Chapter 7. Ophelia #4
He spins us so it’s my back against the stone of the castle walls, hand grabbing the back of my thigh and hooking my leg over his hip as he swallows my frantic moan.
His mouth is hot and heavy, demanding and possessive on mine as his fingers find the sensitive skin beneath the skirt of my dress, trailing inwards from my hip.
He breaks the kiss with a gentle bite of my lip, broad chest heaving. His pupils dilate, inky black pools of need when he realizes just how much he turns me on. “Can I?”
I nod, desperate for his lips on mine again. “No strings.”
His fingers sink into me, sending my head falling forward into his chest and my eyes to the back of his head.
It’ll never be like this with anyone else.
“Strings, Ophelia. So many fucking strings. Strings in every cell of my body.”
My strangled cry gets carried away on the wind, wishing so badly that he wasn’t right. I am tied to Alex in a way I cannot explain, hoping like a fool that the threads will dissolve in the rain like week-old stitches. “No strings.”
“If that’s what you have to tell yourself,” he concedes, gazing down at me lazily like his fingers don’t have me clawing at the stone behind me.
His other hand slips beneath the neckline of my dress, thumb skating over my nipple.
Frantic pleas tumble out of my mouth, my hips starting to move in time with his thick forearm.
“Does this feel no strings, to you?”
My leg gives out, but his body holds me upright against the wall. Each labored thud of my heart sends another torturous wave of him into my bloodstream. “Alex.”
“Do you think a man with no strings attached could make you feel this way?”
My heel digs into his lower back, hand shooting out to grab his arm like there’s a chance he might stop. “Please.”
“You don’t need to beg me for anything.”
My chest rises and falls beneath my dress. Stupid, angry, lovesick, ecstatic tears spill from my eyes. “I’m going to—I’m gonna—”
He drops to his knees on the wet cobblestone, moving my thigh from his hip to his shoulder and burying his head beneath the lush satin of my skirt.
My back arches. His hand comes to steady me at the waist. I shout his name at the swirling sky just as a furious bolt of lightning splits it into two.
And I fall apart.
Physically. Metaphorically. In every way.
The world melts into a flat, white sheet until all that exists is him and me and the endless mass of strings that tie us together in a hundred different ways.
He rises to his feet and catches me in his arms, brushing the hair from my face. His lips are a little swollen, vibrant green eyes watching me intently. “Okay?”
I shut my eyes. That was … okay doesn’t scratch the surface. I nod weakly, limp in his arms as he carries me past the entrance to the hall and onto the forested path to the mansion. I put a hand on his chest, trying to get to the ground. “Put me down.”
“You need to get warm and dry.”
“But my friends … I ditched them.”
“Colette and Vincenzo know I’m here. They helped set this up.”
“Put me down,” I repeat, but there’s zero conviction behind the words. My head leans into the hard wall of his chest, fingers curling around the fabric of his shirt.
He hurries us along the path, the mossy cobblestones borderline underwater at his feet. The mansion looks dark and deserted when I swipe my access card beside the double doors, hyperaware of every shadow, every noise, every open door.
He climbs the stairs in silence, save for the chattering of my teeth and the dripping of water from our clothes onto the polished steps. I drink in every inch of him and pretend that the way his thumb gently strokes my back as he walks doesn’t fill me with hope for our future.
In my room, Alex heads straight into the bathroom to get a towel, and I fish my phone from Colette’s borrowed purse to tell her I’m at the mansion.
My eyes zero in on the lone notification on the lockscreen, my blood turning to ice in my veins.
The photo of Alex and me is hazy from the rain, but I know it was taken no less than ten minutes ago, the two of us huddled together as we jog toward the mansion.
Unknown
What makes you think you get a happy ending?
Unknown
Leave him, or he’ll be dying with you.
I open my mouth to tell Alex, but then the second message comes through.
A photo of an airport. And beyond a wire fence, a Green Aviation jet.
Unknown
Wouldn’t want something to happen to his plane, would you?
No, no, no. Please, no.
I’m at the window in half a second, scanning the brambles and the hedges of the mansion’s unruly gardens.
I brace myself with each startling flash of lighting, just waiting to see a shadowy figure standing alone on the lawn.
Cain, Carmichael, Shawn. I’m simultaneously terrified and desperate to catch a glimpse of something, anything that might identify who is doing this.
“Ophelia,” Alex sighs, coming out of the bathroom with a towel for my hair. The exasperation is evident in his tone as he begins meticulously drying each strand. “You cannot be serious with this no strings thing.”
My heart is hammering in my chest, tongue tied in a knot. His eyes flick to the window, at my ghostly white reflection in the thin glass. The next gust of wind sends a branch of ivy into the window, and I jump out of my skin.
Alex frowns beside me, a steady hand landing on my lower back. “Are you all right?”
“I … I don’t think you should be here. You need to leave.”
His lips drop to my shoulder, but fear is like a blanket starving the flames of my desire. “I disagree.”
“Alex, you’ll leave tomorrow morning and then we probably won’t see each other for eight months.
” I lay out the excuses as the text burns through my mind.
“And I can’t handle you leaving me every time you convince yourself you’re not worthy of a relationship, and you’re so many miles away, and you have your sisters, and—”
And he’s always afraid that his presence in my life puts me in danger, but now I’m wondering if it’s the other way round.
“Ophelia, breathe.”
The blood is rushing in my ears, a deafening roar like the rotors of a helicopter spiraling down toward the forest. “I can’t.”
“You can, baby. You definitely can.”
I can’t drag my eyes from the window. I inhale to tell Alex about the text several times, but nothing ever comes out. What if someone’s hovering outside the door, if someone has bugged my room, if someone’s watching us from the window?
I need to call Mack.
A steaming mug of tea appears between my hands, delivered with a gentle kiss to the top of my head. “I can’t do no strings. Not with you.”
“Then let’s just …”