Forty-Two
Amelia
Van Wyk leaves me alone for the next few days, and that’s fine by me. I need time to process.
I hear him in his office on calls, catching Bastien’s name from time to time. Linda’s off for a week, and I’m not sure if it’s because Van Wyk wants me to himself, or because he recognized she was making me uncomfortable, tiptoeing around me. The house feels empty, and it’s a big house.
I welcome the quiet; I have a lot on my mind. The all-too-often subject of my thoughts seems content to let me stew, or maybe he’s waiting for me to come to him. He’ll be waiting a while if so.
The gun sits in the nightstand beside my bed, loaded. Will I ever use it on him? I don’t know, but now I have the option.
Four days after our first date, Van Wyk walks into the sunroom, wearing an apron with his sleeves rolled up. “I’m tired of takeout,” he announces. “Dinner will be at eight.”
“Oh.” Not a verbose response, but I don’t know what to do with this man. I’m still angry with him while trying to figure him out. Cautious that this new side of him will disappear, and burdened by the history between us.
But it’s late, I’m hungry, and Van Wyk in the kitchen? This I want to see.
When I wander in, pans simmer on the stove and savory smells fill the air: searing beef, white wine, tarragon.
“What are you making?”
He turns long enough to give me a smile. “Chateaubriand with a bearnaise sauce, dauphinoise potatoes and green beans.”
He didn’t pull that out of nowhere, he had it all planned. And it sounds delicious.
“Fine.”
His shoulders tighten at that word, and I remember he doesn’t like it. At least when I use it. Maybe I’ll start using it all the time.
The man can cook, there’s no denying it. Watching him work in the kitchen with his sleeves rolled up is its own kind of satisfaction. I sit on a stool, pressing my thighs together.
We eat in the dining room, just the two of us at one end of the enormous table. With all the trouble he’s gone to, it seems churlish to refuse.
“How is it?” he asks, a few mouthfuls in when I’m yet to say anything.
Because I’m distracted. Not just because of his presence, the way he’s looking at me, and the amazing food he’s cooked, but because I’m trying to understand him. Who he really is.
Reconciling this Van Wyk with the one I’ve known these past months is a challenge.
He’s so much lighter, like some of the weight on his shoulders has fallen by the wayside.
Smiling more, cracking jokes, with a newfound brightness and easy-going charm that would be attractive on anyone.
But on him? With that body, those steady steel-grey eyes, and the dimples that for the longest time I didn’t even know he had? It’s a whole different kind of lethal.
Then there’s the you’re-mine possessiveness that he shows hints of from time to time. The deadly glare that had the man in the gun shop back-pedaling fast. The way he’s handling his steak knife even now, like at the drop of a hat he could turn and throw it into an unwary intruder.
Most disturbing, his lightness and darkness both seem to be focused on me.
No… most disturbing is that I like it.
He’s both my dark knight and my white knight rolled into one, and the notion isn’t as abhorrent as it once was.
When did I start feeling that way? Was it the apology? Or before that, when he spent hours at my bedside in Montana? Was it the tears he’d so obviously shed for me?
I never thought this man could be capable of crying, let alone over me.
“Amelia?” he prompts, with a hint of amusement at my distraction.
What was the question? “Uh… good.” Shit. Should’ve said ‘fine.’
“I’m glad.” He smiles. “When are you going to cook for me?”
The idea calls to my competitive side, and I welcome the diversion from my thoughts. “What do you like?”
“Everything.”
I tilt my head. “Really? Nothing you won’t eat?”
The corners of his mouth curl up. “If I answer that question I’ll know exactly what you’d cook.”
He might have me there. “But if you don’t, you might be disappointed.”
His grey eyes go all intense. “You could never disappoint me.”
My cheeks heat, and I look down at my plate. “I’ll need to go shopping.”
“Get groceries delivered.”
Of course: he doesn’t want me to go out. “It’s not the same as walking through the store and getting inspiration on the fly.”
He cuts a piece of steak, pops it in his mouth, chews and swallows, all while he’s regarding me. “Fine. Take the Ferrari if you like.”
I blink. Freedom, so easily offered? There must be a catch. “With Tony?”
“He’s gone, remember?”
My eyebrows go up. “You’re letting me out by myself? And you don’t mind?”
“Yes, I mind,” he says quietly. “It scares me. I want you safe.” He holds up a hand to forestall an interruption I wasn’t about to make. “But safe isn’t enough. I also want you happy.”
My heart skips a beat, and I find myself gazing at him.
I blink, looking away. “I’ll try not to get myself kidnapped again.”
His eyes go hard. “If you were, I would turn this world over until you were back with me.”
“Yeah, I know. And it would take you about ten minutes.” It’s true. It’s also strangely reassuring. “All right, I’ll go later this week. Dinner, one evening on me, and you can clean the kitchen.”
He doesn’t miss a beat. “Then you’re cleaning tonight.”
“Deal,” I say, feeling like I’ve won. He’s already cleared most of the dirty pans away; there’s hardly anything left to do.
But I’ve just agreed to feed him, cook for him, spend another evening with him. Have I won, or has he?
What am I doing? Playing at domestic life with a man who’s kept me prisoner for months?
“You’re thinking seriously again,” he says lightly.
Okay, let’s have it out.
I pick up my glass of wine and lean back in my chair. “Am I still your captive?”
“You’re free to leave whenever you want,” he says, like my question doesn’t faze him at all.
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do. I don’t mind the chase.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Be serious, Van Wyk.”
He sets down his own silverware and fixes me with those intense eyes. “Call me Lukas.”
I mean… I suppose I should, really. We’ve come this far. “Be serious, Lukas.”
“That’s nice,” he says softly. “I like hearing my name on your lips. I’ll like it even more when you’re screaming it.”
I twitch in my chair, trying not to show how much that affects me, but his words cause a kaleidoscope of imagery through my mind.
Him pinning me down. His cock inside me.
His hand spanking me. Those cuffs of his.
My nipples tighten and heat pools in my core, spreading throughout me with a flush he can’t help but notice.
Why am I responding so hard? Is it the intimacy of our dinner? Or because it’s been so long since he did any of those things?
I’ve been expecting him to, but he hasn’t, and I’m not sure why.
Has he been waiting for me to ask? To go to him? I’m not ready to do that. I’m not sure I ever will be.
“Answer the question,” I say, my voice husky.
“I did,” he says nonchalantly, then turns serious.
“I’ll chase you, if that’s the game you want to play.
I am obsessed with you. I love you. You can run if you want, but I will find you wherever you go.
I will bring you back, I will pin you down, I will remind you again and again that you’re mine, in whatever ways I need to.
With my tongue, with my cock, or by filling your room with fresh flowers every day for a year.
” He leans forward, resting one elbow on the side of the table.
“I’ve told you before, Little Stray: there is no escape.
Not just from me, but from us. You react to me as much as I do to you.
Your mind might be in denial; your body and heart are not. ”
Okay, fuck. Blood pounding in my ears. Panties soaked. Breath coming too fast and shallow.
And my mind isn’t in denial as much as he thinks. It should be, damn it, but it isn’t.
I shouldn’t find this man so devilishly compelling, but I do. Hell, I did from the first moment I set eyes on him. And though I don’t approve of how he claimed me, I can’t deny I liked it.
Said no. Didn’t want it. Wouldn’t ask for it again. But enjoyed it? In hindsight, yes. Because hot. A fantasy that should’ve stayed that way, too intense to be anything more.
Yet more is where we went, and all that’s happened since.
But it doesn’t change the facts. “So I’m still your prisoner.”
“As much as I am yours,” he replies in perfect sincerity.
“You call yourself my captive, but my heart is in a cage of your making.” He looks down at the table.
“I’m sorry that you were here for so long alone, unable to leave.
I hated being away from you. It was…” He takes a breath and lets it out slowly.
“I was going to say necessary. It wasn’t. I should’ve brought you with me.”
He sounds so genuine it’s difficult not to feel for him.
“Was that an option?”
He goes still. “Amelia… I’m not a good man. Some of the things I’ve done…”
So he was out killing people. It’s the confirmation of what I always suspected. Yet, I understand why, and more than that… I accept it.
“The Volkovs threatened us both.”
His head comes back up. “Exactly,” he says fiercely. “Now you can safely go where you want, do what you want. But… you’ll always be mine, my wife. And I’ll always be yours.”
I bite my lip, thinking. I’m not fully ready to forgive him, but I’m also not averse to him. If he doesn’t revert to his dark, controlling ways… or, at least, not all the time. I wouldn’t mind it occasionally.
“It… will take time,” I say carefully.
“We have time. Which reminds me.” His dimples come out as he grins. “We had a wager.”
Okay, that’s dinner done. “I’m clearing up, I get it.”
“No, the other one. I’m challenging you to a moonlight swim. You remember the stakes we agreed?”
Loser goes down on the winner. That’s what he said. I’m not sure I ever agreed.
“Uh… no?” I lie.
“You seemed confident at the time.”
“I am.” I’ve been swimming plenty these past months.
He leans back in his chair and winks at me. “Well, then?”