CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Rupert welcomed me home with a hug, tight, warm, and caring.
“I’m so sorry, Everly,” he said as he held me. It was a struggle with the crutches I was required to carry around, even though my foot didn’t hurt this night.
“It’s… not fine, but you know. We make do.”
“If you need to talk to anyone, you let me know. I will either provide you the ear you need or find the ear you need. I’ll use every connection I have.”
“I’ll be okay, Rupert. I will. It… might take some time, but there’s no reason to think I can’t get past this. In the end, the person who caused so much tragedy in my life is dead. He can’t cause any more.” I pulled away. “That’s going to have to be good enough.”
But that hollow space in my chest wouldn’t dissipate. I pretended I wasn’t empty inside. I distracted myself from the broken thoughts of a person who lost what felt like everything. I had to keep taking steps forward, and we were finally home, back in Savannah, where we would be safe.
“Declan is in his room now. Whenever he finishes this Turn, he’ll be comfortable.” Alexius walked up to us, and Rupert backed away from me quickly, putting over two feet between us.
“He’s not naked like I was, right?” I’d ask why Rupert ran away from me later. I had a feeling, but I hoped Alexius wasn’t telling him that I couldn’t be near other men I wasn’t related to.
Tonight, after Henry, that would be far too past the line for me.
“He is. That’s normal. You will have to be okay with that,” Alexius said. “And we don’t have much night left after traveling. Is there anything you want to take care of before settling down, or shall you retire and get the rest you need?”
“I think I’ll… retire,” I said, deciding that moment.
“And I’m done with the crutches. They suck carrying around.
I’m fine.” I leaned them against the wall and walked toward my room, down into the private home underneath the mansion.
Part of the garden where I would bury my uncle once and for all, but only after everything was resolved. It wasn’t. Not yet.
I found my room, and it felt different—I had changed too much in the space of the trip to the West Coast—but it was also comforting.
To stand in the space of my own making, in my new, second chance at life.
I went away, bad things happened, and I could come back here, home.
Peace. Safety. No Henry or anyone like him could touch me here.
Their marks were not on my space. Only mine. Every little detail was mine.
And yet, it was also empty.
I went back out into the hallway and saw him.
“Alexius.”
His name escaped my lips just at the sight of him.
“Everly,” he replied, his hair falling over his face as he turned toward me. “Is there something you need?”
“Can you…” I didn’t say anything. I opened my door wide, a silent invitation.
He said nothing, walking toward me.
“Are you sure?” he asked, leaning down, suddenly filling the empty space of the air around me with his presence.
“You didn’t tell Rupert to stay away from me, right?”
“No. I think he doesn’t know how to handle our new dynamic,” Alexius answered, leaning closer and closer by the second.
“Then yes,” I said by the time his lips were close enough to me that speaking made them brush against each other.
I backed up through the door, and he followed. He closed it, but his hand hovered over the lock, his eyes on me. It took a moment for me to understand, but I nodded, and he locked it.
Alexius in my space was strange and somewhat wonderful. He didn’t fit. His dark presence overwhelmed the room, and I was intoxicated by it when his lips fell on mine, pulling me in.
“Are you really sure?” he asked again after the kiss, pulling his mouth away from mine. Too far away.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” I pulled him back to me for a kiss. “Please. I want you here tonight.”
He didn’t fight again, but something was different.
He let me touch him more than he ever did in California.
He let me pull his shirt off and left me the use of my hands.
He sank his fingers in my hair, holding me for another long kiss.
I could finally explore the man, learning every bit of him through touch instead of just sight.
My nails could go across his strong shoulders as he kissed my jawline, then my neck.
Our clothing was stripped off between each kiss until there was nothing left between us.
I stepped back as he kept kissing downward.
He knew what he was doing as his hands went to the backs of my knees and made me fall back with a tug that made my shaky knees bend.
I fell on my bed, and he was already between my legs, dark eyes hot with pleasure staring up at me.
Then his mouth was on me, shockwaves of ecstasy causing my back to arch the way I knew he enjoyed.
“Alexius!” I called out as he used his tongue to send me over the edge faster than anyone else ever could, even myself.
My hand was in his hair, holding on, tangled in the waves.
I clutched the sheet with the other, holding onto reality as he made me feel things that should only be possible in my dreams.
He never failed to every single time.
“I find myself rather liking how you scream my name,” he said, husky and warm, as he kissed up my body. His erection pressed against me when his lips reached mine. “Now, what do you want?”
“You,” I said, panting in return.
“Hm.” His small smile was arrogant in that hot way only a man who knew what he was doing could get away with. “Tell me.”
The closeness of him and his request made me suddenly shy. Turning away, I said, “Alexius…”
“Tell. Me.” A large hand sank into my hair, turning me to face him once again.
“Why?”
“Because I would like to hear it. Because I want to give you what you want.” He kissed my neck and jaw between those sentences, and my heart thumped hard in my chest. I could feel his doing the same. For a moment, they seemed in sync, then mine sped up.
“I want…” I bit my lip.
“Everly…” he practically purred, seductive and persuasive.
“I want you to…”
He ground his erection against me. Tormenting.
Torture. He was going to get me to say it.
To ask when he had previously always just had his way with me, and I was left spent.
No, tonight I was going to have to ask and ask and ask.
Ask him to my room. Ask him to continue. Ask him to give me what I wanted.
“Fuck me. I want you to fuck me,” I finally said.
His lips found mine as he pushed into me, sinking as far as he could, staying there for a moment as I clutched him, fingers trying to grab onto sculpted muscle.
I moaned into his mouth the moment he moved even a centimeter.
His hand stayed in my hair while his other hand propped him up.
He never broke eye contact as he slammed into me.
At even the slightest sense that I was overwhelmed, he slowed down, working me back up to a harder pace again. He kept me on the edge by doing that.
It was both amazing and terrible.
“What do you want, Everly?” he asked me once again. “Do you want me to stop? Do you want to finish?”
My mouth was open, but words weren’t coming out. My senses were overwhelmed.
“You need to answer,” he said, then groaned as he stopped deep inside me, the sensations clearly a bit much for him. It was the hottest sound I knew.
“Please! Don’t stop,” I whined.
He smiled again and kept going.
It was so different from what happened in California.
This constant checking in, this asking me to say things that were dirty, even maybe truly filthy.
He had been overwhelmingly in charge of everything in California.
Now, it felt like he was giving me the illusion of control, and the illusion part was important because everyone knew there was no controlling Alexius.
When he finally let me orgasm, I was begging for it, desperate for that release.
But once I said the words, he delivered, his motions turning to giving me exactly what I asked for.
My legs were shaking around his waist as he continued to fuck me through my orgasm and his own until he stopped, buried to the hilt.
“Oh my God,” I moaned, panting as he kissed my neck and collarbone, his cock deep inside me.
“Was that to your satisfaction?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah,” I said without thinking.
“Good.”
He didn’t move until I released my legs from his waist. He slid out slowly and pulled away.
“Wait!” I said suddenly, trying to stop him. “Where are you going?”
“Do you want me to sleep here?” He frowned, coming closer again.
“Is that a problem?” I asked softly.
“No,” he murmured, lying down beside me, pulling my body into his before I could ask why he even tried to leave. “I am not normally asked to sleep in someone’s room.”
“What? But in California…”
“I…” Alexius trailed fingers down my sternum and to my stomach, making circles on my skin. “To explain would be to bring up other liaisons in your bed. You don’t want that, surely.”
“I know you’ve slept with other people. I just want to understand. I… like to cuddle and fall asleep next to you…” Admitting it made me look away, shy once again. “And you seemed different this time.”
“Was it so different? I guess it was.” He kissed my shoulder.
“I’ve never taken a lover to my bed except you,” he explained softly.
His hand moved lower. “Normally, I go to someone’s bed, or we would meet in a neutral sort of place for their own safety and comfort, and I make them tell me what they want.
I’m powerful. I can’t have people thinking I’m going to do something they don’t want.
I think coming to your bed put me in that place.
And I will always be that way in here. You could have told me to get on my knees and eat you out, and I would have.
I like the taste; it would have been no problem.
It wasn’t hard to figure out, though, that you aren’t that open about sexual things. I had to coax it out of you.”
“Oh. So, you have a safety mechanism because other vampires are both hot for you and scared of you.”
“Correct. And I had physical wants and needs. I like sex, so I grew comfortable with the dynamic.”
“But in your room…”
“You got the real me,” he murmured. “Not that this isn’t real, but…”
“This is you leashed out of habit,” I said, understanding.
Yet, even leashed and controlled, he’s… overwhelming.
“There will never be a leash in my sanctuary. It’s my space. I wanted you there.” His hands tightened, his grip firm and strong, his body hard against me. “And I would very much like you there again.”
“Then let’s—”
“Not tonight,” he said, settling down. “Because Rupert is up, and us walking through the hall naked would possibly send him to the hospital. Also, I like giving you what you want. So, Everly, what do you want?”
I leaned over and kissed him, which seemed to be answer enough.
He kissed me until the sun came up.
The hollow hole in my chest didn’t exist while he was there.
For a moment, I forgot all about it.