Chapter 13 – Bellamy #2
It hits me, and it hits me hard. He hasn’t left his palace since his wife died, and instead of sending Javier to get me, he came himself. The king of Messalina got in a vehicle with no security and drove half an hour to come and get me. Because he was worried about me.
Quickly, I open the heavy door and climb in, shutting it behind me. The window goes up, and I’m cocooned in everything wonderful. Warm heat blasting from the vents. Soft leather. His fucking scent. I take a deep inhale, unable to stop it and not caring if he catches me.
It’s heaven. It’s hell.
“You could have sent Javier if you were that worried. Or tried calling.”
His eyes flash to mine before they return to the road, and he pulls away from the curb. People are staring at the car. It’s not a typical sort of vehicle for Tourin, but I doubt they’d ever consider that the king is driving.
“I left the palace when you didn’t return my text. I didn’t want you taking the bus this late. I’ve been…driving around since.”
“Oh.” For almost two hours? And he came for me himself?
“You say that a lot.”
“Only when I don’t know what to say.” I’m flabbergasted and filled with something I don’t dare try to define.
His eyes rake over me appraisingly. “Let me see it,” he commands, grasping my hand and pulling it gently toward him. It’s dark in here and we’re heading away from town, so I don’t know why he’s bothering.
“It’s covered. How did you know I got a tattoo?”
“I told you. I’ve been driving around. I saw you go inside the shop.”
“And you waited for me?”
He doesn’t reply to that for a few moments, and he doesn’t release my hand either. He’s holding it as he drives us down a dark, winding street, his headlights the only illumination out here now that we’ve left the town walls.
“I figured you might need a break. You never get one.”
“I didn’t think that was allowed. Indentured servant and all.”
His thumb drags over my knuckles. “Does it really still feel like that for you?”
“No.” It feels like magic and everything I’ve been dreaming of for the last two months since I met him. For my whole life. It feels like everything my dad told me I should find, and I frown at that thought. Because, no, the king of Messalina is not what he told me I should find.
“Tell me what you got.” He releases me, and I clasp my hands together, my skin tingling.
I can’t stop staring at his profile, barely illuminated in a blue glow from the dash.
He is very much a man, and in so many ways, I am still very much a girl.
The distinction between us isn’t a turnoff though.
If anything, it’s far too erotic and delicious for me to delve into.
“My father reminded me of something today when I saw him that I haven’t always been the best about doing. He said, ‘Choose your heart and follow its passion.’ I had that inked in a pretty scroll and an open book with little sparks of light coming out of it.”
“What are the sparks of light for?”
“Possibility. Endless possibility.”
With both hands on the wheel now, he clutches it tighter. “Sounds like you” is his only reply, but it’s low and a bit tense.
I want to ask him why he left the palace. Why he came for me. A man who holds so much fear at the prospect of leaving his home, of allowing his children to leave the home.
“I wasn’t sure if you might reconsider…coming back to the palace,” he says softly, almost as if reading my thoughts. “I know when you left your father’s and I know you didn’t immediately go to the bus.”
“How do you know that? Come to think of it, how did you know where I was?”
“Tracking on your phone, Bellamy. You gave Javier your phone when you first took the job so he could install apps on it. Remember?”
“Yes. He said those were security ones. Like a panic button.”
“And a tracking app. If you were ever taken, or are with my children and something happens, we’d need to know immediately where you are.”
I scowl. A deep resonating scowl, and all that delicious ooey-gooeyness I was reveling in because he came to find me just imploded. “That’s an invasion of privacy.”
He nods in agreement. “Yes. You work for the king of Messalina and his family. I thought you knew it was on there. You agreed to it when you signed the forms.”
I fold my arms over my chest only to wince slightly as my new ink rubs my sweater.
I flip my wrist but continue to sulk a bit.
I mean, I get the rationalization behind it, and I did sign all kinds of paperwork I clearly didn’t read as closely as I should have.
But it feels intrusive. Especially when he used it today.
But…ugh. Fine! He stalked me here and I don’t even care the way I’m trying to.
“Why would you think I wouldn’t return to the palace? I work there. All my things are there.”
“We forced you into this position from the start, and then when you left your father’s and walked around and didn’t return my text, I got worried.” He frowns. The man always frowns. Even when he smiles, I swear it’s still there.
“How long were you watching me on the tracking app or whatever?”
He locks eyes with mine for the briefest of moments, intense and raw.
In it, I see more than I ever have before.
This thing between us is growing. It’s multiplying.
I don’t even know what you’d call it. It’s nothing real or discussed.
It lives and breathes in the shadows of our minds.
We’re fighting it. But I’m losing the battle day by day, and it seems he is, too.
I want to push him over the edge and have us both dive into the abyss. A place where there is no end.
But that’s not how our story goes.
For us, there is a bottom. One we’d crash headfirst into.
Everything in my world is centered around him. I fear it as much as I love it because it can’t last, and it can’t be explored.
He takes my hand again, holding it in his, and that’s how we drive the rest of the way. Quiet. Introspective. Connected. His touch is electric, and his hand is the perfect size to hold my much smaller one. And for just this time, I don’t question, and I don’t overthink.
I indulge in it.
And pretend. Maybe I do a little of that, too.
We arrive back at the palace far too soon, the intimidating gates and immense hedges our greeting.
He drives around to the back where the garages are and releases my hand so he can pull in.
The car is put in park and seat belts are unclicked.
He gets out, and so do I, squinting a bit against the bright lights of the garage.
Before he reaches the entrance of the palace, he turns to me, his eyes pulsing with something I can’t name. “Your tattoo fits you.”
“Thank you for coming to get me.”
His hand comes up, brushing some strands of hair back from my face, lingering a second longer than he should, and I live and breathe and die in that touch.
He leans in, his eyes on mine, and my breath catches.
I close my eyes the second his lips press against the corner of my own, warm, soft, and firm.
Pleasure curls deep in my belly. Everything inside me begs for more.
I start to turn my head, but he pulls back before I can connect my lips with his and ruin us once and for all.
I watch as it all comes back. All at once. His stern features and straightened back and shuttered expression. “Good night, Bellamy.”
With that, he turns and walks inside. He doesn’t even wait for me to follow.
Because he’s gone again.
A king who does not understand all he could have in this world if he were willing to try again. And I know deep down that I will never be the one to complete his puzzle because he has no desire to have me put his pieces back together. The sooner I learn this lesson and have it stick, the better.
Only I fear it’s already too late for that.