Chapter 19 Scholar’s Mate
I wake up with a start.
Reaper’s humming an unfamiliar melody by the window. His voice is intoxicating—a deep baritone with an edge that’s just like the rest of him.
Full of contradictions.
“What song is that? It’s nice,” I whisper.
“A song my mom used to sing when the moon’s out.” There’s a thread of sadness in his words.
Considering the curtains are closed, and it’s pitch dark in my room, I’ll have to take his word for it.
I sit up, remembering my messages with Ghostface444. His parents are no longer here.
Reaper sighs. I hear something click and slide, like he’s disassembling something and putting it back together. “She died when I was fifteen. I found her floating in a pool.”
“Reaper.” My breath lodges in my chest.
“Her heart gave up.” His voice is thicker now. “She was preparing a picnic for Cel—a birthday. They think she fell in accidentally. She was supposed to wait for me since I was going to help her set up. I should’ve been there earlier.”
“You can’t blame yourself.”
He lets out a harsh chuckle. “She looked peaceful. Floating there. No injuries. Consistent with the coroner’s findings. If I believed in the afterlife, I’d like to think she’s with Dad now.”
“I’m sorry. I know the pain of losing someone you love.”
Carefully, I climb out of bed, toeing the floor to make sure I won’t trip on my slippers. A startled gasp rips from my throat when his hand snakes around my waist, and a second later, I find myself sitting on his lap, tucked under his chin.
I breathe in his cologne—leather, sandalwood, and cedar—a rush of warmth spreading from my center to my hands and feet.
He reminds me of Ren, yet different at the same time.
Ren is more intense. Reaper is freer.
But both of them give me something I didn’t know I needed.
“Can you tell me more about her?” I ask.
“What do you want to know?”
“Your favorite memory.”
Silence falls for a beat as I listen to the steady cadence of his breathing.
“I have two,” he replies. “One when I was ten. My parents took us to this cabin. It seemed far. I fell asleep and woke up a few times, and we were still driving. We didn’t go on many trips. Dad was always busy, and Mom didn’t want to do anything without him.”
He chuckles, and I smile, imagining a little boy on this grand adventure with parents he idolized.
“What did you do there?”
“Dad showed me how to hunt. Mom was so mad. She said I shouldn’t be exposed to guns at that age.
” A deep sigh later, he continues, “After dinner, she took me out to the backyard to see the stars. It was clear. No pollution. They looked like diamonds in the sky. I still think about that place sometimes. How quiet it was.”
Reaper falls silent then, clearly lost in thought.
“That’s a lovely memory.” I play with his soft shirt. “Have you ever gone back?”
“Once. Just to make sure my memory was real. I’m afraid…”
He huffs a sharp breath.
“What?” I ask.
“That by going there now, I’d ruin it. That beautiful memory.”
My heart aches at the melancholy in his words. I press a kiss on his shirt. “What’s the second memory?”
He startles and clears his throat, then he strokes a hand down my back.
“She’d have midnight picnics during the full moon in the summer.
We’d sit by the koi pond, wrapped in blankets.
We’d have cake, candy, chips, everything that wasn’t good for us.
She’d read stories—about princes in foreign lands, about warriors and dragons—then she’d sing me that song until I fell asleep on her lap. It was…”
He stops, like he’s surprised at himself.
“It was what?”
“Happy.”
Reaper doesn’t elaborate, and I’m hit with the urge to hold him tight. I can hear the loneliness in his voice. Silence thickens between us as the seconds stretch into minutes. His fingers stop moving on my lower back, as if he were far, far away.
“I was the product of a one-night stand when Mom was eighteen. She loved the party circuit, and one night in Bali got too wild,” I blurt out.
He flinches. His fingers move again.
Emboldened, I add, “Ten months later, I arrived. Suddenly, she was chained to a colicky baby who refused to sleep. Completely ruined her life. And one day, she had enough. Jumped on a plane to Europe and disappeared.”
My ribs tighten. I don’t remember her leaving, but I remember feeling unwanted.
“Luckily, I had Grandma. She raised me while Mom flitted in and out of our lives. As a kid, whenever we had parent-teacher conferences, I’d be embarrassed because I never had a parent there.
But Grandma would look them in the eye, wave her fist in the air, and tell them to mind their own business.
She hated pity. God, she was such a badass, this tiny Irish woman. Fiery and undeniable.”
“So that’s why you like to live on the edge. Your fire—you take after her.”
“Grandma said it’s my Irish blood. But I hate it. Reminds me of Mom instead.”
“Hm.”
“What happened to your father?” I ask.
Ghostface444 never gave me details before, only that his dad died when he was little. My fingers drift over muscles, but before I can reach his chest, he snatches my hand and pulls it off him.
“Work accident. One day he was here. The next day he was gone.” The words come out rushed, like he wants me to stop asking. “The song I hummed is about a woman answering a man when he asks her how much she loves him. And she says the moon represents her heart. It was their song.”
“That’s beautiful.” I toy with his shirt for a few beats. “What’s the song called?”
“That’s for me to know.”
“Okaaay. Not the response I was expecting. What about your favorite story your mom read to you?”
“That one stays mine too.”
“You’re impossible,” I grumble.
“And yet you haven’t kicked me out yet.”
Perplexed, I sit up. “First, I can’t find out your name, then I can’t look at your face, and now I can’t even learn a song title or a book name? So tell me, what are you actually good for?” I poke at those hard muscles for good measure.
He laughs, the rumbly sound destabilizing me. “Do the things you can’t do or are afraid to do. Enabling your dark side. Punish bad people.”
“So you’re finally admitting you put all those people in the hospital for me.”
“Romantic, right?” I can hear his smile.
“So now, this is a romance, not an arrangement, not just ‘protecting me in the dark’ as you say.”
He trails his finger down my nose, and I shiver, my body awakening.
“Why can’t it be everything?” He rests his thumb on my lips again.
My heart skips a beat.
“You don’t even know what I look like. I can be balding, cross-eyed, and—”
“So? Is that supposed to scare me? I can be a middle-aged man with a beer belly, and yet here I am.”
I poke at his hard chest. “A little too late for that, Mr. Beer Belly.” And his damn flat abs.
He chuckles. Then he whispers, “You’re beautiful to me…no matter how you look.”
“Does that line work for you?” My face heats, but thankfully no one can see it.
“I don’t know. It’s the first time I’m using it. Is it working?”
“You like to answer my questions with more questions.” I squeeze his shoulder. “What are you hiding, Reaper? Why can’t you tell me?”
“Maybe I’m afraid you’ll turn around and give me up to the cops.”
I snort. “And this is your way of keeping me quiet? By playing bodyguard? Win me over?”
“Damn. You figured everything out,” he deadpans.
“I am a mandatory reporter, you know.” A laugh bubbles up my larynx. “I’m required to report crimes.”
“So you’re saying my plan backfired.” He wraps his large hand under my chin and jerks my head up, the motion quick and dominant; my core clenches. “I should probably take you up on the whole serial killer idea.”
A grin splits my lips. I hear a sharp intake.
He clears his throat and abruptly stands.
I shriek when he sets me down. Then I hear him settle in front of me.
He grabs my hand and sets it on a solid surface.
Hard. Cold. Glass. My fingers scrape the area until I recognize the unmistakable shape of the pawn set aside.
Chess.
“A beautiful set. Made to be played with, not displayed. Your move,” he rasps.
My fingers tremble.
Reaper’s inviting me to play with him again—with the set I wasn’t allowed to touch.
Blake said it was expensive. Easily broken.
He’s not here anymore.
“Unless you’re scared,” Reaper says, jolting me out of my thoughts.
“Of course not,” I snap, remembering he had his pawn on A3 before. What a strange opening move. “Pawn to E5.”
He curls my hand around the piece and moves it on the board.
A grunt. “Queen to H5.”
“Knight to C6. Prepare to lose, Reaper.”
I hear the scraping of the pieces across the board, the movements sure and efficient.
Hold on a second, I can’t even see my nose in front of me, so how can he—
“You can see me!”
He makes a sound that’s suspiciously like a laugh. “Caught on, finally. Kind of slow on the uptake, do you think?”
“That’s not fair. You can see me; I can’t see you. You know all about me; I can’t know anything about you.”
“Life’s not fair.”
Bastard.
“Oh, it’ll be damn fair when I beat you.”
He laughs. “And correction: you did see me at the club. So technically, we’re even.”
“I saw your hoodie and a mask. That’s not the same and you know it.”
“Stop complaining and win first. My move. Bishop to C4.”
Determination straightens my spine, and I imagine the chessboard and the current positions of the pieces.
“Asshole,” I mutter. Damn it. Where was his queen again? Argh. “Knight to F6.”
He snorts.
Then I hear a sickening slide of a piece before he sets it down with a thump. Then I smell it. Cedar and sandalwood waft over my nostrils, taunting me.
He rasps, “Queen to F7. Checkmate.”
I growl and replay the strange, short game in my head. Then the pieces click together.
“You asshole. You played the Scholar’s Mate.”
“To test your skill set. It’s a quick win.”
“It’s a cheap trap,” I grumble. “A distraction with the queen while the bishop does the real damage.”
“Exactly. Like I said, a test. You failed.”
Heat crawls up my neck. What a rookie mistake.
Indignation stiffens my posture, and I cross my arms over my chest. “You have an unfair advantage. You see the actual board. What do you have? Night-vision goggles?”
“Excuses. It’s a beginner’s move. You should’ve seen it coming.”
“‘Seen’ is the operative word. I can’t see crap.”
“Didn’t know my naughty nurse is also a sore loser.”
Tingles rush to my core at his nickname, waking parts of me I thought had gone numb for good.
I bite my lip and quickly release it when I remember he can see me.
Reaper shifts and I hear the pieces clicking, like he’s rearranging them back in order. “Almost fell asleep playing that game. Completely predictable. I should revisit the serial killer idea. Bratty nurse. Mandatory reporter. Pathetic chess player.”
“You’d miss me too much,” I whisper. “Who else would listen to your crap in the dark?”
He huffs out a soft laugh. “You make the dark loud, you know that?”
“Oh, so now there are rules about noise levels in the dark, huh? I like to break rules.”
“But you follow them so beautifully, Ms. Mandatory Reporter.”
Then, because I’ve clearly lost my mind, and his comment about me being predictable stung, I lean up and press my lips to his ear.
“Oh, I don’t know…maybe I can surprise you.
I’ll be the Bonnie to your Clyde. But spare the manslaughter perps.
Those are usually accidents. Well, not all of them, but still.
And then the nonviolent offenders. Or the—”
His thumb traces the bottom curve of my lips, stopping my verbal outpouring.
My core clenches, my skin thrumming with each gentle stroke. He’s a sculptor and I’m the clay.
“It’s interesting, the things you say in the dark.” My pulse throbs against my throat as his hand collars my neck. He presses his fingers down like he’s testing me, testing if this is the point I’ll break, push him away, tell him to never come back.
“Freeing, because you’re honest. No one to look at you. No one to judge you,” he murmurs. “We can be anyone.”
His words brand themselves into my mind. Everything I’ve leashed down for the past year—the urge to be reckless, to throw caution to the wind—comes roaring back to the forefront.
Here, in the dark, I don’t need to be the responsible nurse. I don’t need to be the woman who gets handled like she’s a pieced-together Ming Dynasty vase. I don’t need to be explainable.
I can be untethered.
And Reaper? He’s my guide when I can’t see.
His fingers tighten, and my breath throttles in my throat.
“Say the word and I’ll stop,” he rasps.
“No. Don’t stop,” I whisper, my mind spinning.
My body comes alive—the strain in my lungs, the buzzing in my ears, the way my skin yields to his dominant grip, as if it’s been waiting for permission to want this.
Reaper tightens his fingers, just slightly, until my inhales are rougher. My nails dig into his arm as a wetness slicks between my legs.
“Look at you.” A low growl. “You want this.”
I whimper. Every atom in my body screams for more.
More oxygen. More pain. More pleasure.
Then he releases me.
Blood comes rushing into my neck, a hot, prickly sensation washing over my body.
I pull in a sharp breath, but before I release it, he tugs me firm against his lap.
Then he kisses me—hard.
His lips move over mine. Urgent. Frantic. Like he’s trying to steal the breath from my lungs. Like he’s trying to imprint a part of him on me.
My mind blanks. I follow my basest instincts. To yield to him—this faceless, impossible man who feels too intimate and so wrong for me.
But damn, wrong seems right.
I claw his shirt, rake my nails up his neck. He hisses and bites my lip, the sharp pain slicing through my senses, then he soothes it with a toe-curling suction.
“Yes,” I moan, delirious, pleasure overloading my mind.
The world can burn around me, and this is the place I want to be.
In his arms, being scorched by his kisses.
His fingers hike up my sleep shirt—possessive and knowing—then he grips my ass, moving me up and down over his lap.
Angling my pussy so it glides over his hardness with each gyration.
Wetness soaks my panties. I’m making a mess on him, but I don’t care.
“Aria,” he grunts, my name on his lips a hoarse plea. “Drunk. You make me drunk on you.”
I fist his hair and kiss him back harder. Tongue. Teeth. Throw myself into madness.
He bites back, and my ears ring. A whine tunnels out of my throat as sparks gather into a tight point in my core.
“I need it,” I moan. “Please. Reaper, please—”
Then it stops.
With a hoarse growl, he yanks me off him, and I collapse on the floor, my legs giving out from under me.
Harsh breathing sounds ricochet across the room. The AC kicks on, the hum drowning the sound of my frantic heartbeats.
Every cell inside me is poised to explode. I need him back—below me, over me, on top of me—to finish what he started. Why did he stop?
“Sleep,” he commands. He sounds winded and in pain. “It’s late. You have work tomorrow.”
Low thumps reach my ears. Then, I hear the creak of my bedroom door.
But he doesn’t leave.
The door shuts with a soft snick. I hear a deep sigh. A groan as he settles into my chair.
I’m not alone.
Not anymore.