Chapter Twenty-Nine
………………………….
Ily
I SIGHED AND SNUGGLED CLOSER to Henri.
Hidden beneath the blankets, tucked away from the world and cameras, we knotted each other up in arms and legs and lay still.
I’d never felt so cosy, so comfortable.
Never thought I’d find my place in the arms of someone who battled such demons and won.
His lips skated along my shoulder blade where he hugged me from behind, making my lash marks twinge.
Hug wasn’t the right word. Smothering was better. The way he held me so tightly ought to be claustrophobic, but it only granted safety.
I sighed again, sleep tugging on my eyelashes.
It’d been a long day.
After we’d finally disengaged in the snuffbox and Victor finished with Rachel, all of us were surprisingly quiet. Victor inspected the cuts Henri had given me, then snapped his fingers for Rachel to follow him.
They’d left, and we’d followed.
Henri had taken me to see Dr Belford.
She’d treated the whip welts and cuts but admitted she couldn’t clean out the sapphire dust thanks to Victor’s many rules. Instead, she’d applied a salve to speed up healing and placed a small bandage over my hip and thigh.
We’d returned to our room.
I’d expected to talk or shower or relive the most heightened sexual experience of my life. Only, Henri laid me down, applied more arnica to my lashes, then bundled me beneath the blankets and just held me.
“I’m sorry for hurting you,” he breathed drowsily against my skin. “I’m sorry for what I am.”
I shivered as he kissed my ear.
“You don’t owe me an apology, Hen. You saw how much I enjoyed it.” My cheeks flushed hot.
“Yes, I did see. I felt it too.” A rumbling chuckle vibrated in his chest, tickling my smarting back. “Has that…ever happened to you before?”
I knew what he meant.
The savagery of my climax.
The gush of embarrassing liquid…
For a moment, I tried to figure out a way to deny what’d happened, but he murmured, “You squirted on me, Ily.”
I gasped. “I did nothing of the sort.”
He chuckled again. “The mess we left behind hinted it wasn’t just me who created that puddle.”
“You sound rather proud of yourself.” I sniffed. “Rather cocky actually.”
“Exceedingly.” He sucked the top of my shoulder, his mouth wet and hot. “To know I can give you that level of pleasure?” He groaned. “It helps redeem some of the filth inside me.”
I arched my chin, giving him greater access to my neck.
“I could barely climb inside you, you were coming so hard,” he whispered. “You started coming without me even touching you.”
“Oh, you touched me alright. You touched me in far too many ways.”
“So you’re not usually that sensitive? You’ve never reached the level of squir—”
“If you say squirted one more time—”
“You did.”
“Did not.”
“Pretty sure you ejaculated all over me.”
“Oh God, will you stop.” I buried my face into the pillow.
He laughed.
A laugh I didn’t think I’d ever hear from him. Loose and languid, untainted with stress or shame.
It made my heart glow; my chagrin fell away.
I wanted to make him laugh every day for the rest of his life so he never had to be sad again.
With my face flaming, I whispered, “What you made me do was…definitely a first.”
He sighed and hugged me bone-breakingly hard.
He didn’t speak, almost as if knowing he affected me that intensely made him speechless.
“The things you make me feel, Hen…” I shrugged in his embrace. “It’s out of this world. Literally.”
He chuckled against my hair. “Probably shouldn’t tell me that if you don’t want me cocky.”
I snuggled closer. “In that case, I definitely shouldn’t say I’ve never experienced pleasure like I have with you. Never knew it was possible. Your anatomy is so perfect, it should be illegal.”
“My anatomy?” He snickered.
“Yep.” I grinned beneath our blankets. “You have this uncanny ability to hit my G-spot. A mythical spot before you came along, by the way.” I kissed his forearm wrapped around my chest. “If a sex toy company made dildos off your size and shape, then women might finally learn how to—”
“Squirt?”
“No!” I giggled, absolutely shocked that this moment was so normal, so…sweet. “I mean…find pleasure from other parts and not just her clit.”
“I’ll see if Victor has some plaster of paris lying around.” He chuckled. “We could ship replicas of my dick to every frustrated housewife around the world.”
A rush of jealous possession ripped through me. “I hate to tell you, Henri, but the only one who will ever feel you inside her is me. Real or toy.”
He fell silent.
Our light-hearted energy solidified into seriousness.
I didn’t want it to.
Everything had been far too serious for far too long, but we weren’t free. Eight new jewels were here. Peter was being tormented. Mollie was being abused. Rachel was pregnant.
Compared to them, I was so lucky.
I’d been given a man I’d never expected, and we’d experienced something soul-changing, but…this moment of reprieve was just that…a moment.
“I know I have a thousand messed-up feelings, but hearing you being possessive over me?” He yanked me tighter against him. “I can’t tell you how that makes me feel.” His voice turned achingly quiet. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted. To be wanted. To be loved despite all the shit inside me.”
Squirming in his arms, I turned to face him and cupped his cheek. His grey eyes glowed silver in the dark, the sheets hiding us in our own fabric world. His sheer size. His immense presence. He oozed power and masculinity, but beneath those muscles and all that darkness, he was painfully vulnerable and innocent.
It was that innocence I’d sensed all along. A wide-eyed naivety when it came to love and all its facets. My heart ached as I kept my voice too low for the cameras. “You’re mine, Henri Mercer. Got it?”
He sighed heavily. “I’m yours until my last breath, Ily.” Shifting a little, he added, “I’m yours, yet I barely know you. We haven’t had the chance to talk about such simple things, but…I know you. I do. I know all the important things.”
“Important things?”
“You have to have felt it.” He shrugged self-consciously. “Today, when I entered you? Something clutched me around the heart and forged me with you. I-I can’t explain it, but—”
“It felt like we were one?”
He flinched. “Yeah…” His gaze locked on my mouth. “You felt it too?”
“I did.” I ran my thumb over the hollowness of his severe cheeks. “And I think I know why.”
“You do?”
I dropped my eyes. “Umm…it’ll probably sound silly, but…someone once told me that I’d meet a man who would turn out to be my twin flame and—”
“Twin flame?” Henri whispered. “What does that mean?”
I twitched, not really ready to share my mystical hypnosis. “Eh, well…a soulmate is a separate soul you’ve known before. Someone you’ve loved in every lifetime and are connected to in many ways, but a twin flame…it’s the missing piece of your soul.”
He went very still. “How…how do you know when you find this missing piece?”
“There’s a few ways but the main one would be, um, the sensation that you’ve met before.”
“The recognition.” He froze. “The familiarity. You feel so familiar to me. You always have.”
“You too.” I smiled softly.
“So there’s an explanation for all of this? A black-and-white reason you’ve become every-fucking-thing to me, yet…I don’t even know your favourite colour, favourite fruit, favourite memory?”
“Gold, dragon fruit, and my brother finding me on the steps of the hospital—not that that’s a memory but a story my family has told me over and over again. And yes…I’m sure there’s a reason we met. An explanation for why it’s so strong between us. Why I feel safe with you even though we’re surrounded by danger.”
A few moments ticked past before he murmured, “I’d like to meet your brother.” He nuzzled my nose with his. “He’s the reason you have the worst/best name I’ve ever heard.”
Tears shot up my spine at the thought of Henri going home with me. Of walking into my family’s house. Of saying hello to Krish. “One day.” I swallowed back stinging hope. “Hopefully, you can meet them one day. My parents are the most wonderful people. Our community so caring. I come from a large group of families—some related, some not, yet we all look out for one another. You’d probably be overwhelmed if I’m honest.”
He huffed. “Your dad will probably take one look at me and kill me on the spot.”
“Lucky for you, my dad is Buddhist, and killing is against our philosophy.” I toyed with the sprigs of black hair between his pecs. “He won’t even kill the tiniest bug. He gives water to the smallest cricket. He’s the wisest, kindest man I know.”
“And I’ve killed four men, so what does that make me?”
“Protective.” I ran my finger over his bottom lip. “Prepared to do whatever it takes to keep me safe.”
He licked my fingertip. “And I failed you in so many ways. Failed Peter and all the others…I’ll never be able to change that.”
“No, you can’t. But you can help us now.”
The air grew static with unsaid things.
Were we safe to do this?
Hidden from the cameras with our voices as low as possible?
The best privacy we were going to get but still so, so dangerous.
“Are you finally going to tell me?” he asked ever so quietly. “Tell me what you’re planning?”
“Not here.” I shook my head, fear creeping through me. “But…tomorrow. I’ll go to the jewel quarters at dawn before the Masters start summoning and speak to Peter. I’ll arrange a meeting for you two. He can tell you. He’ll have the most up-to-date information.”
“Where?”
“The kitchens.”
His eyebrows shot up. “The kitchens?”
My mind raced with what tomorrow would bring. Excitement. Dread. Fear. Hope.
“It has a dead spot in the recording,” I whispered. “It’s the safest place to talk.”
“Is that where you’ve been running off to while I was writing?”
“Yep.”
Silence for a moment before he said, “I went to check on the jewels a few times while Victor was away.”
“You did?”
He scowled. “Victor liked me enquiring about how he ran his home. I figured he’d like it if I cared about his jewels too.”
“So you did it for appearance’s sake?”
“I told myself I did, but…that’s not entirely the truth. I failed to save my own flesh and blood. I need to get the jewels free so I don’t repeat my past. I need to help…for selfish reasons.”
“Selfish?”
“I need to find a way to redeem myself.”
Snuggling into his arms, my whip marks twinged, and the sapphire scars on my thigh and hip already itched with healing. “Don’t beat yourself up for doing the right thing for shadowy reasons, Hen. You want to save them. That’s all that matters.”
“I want to scar you again even though I know it’s wrong. What matters in that scenario? That I want to do it or that I know I shouldn’t?”
“I…don’t know.”
“I can’t stop thinking about cutting you. I’m hard just thinking about the blue lines on your thigh branding you as mine. I…I didn’t mean to cut you with the whip. I miscalculated. I thought I had it. I—”
“Henri.” I kissed him softly. “It’s alright. Dark thoughts are okay.”
He groaned. “No, they’re not. Not when I act on them.”
Shadows crept under our blanket with us. The familiar depression I’d seen him suffocate beneath settled in his eyes.
“Listen to me.” I grabbed his chin. “You are not your thoughts or your past. You are your actions and your present, okay? You cut me…yes. It hurt, I won’t lie. But…you’re not the only one turned on by the thought that you’ve branded me.”
“I’m not?”
“I love you,” I said simply. “The marks you’ve left on me will always remind me of that. When we’re out of here and living a normal life far, far away, I’ll look at that glittery H on my thigh and remember how much we overcame together, how much we fought side by side. It will be a talisman of everything we did and every game we played to win.”
His eyes snapped closed; he hugged me so, so hard. “I really don’t fucking deserve you.”
“Yet I’m yours, so doesn’t that tell you that you’re worthy? Regardless if you believe it or not?”
He shuddered. “Ily, I—”
“I know.” I yawned, the intensity of the day catching up with me.
“If anything ever happens to you…” He suffocated me in another hug. “My heart would stop alongside yours. If this twin flame thing is real and you are my missing piece…then I don’t want to exist without you.”
I stroked his chest and did my best to lighten the heavy darkness. “You know…most girls would go running if a man said such things so early in their relationship.”
“You run, and I’ll chase you.”
“Tempting.” I giggled.
“Fuck, isn’t it,” he groaned. “I’d pin you down. Take you on all fours. Christ…”
My insides clenched. I waited for him to shove off the blankets and put on a show for the cameras, but…his melancholy returned, and he hugged me right against his heart. “I’ve always known you were the one.” Fractures of grey appeared in his gaze, fighting back the black. “Also…say that again.”
“Say what again?”
“The part where we’re in a relationship.”
“Oh.” I grinned. “Well…I don’t know if we are. You haven’t exactly asked me.”
“You’re right.” Pinning me onto my back, he settled his legs between mine. His lips quirked with a boyish, blinding smile. “Ilyana Sharma…I saw you, and I knew you. You’re brave enough to face up to me. Kind enough to forgive me. And wise enough to see things in me that even I don’t see. If you run, I will chase. I will always chase you even if you don’t want me because I need to protect you. I’m loyal to you and only you, and I’ll do whatever it takes to deserve you, all while knowing I never will. And so…I need to ask you…beg you really. Please put me out of my misery and say you’ll go steady with me.”
Tears pressed against the back of my eyes as my body cradled his and our pulse thudded to the same beat. Somehow, I’d found a monster with the most devoted heart. A heart riddled with darkness but also aglow with light.
I had no idea if we would ever get out of here or for how long we would belong to one another, but right there, in that moment, I felt the world shift and realign, snapping us together. “Jeez, okay then.” I grinned. “I’ll go steady with you.”
“Thank God.” He kissed me.
Deeply.
Madly.
Our tongues stroked, our breath caught, and when he finally pulled away, drowsiness pounced, and he rearranged me on my side. Settling closer, he spooned me again. “Get some sleep…wife.”
My eyes flew open, my heart skipped. “Eh, Henri?”
“Hmm?”
“I agreed to be your girlfriend, not your wife.”
“Same thing.”
“Eh, not quite.”
“In my eyes?” He squeezed me. “The moment I met you, I put an invisible ring on your finger. It’s there, Ily. It’s always been there.”
It shouldn’t.
My heart really shouldn’t jive and skip.
No other man could say what Henri did and ever be called sane. But…I couldn’t help it. I fell for his chattiness, his eagerness, his absolutely depraved and damaged heart.
Wife was just a title.
Girlfriend was just a word.
And what we had transcended both of them.
I closed my eyes as sleep crept closer. “If I’m agreeing to be your wife, I hope it’s a huge invisible diamond on my finger.”
“Ah, about that. Unfortunately, it’s small. Positively tiny, actually.” He chuckled behind me. “I’m penniless, after all.”
“You know what? I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want a diamond. This place has cured me of my love of gems. A simple string knotted into a circle would be enough.”
“And that’s why I.L.Y.,” he breathed.
Tears shot to my eyes. My memory of Krish saying those three little letters before he went to bed each night. Knowledge that Henri was no longer afraid of such things.
“I.L.Y. too,” I whispered.
He exhaled and snuggled closer.
Sleep kept creeping but before it towed me into dreams, I murmured, “Tomorrow, after I’ve met with Peter and we’ve had breakfast, I’ll go to the kitchens alone. If you follow me twenty minutes later, no one should get suspicious. We’ll be able to tell you everything.”
His arms banded tighter around me. He pressed a kiss to the top of my head. He didn’t speak for a while, our breathing syncing and slowing. Ever so quietly, he said, “I tossed the cufflinks over the wall. I doubt the signal scrambler suddenly stops working outside the castle, but…I had to try.”
“You called your brother even knowing he’ll try to kill you?”
“I called my brother because if I don’t get you out of here, I want him to kill me.”
The truth of that punched me in the chest. The honesty of his affection and the depth of our connection. Our bond couldn’t die in here. Whatever this was. Whatever we’d become. Neither of us could die.
We can’t destroy each other.
Twin flames or not.
Real or fantasy.
Neither of us could die.
Because if one died, the other would suffer…for eternity.