Chapter 15
Chapter
Fifteen
It was the last day of the year.
Tomorrow should be like any other day. Steel had never cared before that a new year was starting, it had always just felt like more of the same.
Especially these last ten years. It wasn't like they went and watched the fireworks somewhere. There was no family celebration or hanging out with friends. They were each other’s family and friends.
So New Year’s Day had always been just another day, except for this year.
This year felt different.
Bigger.
Like it was not just the start of something new, but the start of something bigger.
It was more than finally having a name for the doctor who had messed with their bodies and stolen their lives from them in the process. It was more than having a way to finally get to him, to get the revenge they’d been dreaming about for a decade.
“You going to just stand there staring at me, or do you have something to say?” Rose demanded, looking up from the book she was reading.
“Brat,” he murmured as he stalked into the room.
Even though it had been his idea to stop locking Rose in her room, to do something to try to earn her trust, he hadn't slept a wink the previous night, worried that she would try to make a run for it when she thought they were all sleeping. Just because she knew that she’d be caught, between the cameras and their enhanced skills, she didn't stand a chance at getting out of this mansion undetected, it didn't mean she wasn't desperate enough to try.
But she hadn't tried.
And in fact, when she’d come down to the kitchen this morning, she’d looked stronger and more rested than he’d seen her.
Bruises still mottled her skin, and she still wore a cast, and he knew from the stiff way she moved that she was still in pain.
But the dark circles under her eyes had receded, and she was fresh and clean from a shower, dressed in clothes he’d bought for her.
It wasn't quite as good as seeing her in his clothes, but that primal caveman side of him liked seeing her in things he’d provided for her.
“You really must want to be punished,” he told her as he stopped before the chair she was curled up in and drew himself up to his full height.
“I don’t think you have any intention of following through,” she informed him with one of those sweet smiles he knew was designed to egg him on. “You keep mentioning punishments, but so far, you have yet to deliver any.”
Her sassy little voice made him laugh. “Don’t think it’s a punishment if you want it, little ladybug.”
“Never said anything about wanting it,” she said primly, making him laugh again. Ruining her was going to be sweeter than any smile she beamed at him. “Now, were you leering at me from the doorway for a reason, or was it just to be creepy?”
Snapping his hands around her wrists, careful to keep his hold on her broken one gentle, Steel had her out of her chair and flush against his body before she could blink.
Holding her so her feet were off the floor, and she had no choice but to let them hang there or wrap them around his waist, he was pleased when she chose the latter.
“Appreciating the view, not leering, little ladybug,” he told her as his hand came down on her backside, harder than he’d done the day before, making her whole body jolt forward, rocking her center across the bulge in his pants.
Instead of crying out at what wouldn't have been more than a slight sting, or telling him to stop, Rose moaned, and arousal sprang to life in her deep green eyes. Bringing his hand down again, he drove them both crazy as the friction was enough to remind them of what they weren't ready to do yet.
A third spank was all he knew he could handle before he stripped her naked and had his fun with her, so he set her back on her feet, leaving her dazed and breathing hard.
“Actually, I did have a reason for watching you from the door,” he said.
“Oh?”
“It’s snowing, so we can't go outside, but I wanted to know if you wanted to hang out.” Damn, he felt like a teenager all over again, asking Rose if she wanted to spend time with him, but he craved her company more than he craved air to breathe, so he shoved aside those feelings he’d thought he’d long since outgrown.
“Show me something you used to enjoy from before. Before my brother messed with your head and your body, back when you were just a regular guy,” Rose blurted out.
Not what he’d been expecting her to say, but since she hadn't told him to get lost, he could work with it. An idea immediately popped into his head, something he could share with Rose that he’d never shared with anyone else, not any of his friends or girlfriends before, and not his team.
“You know most people tell the other person where they’re going before they storm out of a room,” Rose called after him as he strode for the door.
“Most people follow when they’ve just asked someone to share with them,” he shot back with a smirk.
“Except you never actually said you would share anything with me, you just turned and walked away,” Rose grumbled, but she came to trail after him as he headed out of the library and down to the office.
They had a main office they used for plotting their revenge.
The walls were covered in dozens of photos, piles of paperwork were stored on a desk, and they had a huge conference table where they’d set themselves up when they worked.
That room was too busy for what he had planned, too hard, and cold, a reminder of why he’d brought Rose here and that she could leave when they all had what they wanted. Ridge Gardner dead.
So he went to the smaller office, which was rarely used, but it had what he needed, although he could tell Rose had no idea what he was up to when he went to a filing cabinet and opened it.
“Perfect,” he said when he found what he’d been looking for and spun around to see Rose staring at him with a furrowed brow.
“Paper?”
“For origami.”
“Origami? That’s what you wanted to show me?”
“I learned from my grandmother when I was a boy. Her first husband was Japanese, but they were married for only a year before he tragically died in a house fire, saving two little neighbor children.”
“Did they live? The children?”
“They did. He was the love of my grandmother’s life, although I know she loved my grandfather, too.
They only had one son, and they lost him too soon as well.
My dad died when I was too young to remember him.
My sister was ten years older than me, so she helped my mom raise me, especially after my mom got sick. They’re all gone now.”
“I'm sorry, Steel, I know it sucks not to have a family, but at least you got to enjoy them while you had them,” Rose said softly.
He knew he’d been lucky to have a family that loved him and cared about him. Rose hadn't had that at all. She’d been raised by a psychopath who got off on inflicting pain on her.
No more.
No one would ever hurt her again.
She was his now, and he protected what was his.
“Want to learn how to make a rose?”
She chuckled but nodded. “I’d love to. I’ve never done origami before. Ridge didn't believe in anything that wasn't studying and work.”
“We can learn more after this if you want, but origami takes a lot of practice to get right.”
“Lucky I'm a patient girl then.”
“Lucky,” he agreed with a chuckle. “We’ll do it together.”
Grabbing stacks of paper, he headed through to the dining room so they could spread out at the table. Once they were both seated with a piece of square red paper in front of them, he started giving instructions.
It had been a long time since he’d done origami, and he was definitely out of practice, but as he talked Rose through it, everything began to come back to him.
Roses had been his grandmother’s favorite because they were the first thing her husband had ever made for her, and they’d been the first thing she’d taught him, even though there were simpler ideas to start with.
His grandmother always told him that anything worth doing wasn't just worth doing well, it was worth jumping all in with.
Was that what he was willing to do with his Rose?
Jump all in and not let the fear of failure hold him back?
She didn't lose her temper as she struggled to get the folds correct. The cast made it even harder, and her first attempt looked more like a mangled piece of paper than an actual rose. But she didn't give up, just had him write out the instructions so she could work on it over and over again.
Each try was a little better, a little cleaner, a little more rose-looking, and when she finally held up one that was very clearly a flower, she beamed at him in delight as she held it proudly.
“I did it,” she said excitedly.
“Never doubted you would.” While she’d been repeating the flower over and over again, he’d been working on his own creation. A dozen red roses with stems.
When he held them up, Rose’s eyes filled with tears, and his heart felt like it stuttered to a stop inside his chest.
Did she hate them?
Did she feel uncomfortable that he’d made them for her?
Surely, she had to know that he was attracted to her, that he was borderline obsessed with her, that he wanted to own every inch of her mind, heart, body, and soul, and give her the scraps he had left of his.
“You made them for me?” she asked as fat little teardrops trailed silvery lines down her cheeks.
“Don’t know who else is in the room that I might be giving them to, little ladybug,” he said carefully, uncertain how to tread in unexplored terrain like this.
“I’d say they’re the nicest gift anyone has ever given to me, but that wouldn't be true, because really, it’s the only gift anyone has ever given to me,” she said softly, allowing him a precious glimpse at the pain she hid so well. Pain he would do anything to rip out of her soul and destroy.
Instead, he reached over, palmed her cheek, and brushed the pad of his thumb across her bottom lip. “First,” he corrected. “First gift anyone has ever given you.”
December 31st