32. Elhyor
32
Elhyor
H er question gets me out of my mind, and out of the dirty corner it had started to wander to.
You’d think I would get used to her moaning, with how she taunted me for a week every night, but no, as soon as she put that tiny bit of pasta in her mouth, it was like I was against my door all over again.
But this time, I get to see her while she moans, and it is truly glorious.
So much so that I think I need another of those cold showers.
I also can’t stop imagining that it’s something else that she puts in her mouth, and that very something twitches in my pants.
I just hope she’ll stop moaning before I need to stand again, or it might get embarrassing for me.
“Yes, sure,” I answer, once I remember that she had asked a question.
“How did you learn to cook like this?” she asks as she twirls pasta in the sauce, looks at it, and plunges it in the sauce again, as if she decided there wasn’t enough cream in the first place.
“With my mother.”
I answer her question, even if I recognize this for what it is. I told her we were going to get married, and now she thinks we need to try to get to know each other for the sake of our marriage.
“You don’t have to pretend,” I add.
One would ask themselves if I didn’t lose my mind. Me, conversing with the one and only person who got close to killing me.
I don’t even understand what is wrong with me, that I still want to protect her.
I probably should get one of those straight jackets they used once upon a time, because I don’t think I’m far from being clinically insane.
“Pretend?” she asks, and I don’t know if she’s a good actor, or if she’s truly lost at my words, but that plump bottom lip that I’ve dreamed of biting too many times to count forms the cutest gasp.
Nope. Not gonna think about those lips again.
“Like we need to know each other for this marriage to work,” I say, searching her eyes for a reaction.
Her eyes harden, and her lips, that were so inviting just seconds ago, turn into a hard line.
It should make me feel better that she understands what I mean, and reacts accordingly, but instead, I have this pit inside my heart that fills with something dark and sticky, like tar.
Not going to look into this feeling. Not. Again.
“Okay, then let’s set some rules,” she answers, her back going straighter than it ever has been and her hands gently folded over her lap.
She’s a mix of contradictions in the way she exists, and it’s truly wonderf… I stop myself in that thought—interesting.
“What rule do you need, Little Devil? Are you scared you could fall in love with your husband, wife?” I ask with a smirk.
At the snicker she answers with, it looks like she doesn’t sound impressed.
“I’m not your wife yet.”
“Semantics,” I answer. “It’s just a matter of a couple of days.”
“Right,” she says. “I’m staying in my room, and you in yours,” she starts, as if this was supposed to be one of her rules.
“I’m surprised that’s what you want,” I say, and I know that my smirk is back to taunt her. “After all, you sounded like you needed a helping hand this week.”
If it wasn’t for the blush that creeps from her neck to her cheeks, I would think that she’s unaffected, because she doesn’t even react to my words.
“I’m not a prisoner,” she adds, counting a second finger on her right hand.
“Okay.”
“Léandre stays here after the wedding.” Third finger.
I already decided on it when Cassiopé told me about him, but the fact that she makes it a rule irks me a bit. Nope, I’m not jealous.
I still nod my answer, and she keeps counting on her fingers.
”No touching, no kissing, nothing, but I won’t have you do that to someone else in public. If you need to scratch an itch, you have to be discreet.”
“This goes for you, too,” I answer her, and something like rage simmers inside of me at the idea of her being with someone else, even if they’re discreet. There is no way I’ll let anyone close enough to touch her or hear her, the way I did this week. But I rule Notre Dame, so that might not be so hard to control.
“Anything else?” I ask, as if her rules bother me, when she didn’t ask for much so far.
“No—” she starts to answer, but then seems to think about it and adds, “I need new clothes. Or for someone to show me where I can clean mine.”
I’m utterly surprised by that new rule, because it’s not one at all. It just shows that I’ve been a poor host, who completely forgot about her basic needs. Like having clean clothes.
If she made it a rule, now I wonder if she’s wearing anything under her outfit.
“That will be done, but it’s not a rule,” I tell her as I stand and make my way to her side.
Her breath catches as I get closer and roll back her pinky to remove her fifth rule.
“Then there are only four rules,” she says, and I can’t miss that she has to tip her head to look at me, or the way her throat constricts at her words.
My hand is still around her finger when I think of something else.
Without letting my eyes stray from hers, I open her pinky again and add, “No killing each other again.”
I’m so close to her that I feel like I’m breathing her air. I can smell the soft scent of wild flowers on her skin, and if I was a better man, I would just relent and not taunt her the way I do, hovering just a few centimeters away from her lips, as if I want to devour her.
Because yes, I do want to devour her, but I already decided that I can’t have her. This gnawing I keep feeling inside my guts—I know what it is. I know what it could turn into. I know, and I don’t want to break, like my father.
But here, so close to her, I could forget.
I have to remind myself that she just laid her rules, and one of them was specifically no kissing. If we’re exact, she said no touching, either, and she hasn’t said a thing about my hand still encircling her pinky. I draw the line of respecting her wishes at the kiss that I’m dying to steal and take a step back.
It feels as if all the warmth in the room disappears.
Yes, I was right to stop myself, because I think that if I ever get to taste her, I might never want to stop.