Chapter Thirty-Seven
Mia
Axel belched loudly, and I sighed as the feeling of warm spit-up soaked through the collar of my shirt and a bit spilled on my neck. Of course, most of it would miss the towel on a day like today.
“I’ve got him,” Ally said, hurrying to my side, a wry smile on her face.
“You should really start working on his aim,” I said, heading to the sink to clean the worst of it off before I went and changed.
“Let me tell you about the other day, where he just so happened to go pee again while I was changing his diaper. I’ll let you guess where he got me. I don’t think aim is his problem. I think it’s his willful intent.”
We laughed.
Then someone knocked at the door. Ally, who was busy cleaning up her son, who hadn’t finished his morning ritual of mass amounts of spit-up after breakfast, looked at me.
“Yeah, I’ll get it,” I said, hurriedly splashing water on my neck, rinsing the worst of it off, then grabbing a handful of paper towels to finish drying.
I walked over to the door as someone knocked a second time. “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming.”
Pushing the paper towels hard against my shirt to soak up the water, I pulled the door open.
“Hello, Mia,” Torrent said as I stared up at him in shock.
He was wearing a white button-up with the first button undone and the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Black pants and a black belt with a shiny silver buckle were paired with dark brown shoes.
“H-hi,” I stammered, caught completely by surprise. I hadn’t expected ever to see him again. “What are you doing here?”
“Hubba hubba!” Ally hissed from the kitchen, earning herself a quick glare.
She hadn’t really supported my decision to leave Tor. It had been hard to convince her properly, given that I couldn’t tell her about being kidnapped by the shadow monster or being saved by a dragon, etc. She thought he sounded amazing, and I had screwed up royally.
I no longer knew what to think.
“Sorry to disturb you,” he said, glancing at my shoulder with an odd look, probably trying to puzzle out what had happened. “But I had to give you this.”
He handed me an envelope with my name scrawled across the front in surprisingly fancy handwriting. The shape was more square than a traditional letter envelope, and there were some gilded imprints embossed onto it.
“What’s this?” I asked, twisting it over and over, unable to discern what it was.
“Usually, it’s customary to open things to find out,” Tor said with a gentle smile.
I left the paper towels tucked under my collar and held the envelope with both hands. Did I really want to open it? I could just hand it back to him and tell him to go away, to leave me alone.
That would be the easy path, the one of the least pain.
“Open it!” Ally shouted from the kitchen. “Do it.”
I frowned at the letter but also at her words. The previous day, she’d told me that Tor cared about me enough to risk the pain of losing me. Now I was being given a chance to show whether or not I cared enough about him to do the same.
My fingers trembled, and I nearly dropped the envelope. Tor reached out with one hand, closing his fingers around mine, steadying me. I jerked like I’d been stung, but he held on tight, not letting go.
“It’s an invitation to a ball,” he said softly, while my body buzzed from the contact between us.
As always, his touch ignited sparks that turned into wildfires all across my body, threatening to burn me up. I cursed silently, knowing that my nipples were so hard they had to be visible through my dark shirt. My legs were feeling a little unstable and between my legs …
Enough, I snapped, but my pussy didn’t care. It brushed aside the command, growing warmer and more tingly by the second. It wanted Tor and his hard cock, and the slowly growing pulse from my clit showed it was intent on making sure I knew it, too.
“A ball?” I managed to choke out, trying my hardest to divert my focus to somewhere else. Anywhere else, except for the idea of being bent over the nearest table or couch and feeling Tor enter me from behind, his thick cock sliding between my lips, spreading them …
“Yes,” he said, thumb caressing the back of my hand, sending shockwaves up my arm and through my core. “A ball. I’m throwing it in your honor, so it would please me greatly if you were to attend. Then, you’ll see.”
My confusion momentarily outweighed my building arousal. God, I hoped the batteries of my vibrator were fully charged. “I’ll see? What will I see?”
“That I do care for you,” he rumbled. “And that I’m not afraid to show everyone. To tell them all that I care deeply about you.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked. “I didn’t leave because of that. I left because—”
“Because she was scared of losing you, because she cares for you,” Ally’s voice drifted down the hallway.
“Thank you, Ally,” I called back hotly. “That will be all. Go to your room.”
“But …”
“Now.”
Ally huffed, but she was smiling as she took Axel and moved out of earshot, giving Tor and me some privacy.
“I know you’re scared,” he said, speaking before I had the chance. “I get it. I really do, Mia. You lost your mother and that hurt. It left a gaping hole in your life, and you’re terrified that if you let yourself care about anyone new, they might end up doing the same.”
I couldn’t speak, my throat was too swollen, so I nodded instead.
“And I know that, with everything going on in my world, it’s just added to that worry, that fear. My sister, the Vorgans, I get that. It weighs on you, big time.”
“It hurts,” I whispered. “It still hurts. She should be here, dammit!”
“I know,” Tor said, quivering for a moment, his other arm coming up as if he’d been about to embrace me before dropping it.
“I hurt, too. I miss my parents, and I knew they were going to leave. I can’t imagine what it’s like for you.
But, Mia, it’s always going to hurt. Everything in life is going to hurt.
You can’t hide from it forever. It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, to use a really cheesy quote. ”
“That is really cheesy,” I said, unable to keep the smile off my face, though it didn’t last.
“I know. But it fits the situation,” he said gravely, squeezing my hand. “I hope you decide to come, Mia. I want you to be there with me, at my side. To show everyone how awesome my mate is.”
I trembled at the use of the word mate. I’d had some time to reflect on it, and though it wasn’t a common term, I knew how important it was to him. How different it was, compared to how humans might use it.
“I don’t know. I … don’t have anything to wear to a ball,” I said awkwardly. It was such a lame excuse, even if it was true.
“We’ll think of something,” Ally said, marching up the hallway, revealing that she’d been eavesdropping all along.
Tor smiled and reached into his back pocket. “I already thought of that. Go here, tell them your name. They’ll take good care of you. It’s all arranged.”
He handed me a business card. After a slight cough from Ally, I took it.
“Tomorrow evening,” he said. “I’ll send a car to pick you up from here.”
“Oh.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say at the moment.
“I … really hope you decide to come,” he said, his facade cracking a bit, showing the sheepish eagerness that lurked underneath. Then he was gone, leaving me standing in the doorway, holding the business card in an upraised hand, staring after him.
Should I call out to him? Or close the door? What was I supposed to do?
“I really thought he was going to say it,” Ally said, coming up next to me.
“Huh? Say what?” I asked dumbly. Hadn’t he said everything he was going to say?
“Are you blind? He almost said ‘I love you’ there at the end. It was written on his face and lips. I thought he was going to do it!”
I turned to look at her. “You’re joking.”
She gave me a hard stare. “He’s throwing a ball in your honor, Mia. To show everyone in his life that you are all he cares about. The man is clearly in love with you.”
“He barely knows me!”
Ally waved that away. “When you know, you know. And that is a man who knows. Trust me.”
“I don’t think that’s what he was going to say. Are you serious?”
Tor … in love with me? Could that really be what he was about to say at the end when he’d hesitated?
“Are you that much of a dolt, girl? He’s throwing you a ball. The sole purpose of which is to show you off. He’s also sending you to … Let me see that,” Ally said, using her free hand to grab the card from my fingers and turn it over. “Holy shit!”
“What? What is it?” I asked, looking at her and Axel, worried that something had happened.
“Mia, he’s sending you to Lafreniere’s.”
My eyebrows shot up. I’d heard of them. Every girl had heard of them. They were the exclusive dress designer. Prom dresses for the rich and famous. Wedding dresses for the same. Only the wealthy went there because they didn’t carry a thing under ten thousand dollars.
“That’s excessive,” I whispered. “I don’t need a dress like that.”
“Maybe not,” Ally said. “But he wants you to have one from there. Gosh, you’re going to look so amazing.
I’m so jealous. I wish my wedding dress were from there.
Not that I needed it to be, but I wouldn’t have said no if someone wanted to buy me one!
Mia, you have to go! Mainly because I have to go with you to see. ”
I laughed at her honesty.
“I’m serious. It’s so obvious now,” she said, nodding along to her own thoughts.
“What? What’s obvious? It’s not to me. What are you talking about?”
“He’s going to tell you that he loves you at the ball. Where he can properly show it.” Ally pointed at me. “You are going to that ball.”
“I don’t know,” I said, hesitating.
“This man is crazy about you.”
“Maybe. But …”
Ally was shaking her head. “No buts. You’re going, and that’s final!”