Chapter 17 #3
“Am I needed somewhere?” I asked Esme, apparently deciding to play with fire. And fire it certainly was. The heat in her eyes as she whipped her attention towards me was enough to singe my eyebrows right off.
“Apologies for interrupting,” she gritted out, her molars visibly grinding together.
“You weren’t interrupting anything,” the woman rushed out.
“Did I misunderstand you?” I asked, trying to find the mind to feel guilty about playing this whole interaction up.
Esme’s answering scoff might as well have been a slap across the woman’s face. Her expression screwed up in pain and her hands came up to her side in surrender. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
Esme’s cheeks pinched in a quick smile before dropping down into that same pleasant expression. Only I knew her well enough to look down at her hands, finding her playing with one of her rings. “I understand.”
Apparently, that wasn’t enough assurance, because the woman rushed out, “I’m serious. Please don’t…slap me or something,” a second later.
The way Esme’s body immediately relaxed, turning into a soft, calming stance to put this woman at ease made feel like I’d just tipped backwards off a cliff.
“I wouldn’t,” Esme said. “I apologize for making you think I would. As I’m sure you know, sometimes the Bond’s bark is a little louder than its bite.”
The woman looked at her like she certainly did not know. “O-Okay. Thank you,” she managed before sprinting away, an entirely different person than the overly-confident one that had approached me with a pointed twinkle in her eye.
The second she was gone, Esme’s body tensed back up again. “Sorry,” she murmured, before turning on her heel and walking towards the door.
Before I could collect my senses, I wrapped my hand around her upper arm to stop her.
She whipped around, looking much paler than she had a minute ago. “Let me go, Ford.”
“No.” She was lucky I hadn’t said never.
Esme’s shoulders lifted and dropped once, a sure sign she was seconds away from her frustration breaking into full blown anger. She opened her mouth to say something, surely to tell me to go fuck myself, before wrenching away from my gaze and sprinting outside faster than I could blink.
I caught Soren’s eye across the room, his brow lifting in concern. I shook my head, telling him that I had it handled, then followed Esme.
I made it outside in time to see Esme wiping her mouth after emptying her stomach behind a bush outside.
Instinct gripped me like a vise and before I knew it I had her ponytail wrapped around my hand and an arm banded across her waist to hold her upright, just as another bout of nausea wracked her body.
Esme’s broken whimper as her body recovered made my heart feel like it was being trampled by a horse. My arms tightened around her, well-timed, as Esme collapsed into me without any warning.
Feeling that she was done, I reached forward, blindly finding her hairline and smoothing some of the wispy strands out of the way. As I did, I felt something wet brush my finger.
The only thing I could do to keep from losing my shit was to take care of her. I reached into my back pocket and yanked out the flask I kept there, unscrewing the top and pressing it to her lips. Esme was exhausted enough to comply without complaint, ridding herself of the remnants of illness.
“There you go,” I coaxed softly, bringing the flask back to her lips. “Just a few more sips, sweetheart.”
The endearment just slipped out, and when I felt Esme’s body only relax further, the term firmly cemented itself in my vernacular.
After a few more sips of water, she seemed to come back to herself, enough to remember that we did not make a habit of holding each other like this. I let her go before she could push me away.
It wasn’t just the Bond doing this, the urge to protect, to care. Anything to make her better. Happier.
Esme looked at me for a moment, seeing everything I couldn’t bring myself to hide, before stepping away.
“I’m not going to ignore that,” I said, stopping Esme in her retreat.
She turned over her shoulder, just enough to give me the glimpse of one sparkling eye. “You need to.”
Oh, well that was just too far. I took a step toward her, my confidence only growing when she didn’t move away. “I don’t need to do anything other than make sure you’re okay.”
Esme started to freeze up, her bones locking with fear. “You…you don’t know what you’re saying. It’s just the Bond that’s—”
“Whatever you need to tell yourself.”
“Fine.” It certainly did not look fine.
“Just know, sweetheart,” I said, getting sick satisfaction from the way she flinched at my words. “The next time you make yourself physically ill from resisting the Bond, I won’t react so charitably.”
It was my turn to walk away, brushing past her and making a point to drag my arm next to her shoulder. It wasn’t until I was halfway back inside that Esme finally said, “I’ll just do a better job hiding it.”
“Too late. I know your tells now.”
Esme’s answering gasp, edged with a little bit of excitement, gave me more hope than I’d had in years.