12. Underwear
TWELVE
UNDERWEAR
HAVEN
By the time Connor returns to the basement, I’ve reluctantly accepted that I’m not leaving just yet.
Even so, I decide it’s a good idea to let him think that I’m coming around.
That I’m not obsessively trying to figure out how to leave him.
So I tiptoe back down to basement level, sit down on the couch, and wait for him to come back.
Because they’re there—because he was right and I do need my strength—I finish off the apples.
I’m just about to get up and start poking through the kitchenette to see what else I can snack on now that my appetite has finally, finally returned when I hear the door open and stay seated instead.
When he appears at the bottom of the stairs, he’s carrying a notebook and a pack of pens.
“Here.” He places them next to the empty plate, smirking a little to see that the apples are gone. “I was thinking, if you need to tell me something, go right ahead. Write it down. I want to make sure there’s no miscommunications between us from now on.”
I don’t want to admit it, but that’s actually a smart idea. I keep hoping that the block stopping me from speaking will disappear and I’ll be able to tell him to fuck himself with words, but since it hasn’t, I’m kind of grateful he came up with the idea of bringing me paper and a pen.
I don’t tell him to fuck himself. Just in case he punishes me by taking them away, I decide to get right to the heart of my biggest problem and ask:
When will you let me go home?
He’s puzzled. That’s the only way I can describe the expression that twists his handsome face. That’s pure confusion as he drops down on the couch.
I scoot a cushion down, leaving one between us as I wait for his answer.
“I’m sorry, but did I give you the impression that you were leaving? Oh, honeyboo, that was my mistake.”
***
“I told you. This is your home now. You’re never leaving.”
Like hell I’m not.
I scratch the pen into the page.
you can’t keep me here
Connor leans into the couch, stretching his arm along the back of it. He crosses his leg, propping his ankle up on his knee, the heel of his loafer hanging loosely as he bounces it.
“I don’t mean to be rude, but who’s going to stop me, Haven?
Adrian is the one who drove us here, and he’s helping Dallas hide the fact that we recovered you.
No one but the five of us even know you’re here.
Because, if the rest of the Order does? Jack will have you tossed to the Owed at the Court, a fresh brand on your neck before either of us can blink. And you don’t want that.”
He has a point. I don’t want that. Coming home only to be tossed to the men of the Order as a mistress without any standing was my second biggest fear while they kept me in that cell. Damn Connor for using that against me.
Gripping the notebook and the pen in my hands, I push myself up to my feet. I don’t know where I’m going, only that I can’t stand sitting next to him for a moment longer.
Connor pats the leather of the couch. “Sit down, Haven.”
I shake my head. No.
He sighs. “I don’t want to fight. We’re starting our life together, starlight. Let’s not fight.”
He can’t be serious.
I throw myself against the arm of the couch. Not because he told me to, but because I need my lap to be able to hurriedly write what I wish I could say.
There is no life together. There’s me — Haven — and there’s you. You have to let me go!
His nose wrinkles. “Why would I do that when I finally have you right where I want you?”
It’s the way he says that. Something’s not right.
It’s one thing to be part of a rescue mission, feel sorry for the poor girl you saved, and develop a hero complex that insists you continue to ‘save’ her.
But the way he’s insisting that I have to stay…
how he told me this basement is mine… why do I have the feeling that this wasn’t some spur of the moment plan of Connor’s that led me here?
My hands are trembling as I ask:
How long have you been planning this?
“I didn’t plan it per se.” At my look of disbelief, Connor crosses his heart.
“At least, not now. But then you got taken, and you need my help, and I would’ve let you stay upstairs if I thought you’d behave, but since you can’t…
I brought you to your basement.” He gestures behind me. “To your room.”
I jab the pen point next to the question.
“Oh. You want to know how long I’ve considered it yours?
” Something like that. “Well, my parents let me have this house when I was twenty. About four… yeah, it was four years ago… I got worried that too much time was passing. You might slip out of my fingers, and in case that happened, I had a backup plan. I hired a crew to finish the basement to certain specifications, including building a room just for you.”
Four years ago.
Four years ago.
for me??
He nods. “The moment I heard you accepted Adrian’s Claim and planned on being his Offering, I was moving you down here to… convince you otherwise.”
Hang on—
So I’d get locked up, and Adrian would be free? That’s fucked.
“Did I say that? Oh, darling. If my boy decided to go behind my back and take my girl, he wouldn’t be free. He’d be dead.”
Dead.
He said dead.
A flash of memory hits me. Of Connor, holding a bloody knife in his hand, red drops all over his clothes, his hands, his cheek. When he came into that warehouse room to save me, he arrived like that—and Cam never showed up to stop him.
Or did he?
Dead. Maybe Adrian wouldn’t be the only one who was dead…
You’d kill him if I agreed to marry him?
“If you married him, you’d be his wife. You’d be expected to share his bed at least once a week at the start, and eventually pop out some Heller babies.
No fucking way. I’d kill him first, bro or not.
Don’t you understand that, Haven? Same for any other Owed or some regular prick in town.
I’d kill anyone who thought they could touch you when you’ve always been mine.
” He pauses. “Does that scare you? Shit. I don’t want to scare you.
But it’s time you understand how far I’ll go for you. Okay?”
No. It’s not okay.
It’s so not okay, it’s approaching it from the other side of total insanity.
His? I’m not his. I’ve never been his. And as for someone else touching me like that…
how would you even know?
“Trust me, hon, I have my ways. You’re as much a virgin as I am.”
That might technically be true. And, later, I’ll still be shocked to hear him say that; shocked and more than a little skeptical.
Connor is… Connor. He was the biggest flirt in Harmony Heights High and after.
I’ve known so many women in town to go after him, and while he’s never Claimed anyone as his wife over the years, I expected that was because he was too busy getting his rocks off with one of the Used down at the King’s Court.
Everyone knows that Dallas Collins and Sebastien Reynolds spend most of their time at the gentleman’s club for the Owed, where the male members have their choice of any of the women who work there, whether they’re married or not.
Part of being an Owed means being given a perfect Offering for a wife, then having their pick of the Used to take as a mistress.
Connor… I would’ve thought that, with his outwardly charming nature and good looks, he’d have multiple.
But virgin… I’m proof that you can do a lot with a lover and still be considered ‘pure’ in the eyes of the Order.
I don’t mean what Winter’s men put me through, either.
Before I hit eighteen and the entire damn town decided I was firmly Adrian Heller’s property, I had a boyfriend or two to experiment with.
It never went far—it couldn’t unless I wanted to become one of the Used—but I’ve had some experience.
I would’ve thought Connor had a ton. I tried not to think of it since, back then, there were nights I wanted to be one of the girls he did more than kiss, and I made it a point to avoid the gossips when they talked about Connor as often as I ducked out of sight when I saw him coming.
But now…
I don’t want to ask. To do so means that I give a shit, and if I give a shit, he’ll never, ever let me go. It’ll give him some idea that I’m curious about him; worse, that I’m interested in him.
Does that stop me, though?
Virgin??
“I’m a good boy, baby. I’ve been saving myself for marriage.
All I’ve ever done is kiss before, and you’re the lucky girl who got my kiss.
Since then, I’ve been waiting for you to let me try again…
and do a little more than that. So… what do you say, Haven?
You ready to make an honest man of me, then take my virginity? ”
He’s teasing. He has to be. I remember that kiss so vividly, even now. If that was his first kiss, he must be a kissing savant because it’s the best one I’ve ever had.
And marry him? Just so he can get laid? Now I know he’s fucking insane, because how does he think it’s a good idea to ask me something like that—even if he’s joking—after what I went through?
True, he doesn’t know what I went through, and I’m going to keep it that way if I can. But maybe he needs to be aware that I’m not the pristine virgin I once was…
So I’m a virgin. It doesn’t mean no one’s ever touched me.
The amusement in his eyes disappears the second he reads my shaky scrawl.
He grits his teeth. “That doesn’t count. I’m telling you, Haven, that doesn’t count.”
It’s easy for him to say that.
I set my pen down and fold my hands in my lap, looking down at them instead of at him.
Connor curses.