Chapter 17 #3
This wasn’t strictly true. About a year ago, I had made a rather hasty and impulsive order of lacy matching lingerie sets–one in every colour under the sun–just in case.
Most of the sets had been left unworn in my drawer, because they were obviously non-returnable, but I’d just had no reason to ever justify wearing them.
That was until today. I tried not to dwell on the fact that I was only wearing the thong because of a laundry mishap and not because someone was desperate to undress me.
“You can’t go out like that.” Because you don’t want me to?
Or because it looks silly? I knew which reason I wanted it to be.
A part of me, an evil, hell-raising little part, enjoyed that he was so perturbed with what I was wearing.
I relished the way his tone dropped low and gravelly as he stared at me.
Before I could volley back a response, one I was sure would fluster him further, my phone chimed in my hand.
Clark Kent: Hey Quincey, I’m down stairs J x
Note to self: Change Jude’s name in my phone to something more appropriate.
Quincey: Perfect, I’m coming down.
“Okay, Jude is downstairs so I’m gonna go. The fridge is fully stocked, but text me if you want me to grab anything on my way home.” I smiled up at Thallor, who only glared at me in response, his gaze almost predatory.
“He’s not coming to the door?” I wasn’t sure it was possible, but his voice continued to drop in octaves, descending into something cold and harsh. If I didn’t know Thallor better, I’d be a little scared.
But I did know him, which just meant I laughed. His discontent and quiet rage was met with a fit of uncontrollable giggles that echoed through the space. I got that he was an immortal being with his own set of beliefs, but I had to say, he was a little behind the times.
“No, of course not, it’s the twenty-first century. He came to the building,” I said, after taking a few breaths of air and trying to fight the smirk still tugging at the corner of my cheeks.
“So it being the twenty-first century means that what? Chivalry is dead?” He looked down at me incredulously.
“I mean, I guess? I don’t know. It’s just not what’s done, okay?”
“That sounds like bullshit,” Thallor growled. “You deserve someone who is going to treat you properly.” He continued to glare at me, telepathically hammering in the idea that my notions on dating were just as poorly formed as Jude’s were apparently.
“Yeah, well, beggars can’t be choosers. Jude is nice. I don’t see anyone else lining up to date me,” I scoffed.
“That doesn’t just mean you fucking settle.”
And who would you suggest I date instead?
I knew Thallor didn’t feel the same way I did about him.
And even if he did, the two of us weren’t made for happy endings.
My life was a perpetual cycle of mishaps and sinister occurrences, and Thallor?
Well, Thallor was a demon that didn’t belong on the mortal plane at all.
As much as I wanted to lean into my own emotions, it was my feelings for him, and it was me caring for him that stopped me from acting on them.
Because I’d never burden him with asking him to stay, I’d never burden him to a life he didn’t want simply to be with me.
In the flurry of my own confused thoughts, the words slipped from my mouth. “You sound jealous.”
By heart careened against my chest, fighting to break free, it too, desperate to hear his response to those three accusatory words.
But Thallor didn’t say anything. Quincey, you fucking idiot.
I furrowed my brows as I looked at him, feeling a hot blush bloom against my cheeks.
He obviously doesn’t feel that way about you.
I wasn’t sure who won the little staring contest we found ourselves in when a clattering of noise pulled our attention from each other.
Mortimer, the ball of paws and fur that he was, had jumped onto his usual ledge, only to find a plant sitting in its place, toppled off the ledge, and landed in the middle of my living room with a rather undignified thud.
“Blame her,” Thallor grunted before walking away from me, scooping Mortimer up into his arms, and holding him close against his chest. A sight that both melted my heart and sent a wave of white-hot irritation through my body. Wait, was I jealous? Of a fucking cat?
No, he’s jealous, remember?
“Are you jealous?” I blurted out as I trailed after him under the guise of also greeting the little black bundle of fluff.
He didn’t look up from where he was still stroking Mort, but from his clenched jaw and huff of breath, I realised that was probably the wrong thing to say.
“No, Sterling, I am not jealous,” he snarled. “I am fucking furious.”
“You’re furious? Furious that he didn’t come to the door?
He’s at the building, okay? He picked me up.
He did all the gentlemanly things he’s meant to do.
” I let out an exasperated sigh and pinched the bridge of my nose.
I knew we were both treading a very thin line between everything we wanted to say and everything we didn’t.
Tell me to stay and I will.
“I know,” he gritted out.
“Okay, so you’re just being grumpy then?”
“It would appear so.” Right. “He still should have come to the door.”
“Thallor, you’re here. How do you think that would go?”
“What do you mean I’m here?”
I let out an incredulous laugh. “I don’t want my date to end before it even starts. You’re intimidating and unfriendly. And like two hundred and twenty pounds of pure muscle and your face—”
Quincey, you fucking moron. Can’t bring yourself to talk around strangers, but you get comfortable around one demon, and suddenly you can’t shut up.
It was only then that he looked up at me, all the previous ice, all the coldness dissipating for something softer. I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it. I wasn’t sure if I was projecting my own feelings onto him but I could have sworn as he held my gaze that he held his breath too.
“What about my face?”
I rolled my eyes at him, raising my hands up in an exasperated motion. When he didn’t say anything, I just rolled my eyes again, this time so hard that I was pretty sure I saw brain matter. “Oh, give it a rest. You know what you look like.”
Thallor didn’t speak; he just lifted an eyebrow at me. For a moment, we stood in a stand-off, whilst Mort meowed for pets between us. Like a warmth spreading across his face, Thallor’s mouth broke out in a grin, one that had me fighting my own smile and losing.
“You have a nice face. Are you happy now? I know you already know that, so you’re also a massive asshole.
” I stomped over to the door in an exaggerated fashion, though it didn’t have the desired impact as my heels met the carpet of my living room long before I ever made it to my hardwood floor.
I whipped open the door, resolving to forget this entire interaction.
“Sterling!”
I stopped dead in my tracks before the door hit the latch and pushed it open again.
Thallor plopped Mortimer down on the sofa, his meows of protest barely audible over the sound of my own hammering heart.
Thallor stalked over to the door, looking down from where he still towered over me, despite the fact that I was in my highest pair of heels–albeit they were four-inch heeled boots because I refused to buy anything that might result in a broken ankle.
“I’m not—”
“Jealous?”
“—just call me if you need me, okay. I promise, I will come. Whatever it is, I will come and get you.”
I looked up at him and smiled, but his gaze was deep-set and serious.
“I promise.” Thallor emphasised every syllable like he was committing it to the universe.
Like he was weaving it into every part of my subconscious.
Like he was trying to right a wrong he had no reason to feel responsible for.
But I appreciated the sentiment more than he would ever know.
More than I would ever be able to muster up the words to tell him.
“I know, Thallor.” I let the door swing open a little bit more before patting his chest twice, needing to bridge the gap between us but not trusting myself to get any closer. “You’re not as tough and scary as you pretend to be, you know?”
I watched as he brought a hand up to scratch at the back of his neck.
The golden undertones of his cheeks were replaced with something pinker and more flushed.
And even though we were standing closer together than ever before, he still struggled to hold my gaze, instead looking downwards as if his socks were the most interesting thing in the world.
“You might be the only person who thinks that,” he said quietly.
“I’m the only one that matters, though, right?” Right?
When he didn’t say anything, I patted his chest one last time before letting my hand drop.
It was like that one perfect scene–one that was also completely unscripted–where Mr Darcy’s hand flexes after holding Elizabeth Bennet’s hand.
I felt the absence of his body so starkly, so acutely, that I cradled my hand in the other, just to give it some semblance of comfort.
“Sterling,” he said again, stepping in closer.
The space between us was so small I could feel the shift in temperature; I could feel the warmth that radiated off him.
I glanced up, the flicker of uncertainty behind his eyes not going unnoticed.
I could see the question behind it. Behind the word.
My name. I could see the ‘Are you sure about this?’ and the ‘I promise I’ll be there. ’
But I wanted this. I wanted this distraction.
Needed this distraction. Probably more than I’d needed anything in my life.
I didn’t have the energy or the emotional capacity to deal with what happened to me at the end of last year.
And I wasn’t sure I ever would. And more than that, I needed to push all thoughts of Thallor from my mind.
All I wanted to do was convince myself that the dynamic between us was as it always has been.
I needed to convince myself that I was capable of swallowing down the emotions that reared up every time he looked at me.
“I’ll be okay,” I said a little too quickly. The smile I forced onto my lips was one I used when I was trying not to acknowledge the void I felt inside.
“Just be careful. Please.”
It was the please that almost undid me. It was the please that had me faltering where I stood, pulled one way by my own heartstrings and another by logic and sense.
It was the please that plunged deep into my chest, unearthing every feeling I worked to keep hiding.
It was the please that left nothing untouched.
Thallor’s words coiled around me and assailed the stone tower entwined with vines of barbed thorns that I’d build around my heart.
With all the feelings that began to pour out of me into the silence that stretched between us, all I could think to do was run.