7. Elizabeth
— ? —
Elizabeth
The nor’easter slams into the Rhode Island coast like a fist.
I’ve been watching it build all day, the sky turning from gray to green to the color of bruises, the wind picking up in gusts that rattle the windows and send leaves skittering across the lawn like frightened animals.
By noon the first drops are falling, fat and heavy, and by evening the rain is coming sideways, lashing against the house with a fury that makes the old stones groan.
I should be inside. Should be curled up in my room with a book, waiting for the storm to pass like a sensible person.
Instead, I’m standing on the back deck, face turned up to the wind, letting the chaos outside match the chaos inside me.
The rain soaks through my white t-shirt in seconds, plastering it to my skin like a second layer.
My shorts are drenched, clinging to my thighs, and my hair whips around my face in wet ropes that sting when they hit my cheeks.
I’m freezing and I don’t care. I needed air.
Needed space. Needed to feel something other than the slow suffocation of being ignored, rejected, dismissed.
Lightning cracks across the sky, so bright it leaves afterimages on my eyelids. I count the seconds until the thunder.
One. Two. Three-
The boom shakes the deck beneath my feet.
Close. Getting closer.
I should go inside now. Should stop this ridiculous rebellion against common sense and self-preservation.
But there’s something intoxicating about standing in the teeth of a storm, feeling the raw power of nature that doesn’t care about arranged marriages or cruel socialites or husbands who flinch away from your touch. The storm doesn’t judge me. The storm doesn’t find me wanting.
Another lightning strike, closer this time, and the thunder follows almost instantly.
I run inside.
***
The power flickers and dies as I step through the door, leaving me dripping in darkness.
The house is suddenly unfamiliar, all shadows and strange shapes, the familiar landmarks erased by the absence of light. I stand in the hallway, water pooling at my feet, and wait for my eyes to adjust.
A faint glow draws me forward. The living room, where flames still crackle in the massive stone fireplace, casting dancing shadows across the walls. The staff must have lit it before the power went out, anticipating the storm.
I head toward the warmth, wringing water from my hair, my bare feet leaving wet prints on the hardwood.
I’m almost to the fire when I realize I’m not alone.
Jarec stands by the window, silhouetted against the lightning that flashes outside. He has a whiskey glass in one hand, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and he’s watching the storm with the same intensity I felt standing in it.
He turns at the sound of my entrance.
And stops.
His eyes land on me, and something dangerous flashes across his expression. Something hot and hungry and immediately suppressed.
I’m soaked. I know what I must look like - the white t-shirt completely transparent, clinging to my breasts, my nipples peaked and dark through the wet fabric. My shorts plastered to my thighs. Water dripping from my hair down my shoulders, my chest, leaving trails that catch the firelight.
The whiskey glass stops halfway to his mouth.
The silence stretches between us, heavy and charged. Just the fire crackling. The rain hammering against the windows. The thunder rolling closer.
“You’re dripping on the floor,” he says finally. His voice is flat, carefully controlled, but I see the way his jaw tightens.
“The power’s out.”
“I noticed.”
“I was outside.” I gesture vaguely at my soaked clothes. “Obviously.”
“Obviously.” His eyes drop again, tracing the outline of my body through the transparent cotton, and something hot coils in my stomach. “Why the hell were you outside in a storm like this?”
“I needed air.”
“Air.” He takes a step closer, then seems to catch himself. “You needed air so badly you stood in a nor’easter until you were soaked through?”
“Yes.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Well.” I lift my chin, defiant. “I’m full of surprises.”
He makes a sound that might be a laugh, might be a curse, might be something in between. The whiskey glass trembles slightly in his grip.
“You should change,” he says. “You’ll catch your death.”
“I don’t have dry clothes nearby.”
“Then get some.”
“I’m cold.” I take a step toward the fire. Toward him. “I need to warm up first.”
His eyes track my movement, dark and heated. I’m close enough now to see the tension in his shoulders, the rapid pulse at the base of his throat.
“Elizabeth.” My name sounds like a warning on his lips.
“Jarec.” I make his name sound like a challenge.
***
I don’t cover myself.
The thought crosses my mind - I should cross my arms, should find a blanket, should do something to preserve modesty and dignity and all the things I’ve been clinging to. But something reckless has taken hold of me, something born of the storm and the darkness and weeks of being invisible.
Let him look. Let him see what he’s been pretending doesn’t exist.
I move to the far end of the couch and sit down, angling my body toward the fire. Toward him. My wet clothes steam slightly in the heat, and I can feel his eyes on me like a physical touch.
“That’s not my problem,” he says, but his voice has changed. Rougher. Strained.
“I know.” I lean back against the cushions, making no move to cover the transparent shirt, the hard points of my nipples, the goosebumps rising on my skin. “I’m just trying to get warm. Or is that against the rules too?”
His fingers tighten on the whiskey glass until something cracks. He looks down, almost surprised to find the glass fractured in his grip. Sets it aside without looking at me, though I catch the way his eyes keep drifting back.
The muscle in his jaw ticks like a bomb counting down.
Wind howls outside, rattling the windows. I shiver, and this time it’s not entirely from the cold. It’s from the way he’s looking at me - like I’m something he wants to devour but won’t let himself taste.
“There’s a blanket,” he says through gritted teeth. “Behind you. Use it.”
I don’t. Instead, I shift closer on the couch. Not quite touching him, but close enough that I could if I reached out. Close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off his body, can smell that cedar scent that haunts my dreams.
“Why?” I ask softly. “Does it bother you? Seeing me like this?”
“Elizabeth-”
“Because you’ve made it very clear that nothing about me affects you at all. You flinch when I touch you. You can’t even eat breakfast at the same table. So this” - I gesture at my soaked, transparent clothes - “shouldn’t matter to you in the slightest.”
His breath is coming faster now. I can see his chest rising and falling beneath his shirt, can see the way his hands have clenched into fists at his sides.
“You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“I know exactly what I’m doing.” I tilt my head, studying him. “I’m sitting by a fire in my own home, trying to get warm after being caught in a storm. If that bothers you, you’re welcome to leave.”
He doesn’t leave.
He stands there, frozen, the firelight playing across his features, illuminating the war happening behind his eyes. Want and denial. Hunger and control. The same tension I’ve felt building for weeks, finally visible on his face.
Lightning flashes outside, brilliant and blinding.
I flinch, an instinctive reaction to the sudden light.
***
He moves toward me on pure instinct, his body angling to shield me from nothing at all.
Suddenly he’s too close. Close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off his skin, can count his eyelashes, can see the rapid pulse at the base of his throat. His hands are braced on the back of the couch, caging me without touching, and his breath mingles with mine in the space between us.
The fire crackles.
The thunder rolls.
His eyes drop to my mouth.
“Don’t.” His voice is rough, wrecked. “Don’t make this harder than it already is.”
“Make what harder?”
“This.” His gaze flicks down to my transparent shirt, then back to my eyes. “You. I made a promise to a dying man, Elizabeth. I swore I would protect you.”
“And what does that have to do with-”
“Everything.” The word comes out harsh, almost angry. “It has everything to do with this. With why I can’t-” He stops, jaw clenching. “I won’t ruin you on a couch because I can’t control myself. That’s not protection. That’s-”
He doesn’t finish the sentence.
He doesn’t have to.
His lips brush mine for one electric second.
It’s barely a kiss - just the faintest pressure, the softest touch, so brief I might have imagined it. But I feel it everywhere, a spark that ignites something deep in my chest and spreads outward like wildfire.
He yanks back like he’s been burned.
“No.” He’s on his feet, putting distance between us, his hands raking through his hair. “No. This isn’t - I can’t-”
Something proud and reckless cracks open inside me.
I surge forward and kiss him.
***
No hesitation. No timid softness.
I fist the front of his shirt and drag his mouth down to mine, kissing him like I’ve been practicing in my head every night since the wedding. Lips parting, tongue sliding against his, a soft broken sound escaping my throat when he groans into me.
For one devastating second, his control shatters.
His hand spears into my wet hair, gripping hard enough to sting.
He kisses me back like a man starving, like he’s been holding himself back for weeks and the dam has finally broken.
Deep, filthy, desperate. Teeth grazing my bottom lip.
Tongue claiming. Hips jerking forward so I feel every thick, hard inch of him press against me.
My back hits the couch cushions. He follows me down, his weight pinning me in place, and I wrap my legs around his waist without thinking. The movement drags a curse from his lips, muffled against my mouth.
My wet shirt has ridden up, and his hand finds bare skin - the curve of my waist, the dip of my ribs, his palm hot and rough against my flesh. I arch into him, desperate for more contact, and I feel him throb against the thin barrier of my shorts.
He’s hard. So hard. Pressed against the softest part of me, separated by nothing but soaked cotton and his slacks, and the friction makes me gasp into his mouth.
“Fuck.” The word is torn from him, half prayer and half curse. He grinds against me once, deliberate and filthy, and my whole body shudders.
I’ve never felt anything like this. Never felt so consumed, so desperate, so completely out of control. I’m burning up despite my wet clothes, every nerve ending on fire, and I want - I want-
He tears his mouth away.
For one wild moment he hovers over me, breathing hard, his lips swollen and wet from mine. His eyes are nearly black with want, his hair disheveled where I grabbed it, and his body is still pressed against mine in a way that makes it impossible to ignore how much he wants this.
Wants me.
Then the shutters come down.
He shoves himself backward off the couch so fast he almost stumbles, chest heaving, mouth wet, eyes wild with want and self-loathing.
“No.” His voice is ragged. “This never happened.”
***
I stay on my knees on the couch, lips swollen, shirt slipping off one shoulder, body trembling with need and humiliation and something that feels dangerously like heartbreak.
“Jarec-”
“Don’t.” He holds up a hand like he’s warding off an attack. “Don’t say anything. This was a mistake.”
“A mistake.” The word tastes like poison. “You kissed me back.”
“I know.”
“You wanted me. I felt how much you wanted me.”
His jaw tightens. He doesn’t deny it.
“Do you think that because I haven’t been with anyone before, I don’t know what that means?” My voice shakes but doesn’t break. “I may be untouched, Jarec, but I’m not stupid. And I’m not made of glass. You wanted me. You want me right now. So why-”
“Because it doesn’t matter what I want.” His voice is rough, almost angry. “It matters what I promised. What I owe. You’re under my protection, Elizabeth. My responsibility. I won’t take advantage of that just because you’re wet and willing and looking at me like-” He stops, swallows hard.
“Like what?”
“Like you want me to wreck you.”
The words hang in the air between us, raw and honest and devastating.
“Maybe I do,” I whisper.
Something flickers in his expression. Pain, maybe. Or longing. For one heartbeat I think he might come back to me, might let himself have what we both want.
Instead, his face shuts down completely. The heat vanishes behind ice.
“This never happened,” he says again, quieter this time. Final. “Go to bed, Elizabeth. Forget this.”
He turns and walks out of the firelight. The study door closes hard enough to rattle the frame. Footsteps fade. Then nothing but the storm.
***
I stay on my knees for a long time.
The fire burns lower. The rain hammers against the windows. The taste of him lingers on my lips, whiskey and something darker, something that makes my chest ache.
Eventually I pull the throw blanket around myself, curl into the corner of the couch, and stare at the flames until my eyes sting.
He wants me. That much is clear now, undeniable. He wants me so badly his hands shook, so badly he ground himself against me like a man possessed.
He just doesn’t want to want me.
And somehow that hurts worse than if he had never touched me at all.