Chapter Sixteen
Grym
As soon as we sat down on the couch, I lost track of where to start. If I were a nervous boy asking him out on a date, it would have been less awkward.
“Seriously, Grymley. What the hell is going on? Why are you all here?” Elliot waved his hand, dismissing whatever was rolling around in his pretty head. “I get that you’re like death and stuff. I get that part. But what does that have to do with me?”
That was a good question and probably a good place to start. “Do you remember when I said you were my beloved?”
“Beloved? Like soul mates? That’s just in fairy tales, Grym.”
“It’s real. As real as you and I sitting here.” I hadn’t touched Elliot for fear of rejection, but I longed to. “I felt a connection the moment I saw you in the hospital’s emergency department. I knew exactly who you were to me.”
Elliot drew in a breath, then let it out slowly. “That was you?”
“My soul reaches for you.” I pointed to my chest, where my heart had ached since the moment I met Elliot. The ache had only grown with time.
Elliot didn’t speak for a very long time. He wrung his hands together, holding them in his lap, and stared at his knees without actually seeing them.
As much as I wanted to include all the other information that came with being my beloved, I also didn’t want to bombard him. Elliot tended to shut down when something was hard for him, so I waited.
Eventually, Elliot stood and began pacing.
“Do you know how much shit I have to get done today? All I want to do is be in my feelings about this and about Gary. I have to finish an entire dining table, which he was helping me with.” His voice cracked, but he shook his head as if telling his feelings to go to hell and never come back. “I don’t have time for this.”
“Maybe I can help.”
“Help with what, Grym? The table or the grief?”
“Both.”
Elliot smirked and shook his head. “Well, you can’t help with the table dressed like you’re ready for the boardroom.”
Tan popped his head into the room. “I’m really sorry about your neighbor.”
“Thanks.” Elliot smiled. “He was a hundred and two years old. No one lives that long, but somehow he managed it. It shouldn’t hurt so much, but I’ll miss him.”
“I get it, man.” Tan smiled, then met my gaze. “If everyone in your life tells you something, maybe you have a problem. Thus, dressing like a workaholic.”
I picked up a pillow from the couch and threw it at Tan’s head. I would have hit him if he hadn’t ducked into the kitchen. I turned to Elliot, wanting to be a good listener for my beloved, even though the pillow I had just thrown still lay on the floor, mocking me.
Elliot wiped his eyes. “You’re a workaholic?”
I lasted ten whole seconds, letting the pillow bug the shit out of me before I couldn’t take it anymore and had to pick it up. “So they say.”
“He was before you came along,” Ossy and Tan yelled from the kitchen.
“Can we go somewhere with more privacy?” I asked as I put the pillow back on the couch. It didn’t seem right, so I had to straighten it, fluff it, and put that choppy crease on top.
I wasn’t sure what I’d done, but Elliot laughed. It sounded more like a giggle, like when he’d gotten high with Joel behind the pizza restaurant the other night.
I met his gaze and smiled, but I was curious about what I’d done, so I could duplicate it.
“He’s also anal about stuff,” Elliot yelled.
“We know,” Ossy and Tan yelled.
That made Elliot laugh even harder for reasons I didn’t understand. I knew he was laughing at me, but at least he wasn’t upset anymore. “Oh my god, the way you’re looking at me... that’s no fair. No fair at all.”
Despite his words, his tone suggested he liked it, though I had no clue what my face was doing. “How am I looking at you?”
“Like you like me.”
That was an easy one to explain. “I do like you.”
Elliot faced me. He wiped his hands on the sides of his pants. He wore cargo pants, complete with a place to hang a hammer in case he needed to keep one within reach. They hung low on his hips, making me want to push them down just to see what was underneath.
He averted his gaze for a second. His brow furrowed.
Then he met my gaze. He sucked in a breath, and his eyes widened as if seeing me for the first time.
“I think I feel the connection you’re talking about.
Like I’ve known you my whole life. I think I felt it when I delivered your pizza.
That’s why I texted. And before that, when I almost died.
But I...” Elliot shook his head. “You are so far out of my league, Grym. You’re in another galaxy. ”
I shook my head, denying it. “I think the same, but in reverse.”
Elliot blinked as if he didn’t believe me, so I nodded again, hoping to make my point. “Do you look in a mirror?”
That made Grym smile again. “Do you? And then I find out you have very special abilities.”
Elliot shook his head. A crease formed on his brow. “I’m just a normal guy.”
I held his hand. “You can walk between realms. Only gods can do that.”
Elliot shrugged. The crease in his brow deepened. “What is a realm, anyway? And why would I want to walk between them?”
Maybe it was the wrong conversation to have. Maybe I should wait, but it was such a special thing to do. He was the only one who could. At least so far. There would be others. Eventually. But he was the first.
“A realm is like another world. The afterlife. Tir an Nog. Mag Mell. Heaven. Hell. Tech Duinn. Annwn. They’re all different realms.”
“That’s a lot.” He sighed. “I don’t want to be special. I just want to be me, like I’ve always been.”
I just smiled, which made Elliot lean into me a little more than before. Our gazes met, and I could tell something shifted in my favor. “You have a nice smile.”
That made me smile even wider. “You think so?”
Instead of answering with words, he pressed his lips to mine.
The change in his demeanor made sense. He’d been reacting to me.
That was a revelation. I had no idea that smiling could soften him so quickly.
It was sweet. Making breakfast for everyone was sweet, too.
But he was confused and sad. All of that came through in our kiss.
His lips were soft yet firm. He opened up when I demanded it.
He tasted of maple syrup and coffee. Beneath that was something distinctively him that I didn’t have a name for.
I’d lived three hundred and twenty-three years.
In all that time, I’d never tasted anything like him.
It was slightly spicy yet floral, like the flowers on a nasturtium plant.
Pulling him closer was instinctive, and so was him ending up straddling my lap. My hands had a mind of their own, landing on his ass. One touch was all it took to ramp up the need. I pulled him into me, wanting friction against my hard cock. I had little doubt he could feel it against his own.
He ended the kiss. The heat in his gaze matched my own. Even so, he pulled away, climbing off my lap.
Every instinct urged me to pull him back into my embrace. He was safest in my arms.
One kiss was all it took to make me want more.
I’d been protective from the first moment I saw him, but that protectiveness came with a need to be in his presence.
I never wanted to leave his side. This level of protectiveness was new.
It brought a certain clairvoyance. In the time it took to kiss him, we bonded—at least a little.
Enough for me to know he’d go to his workshop, and that was where it would all begin.
Someone would try to force my hand. I couldn’t see the outcome, but I sensed the danger lurking around the corner of time. Just minutes away.
He shook his head as if he disagreed with something I’d said. His gaze was accusatory. “You did something to me. I can feel you inside my head. That’s you, right?”
“I think so, but I did nothing directly.” It was all new to me, too. The clairvoyance regarding him and my increased protectiveness toward Elliot were things I’d never experienced before. “It’s the bond forming.”
Elliot stepped back, creating distance between us. “You’re making it happen.”
I tried to relax my facial muscles, but I knew I had failed. He acted as if it were all my fault. “I didn’t even know beloveds were a thing for reapers until you came along. We wouldn’t even know each other if not for your accident.”
“Oh my god. Are you seriously blaming me for this?”
The second I shrugged, I knew it was a mistake.
Elliot threw up his hands and turned to leave the room. “I can’t deal with you right now.”
“Don’t leave the house, Elliot.” He could do whatever he wanted inside, but shadows lingered, waiting for him.
He flipped me off. “Fuck you, Grymley Reaper. Get out of my head.”
“I don’t know how I got inside there.” I didn’t know a lot of things, like how not to annoy my beloved.
I sighed and followed him outside.