Monarch

9. Atlas

9

ATLAS

T he author isn’t happy when I won’t give him his wife ( fiancé, you fucking liar; you haven’t even bought her a ring).

“Sorry,” I tell him, standing like a brick wall in front of the door. “When a guest falls unconscious on hotel property, it is the Monarch’s policy that they stay overnight in the infirmary for observation by our medical examiner.”

The sorry is a denial, not an apology. Whenever I especially want to tell someone to fuck off, I speak to them as the hotel. Because I am the Monarch, and it is me. It’s my castle, my fortress, and sometimes…my prison. For me and, tonight, for the unconscious Elena.

And there’s nothing Lorne Ronson can do about it. I’ve already secured positive relations with the new sheriff. Lorne’s attack dog is Mrs. Cross—excellent for terrorizing nine-year-olds, but less effective against me.

He can’t do anything, not tonight. And he knows it.

His lips go pale and thin, his newly sharpened jawline tight with impotence. He’s been working out every morning in the hotel gym since OIivia started flirting with him. The results are starting to show in his trimmer physique, and in the free lattes Olivia’s been sneaking him.

She knows damn well I’ll fire her if she fucks him. And I’ll know if she fucks him—very little happens inside this hotel without me noticing.

Which is why I intend to find out what the hell just happened to Elena.

All types of people pass through my hotel—the best and bravest, the cruelest and most selfish. And sometimes…the dark and deeply depraved.

Some struggle against their demons and chase the better version of themselves.

Some embrace their inner devil.

And some play saint or sinner without feeling anything inside.

As Lorne Ronson’s face hardens, I note something flat and cold in those pretty blue eyes that gives me a chill.

“Fine,” he says. “I’ll come get her in the morning.”

I stare at him without nodding, without agreeing to anything.

I saw how Elena passed out. I caught her before she hit her head, yet she still fell unconscious.

I don’t trust this motherfucker.

And I will protect Elena while she’s staying at my hotel.

Lorne holds my eye as long as he can. But in the end, he looks away, stalking off like he had the last word.

I watch him all the way to the stairs, then head back inside the infirmary, closing and locking the door. Our medical examiner is prompt because I’m the medical examiner. My brother isn’t the only one who went to med school—he’s just the only one who likes doctoring enough to do it full-time.

I walk over to where I made Elena comfortable on the cot, pondering in what shade of gray it would lie for me to examine her.

I’ve done it plenty of times before, even on unconscious hotel guests.

This feels…different.

Probably because of how rawly sensual she looks in the soft, silvery light, curled on her side, hand against her cheek, face flushed, hair tawny. I try to ignore her beauty, but I might as well try ignoring an oasis in the middle of the desert. She draws my eyes, my thoughts, and every ounce of my longing.

I touch her throat, her pulse steady under my fingertips. Her breath comes softly through parted lips.

My shoulders relax. She’s going to be fine.

And I’m going to be professional.

Completely professional.

I lift her head gently a few inches off the pillow, cradling it in my hands, examining her skull. I’m sure she didn’t hit anything, but I check carefully anyway.

I feel nothing but silken hair, smooth skin, sweet breath on my face. No damage.

Options include a blood test sent to the drug lab, an IV bag of saline in the meantime, and maybe a call to the police.

But that could all be overkill. Elena might just be tired from her flight, dehydrated and jet-lagged.

I decide on the saline bag for certain if she doesn’t come to in five minutes, and drug testing if she worsens or wants it after she wakes up. Assuming she wakes up.

She’ll be fine.

She’s got to be fine…

Elena rolls over, letting out a sigh. Now she’s facing upward, back arched, head tilted back, the skirt of her jade-green dress pulling up her thighs…

Oh, fucking Jesus.

She’s better than fine.

She’s…the most luscious thing I’ve ever seen.

The dress hugs her in all the right places, sketching curves of exaggerated proportions that promise untold pleasure to the hands, the lips, and of course, the eyes—if, for example, it were necessary to take off her clothes to examine her more closely…

The skirt has ridden so far up her thighs, I’d only have to tilt my head to know for certain if she’s wearing underwear.

I already have a guess…

I swallow hard.

I’m a doctor and a decent person. Yeah, that’s right, a decent person. Look, see how I’m behaving myself.

Thoughts are just thoughts. Filthy, naughty thoughts.

I rub my hands against my thighs and then stuff them into my pockets, like that will keep them out of trouble.

But Elena’s still lying there helpless on the bed.

The urge to touch her again is almost irresistible.

There’s no one around. No one to see.

Just looking at her as long as I want without interruption is turning me on. I can take all the time in the world, memorizing the thickness of her thighs, the deep pink of her lips, the heartbreakingly ragged state of her cuticles.

Gazing down at her feels like drinking cool water. It satisfies a thirst deep down in my cells, filling me up until I’m saturated.

But now that I’m no longer thirsty…I’m fucking hungry.

Ravenous, even.

And Elena looks like a ten-course feast.

I’ve noticed that most of her clothes aren’t quite the right size. Her jeans seem passed down from some larger male, and her dresses look bought for someone slightly smaller.

This green dress hardly covers her mile-long legs, acres of creamy skin exposed to my gaze. Her breasts test the limit of the cheap, flimsy top.

But it’s her lips that hook me and drag me closer. Those dark, dusky pink lips…

When she’s talking to me, my urge to watch her mouth battles with the need to gaze into those arctic-fox eyes. Usually, her eyes win.

But right now, her eyes are closed. Her mouth is all I see.

I drop to one knee by the bed, a prince at the side of Sleeping Beauty. Except I’m no fucking prince.

That’s a story from the olden days, when you could kiss an unconscious woman.

I’m not going to do that. I could lose my medical license. Also, it’s fucked up.

But still…

I guess I want to do a fucked-up thing. So much that I can hardly breathe from wanting.

I brush rose-gold hair off Elena’s forehead. The strand is a ribbon, the skin beneath warm and velvety. Before I can stop myself, I’ve bent and taken a deep breath, inhaling with my nose buried in her hair.

I smell her soap and her perfume, her skin and her scalp, and even her soft, sweet breath, all mixed up together in the scent that is Elena. I’ve caught hints of it before, but now I’ve reached the source, like some poor fool who stumbled upon the forbidden base of a rainbow. I’ve dunked my head and breathed it in.

What it does to me is irreversible.

It’s the moment when a duckling spots its mother and all the tiny wires in its brain fuse with the undying imperative: follow this creature wherever it goes .

It’s the drug you try once and you’re a slave to the craving.

I breathe her scent into my lungs, and she owns me forever.

I feel it happen like a manacle snapping around my wrist, and I wrench myself away from her, stumbling all the way across the room until my back is pressed against the door. Blood thuds in my ears, and my heart races with the magnitude of what I just felt.

What in the seventh layer of hell was that?

Only…it didn’t feel like hell.

It felt like the most delicious, most desirable, most tempting?—

Fucking knock it off!

I stare at the sleeping Elena with a mixture of lust and horror. Mostly lust. Then mostly horror.

I’m not one of those “fall in love” people you hear so much about. Actually, I was against it. Firmly. Sensibly. Permanently.

Or so I thought.

And this, this cannot be love.

It feels more like a meat hook in my spine, jerking me around.

I don’t want to be in love. I don’t even want to be involved.

Elena’s engaged to another man. Not only a hotel guest but a famous author who lives right here in Grimstone.

Without meaning to, I’ve already crept halfway back across the room. To think of her is to look at her, and to look at her is to draw closer…

What am I doing? Do I just want her because I can’t have her?

You could have her.

I sink down on the chair next to Elena’s cot, which is not really a cot but a comfortable twin-sized bed with side rails. The bedding on it is nicer than mine.

I sit very still, looking at her.

They’re not married yet.

The devil inside me speaks with cold, calm clarity. Whispering what he wants.

Thousands of guests have passed through these doors. But she’s the one I want.

He wants her, too—the author. As carelessly as he treats her, he spent a lot of effort bringing her here. And a lot of money.

It’s not his money that concerns me.

It’s the way he looks at her when she’s not looking at him. When he thinks no one’s watching. Then, his face is full of cold calculation. And deep anticipation.

Something’s wrong with Lorne Ronson. I feel it, deep down in my bones. The author has something rotten inside of him.

And he’s mistaken. Someone is watching. I’m watching. I’m watching her…which means I’m also watching him.

As I pull a blanket over Elena’s sleeping body, I allow myself to drag the back of one finger gently down her flushed cheek.

She doesn’t wake until nearly three o’clock in the morning.

When she comes to, she’s groggy and her mouth is dry, despite the pint of saline I put in her arm. I bring her a glass of ice water and help her sit up in the bed to drink it.

“What happened?” she asks confusedly.

“You passed out at dinner.”

She presses the heel of her hand against her forehead, wincing. “My head feels like a pumpkin.”

“I can take you to the hospital in?—”

“No,” she says quickly. “I’m fine. I was probably just…hungry or something.”

Maybe.

Her eyes drop to the crook of her elbow, to the small bandage from the IV line, which I removed while she was still sleeping. She touches the gauze, frowning.

I hurry to say, “I gave you some saline. I have my medical license. I could take a blood sample as well in case?—”

“In case what?” she bites at me, eyes flashing. “You think I do drugs?”

“I wouldn’t give a shit if you did.”

“Oh.” Elena settles back, cheeks still pink with offense and embarrassment. “Then what did you mean?”

I give a slight shrug. “It wouldn’t be the first time someone tried to slip someone else a roofie under the roof of my hotel.”

The problem is that the most obvious culprit is Elena’s fiancé.

She flushes all over again, snapping, “You’re not saying that Lorne?—”

“I’m not accusing anybody. I’m asking if you want me to take a blood sample and send it to the lab.”

I’m speaking calmly, but my body is rigid, blood rushing in my ears. Because I do, absolutely, one hundred percent think her husband— I mean, fiancé —is capable of slipping her a roofie.

The only reason I’m not saying it out loud is because I also think there’s a two percent chance that OIivia might have done it if she got jealous enough.

Also, attacking Lorne will only make Elena defensive. Which is happening already.

“That’s not necessary,” she says, swinging her legs over the railing of the cot, attempting to stand. “I’m fine, I don’t need?—”

She’s already toppling over, going nowhere, of course, except right into my arms.

“You’re not fine, you?—”

“Get your hands off me?—”

“Get your ass into bed!”

I tip her back onto the mattress, putting one huge hand on the center of her chest to hold her there. Maybe I should pretend it’s difficult because she looks furious at how easily I hold her down.

“You fucking?—!”

She lets out a string of what I can only assume are Ukrainian swear words. I wish I had a translator handy because it sounds like I’m missing some seriously spicy shit.

“Look,” I say with what I hope is ninety percent gentleness and only ten percent aggression. “I’ve got nothing against your fiancé.” Nothing I can admit out loud. “But you passed out in my restaurant, and hotel policy says you need to stay here overnight. What you do after that is your choice.”

Elena isn’t buying that for a minute. “It’s your hotel! And your stupid policy!”

I press her into the mattress, a thousand watts of fury between our eyes and a thousand degrees of heat between her body and my hand.

“Exactly.”

Then I drop down into the chair next to her bed and cross my arms over my chest, making it plain that she’s not going anywhere tonight.

Elena stares at me, outraged. “So, you’re a jailor as well as a doctor now?”

“Guess so.”

She glares between me and the door, measuring how little space she has to slip past my bulk in the tiny box of the infirmary.

Then she slumps back against her pillow, scowling, arms crossed over her chest as if she’s imitating me.

But really, she’s just pissed.