the sheer weight of his presence.
Touching him feels compulsive, an urge I resist.
“I am looking.” He cocks an eyebrow, his face a picture of indifference. “And what I’m seeing is you. Where you’re not supposed to be.”
He’s such an asshole.
A stubborn one, at that. The glint in his eyes gives him away, proof that he isn’t upset that I’m here at all.
I’m starting to suspect he’s been riling me up on purpose.
Maybe the dress, the wiped paint from my stomach, this whole act—all of this—is meant to force my hand. To make me confront him before our scheduled meeting.
Maybe it’s a sick test.
To what end? I have no idea.
Just in case I’m right, that a challenge is what he wants, I give it to him.
I narrow my eyes and say, “Yet here I am.”
“Yet here you are,” he growls, snuffing the amusement from his expression.
How dare he look so controlled? Composed in a way that almost seems inhuman?
A lot has happened between us. Good, terrible, heart-wrenching things. Somehow, none of it seems to faze him.
Has he been faking everything? The sliver of vulnerability, the lust, the anger?
If he has, then—oh my God—the dress, the painting, the picture, they weren’t meant to grab my attention. He’s simply been mean.
“You…” I poke his chest, resenting how sturdy it is. I don’t want to notice his muscles right now. “You’ve got some nerve.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, Duncan. You, you despise me.” I poke him again, harder this time. He doesn’t flinch. “You treat me like a plaything—”
“Poor little Elowyn.” His hand rises to my jaw. When I slap it away, his eyes flare. “Were you expecting a bouquet of roses after I shot my cum down your throat? Figured I’d fold you into my arms and just forget the past?”
“Forget?” I scoff. “Why would I want that?”
He only scowls back at me.
“Look, I get that you’re angry because of what I did. Me and…Barclay.”
I wait for an answer. Duncan remains infuriatingly quiet.
Fine, if he doesn’t want to talk, he’ll listen.
“I’m sorry about everything. I really am. But you have to admit you’ve taken this too far.” My pulse races, tears of frustration and heartache stinging the corners of my eyes. “Why can’t we just talk?”
The silence that follows my questions is driving me mad.
It’s why I can’t help raising my voice when I add, “We’re owed a conversation, dammit.”
He leans in until his face levels with mine, brows shooting down. Rage fills his eyes.
Ice-cold fear shoots up my spine. Somehow, I manage to hold firm.
“You?” The one word is as sharp as a whip. “Deserving anything?”
“I—” I flinch because once more, he makes it sound like I’m a criminal. “Yes.”
For a moment, it looks like he’s going to keep arguing with me. In a way, I wish for that. As scared as I am, I wish he lets it all out. Then we can finally start healing.
“You know what?” The anguish in his voice is a punch to the gut. “No. Just no.”
“I’m begging you…” For his sake more than mine, I need to remove every ounce of pain from Duncan so it never touches him again. “Talk to me.”
“I said no.” His face turns into stone. “I’m not doing this.”
When I try to cup his stubbled cheek, he snaps a hand around my wrist. His hold is harsh and unforgiving, though it doesn’t hurt.
I cry out anyway, from the shock.
Then he guides me to his desk, and I cry out a second time when he flips me and presses my cheek to the surface.
The wood is warm, smelling faintly of paint and solvent. Remnants of art being reborn. It reminds me how this room has seen a lot of beauty.
Now it’s going to see lust in its most primal form.
“Yesterday should’ve taught you better. Nothing good comes out of our conversations.” Slipping his hand to my front, he tugs on the bathrobe belt around my waist, and the robe falls open. “And it’s too little and too late for them anyway.”
“What? Why?”
“Hands on the workstation.”
I hesitate, about to ask for explanations a second time.
While I do, Duncan acts. He wraps a hand around the back of my neck, fingers applying just enough pressure to hold me in place.
“Do I need to remind you…” he murmurs, lips close to my ear. “That your habit of stalling could end badly for your brother?”
Heat rushes low between my thighs.
The control he has over me. The power he exudes.
I crave it.
With my brother safe, I’m free to give in to my sick desires.
Trembling, I follow his order and brace myself against the edge of what he called the workstation.
“You can’t do that,” I whisper, challenging him on purpose.
Especially when I’m pretty sure he won’t cut Barclay off. Duncan threatened me before. More than once. And so far, he hasn’t followed through.
“Pretty sure I can.” He pushes the robe up to the center of my back. Being exposed and vulnerable makes my breath hitch and desire drip down my thighs. “You know better than to test me.”
His possessiveness, as twisted as it is, has me soaking my inner thighs.
I want to get lost in this moment.
I can’t.
Just in case he’s serious, I drag Barclay back between us. “Don’t cut him off.”
“Goddammit, Elowyn.” Duncan’s gone from my line of vision, his knees meeting the floor behind me with a low thud.
Before I get to ask what he’s doing there, his hands are on me. His fingers dig into my butt cheeks, bruising them. Spreading them.
I shouldn’t like this. Shouldn’t accept sex when there’s so much to discuss.
My lips betray me anyway, shaping quiet, embarrassing please, please, please.
The desire swirling in my stomach intensifies when his breath is hot on the wettest parts of me.
Then he tilts my hips up, his fingers burying deeper into my flesh before he leans in to lick me. No, he more than licks me.
He devours me.
Duncan’s mouth and tongue are everywhere. It doesn’t feel practiced, how he’s assaulting my pussy.
He just takes what he wants.
But then I notice there’s a pattern to what he’s doing Duncan swirls his tongue around that spot, flicking it, tormenting me, because I moan and whimper louder when he licks it.
He cares about my pleasure.
I groan and growl at the confusing sensations. At my traitorous body that pushes back into Duncan.
I’ve lost control of myself. Of my senses.
Hot. Cold. Good. Bad. Everything mixes up and I’m in hell.
I’m in heaven.
I feel so much that my heels rise off the floor.
Duncan yanks me down, taking me like I’ve been fantasizing about for years.
An orgasm—no, a hurricane—builds up inside me. Tears wet my cheeks, the relief I know coming just around the corner…
And Duncan pulls back.
This pressure between my thighs is overwhelming.
I can’t take it anymore.
“No,” I cry out. Desperate to come, I push my ass back. “Please.”
“Stay there,” Duncan clips, voice thick with lust.
Under his breath, he says words that could be always or him. I might be hearing it wrong with all the blood roaring between my ears.
“Please, Duncan.”
My plea is dismissed. He says nothing, holding me in place instead, hurting me with his silence.
“Duncan…”
Nothing.
This nightmare lasts until the air finally starts filtering back into my lungs. Until I’m able to get a hold of this dark, relentless desire that seems to wipe out my brain cells.
As if sensing it, Duncan puts his mouth on me a second time.
“Oh God,” I whimper, realizing the hard way that my body hasn’t recovered, not really.
It gets worse when his tongue drags in and out of my pussy. When he runs his thumb over my inner thigh.
His finger, now coated with my wetness, is a weapon he wields. Duncan alternates between pressing it to my clit and rubbing it, fast then slow.