Chapter 34
The police never recovered Ethan’s body. They believed–or so they’d said—terrorists often kept them. Another way to hurt their victims and gain more notoriety.
Thomas had told Ben on the phone that day that he and Will watched Ethan go down from a distance but couldn’t get to him. They watched him lay there, dying, and couldn’t get close enough to touch him or talk to him.
Mary, Mrs. Bates, and I had quickly pulled together a memorial service at the community church and a luncheon afterward at Eastridge for family and friends.
Will stayed quiet the whole time. What little he did say was brief and emotionless. He didn’t eat or sit. He lurked in a dark corner of the great hall and kept an eye on me while working on his bottle of whisky.
Done with it all, he jerked his head at the staircase and waited for me to walk in front of him, guiding me to my room with his hand on the small of my back. He gripped me outside my bedroom door, his fingers digging into my arms.
“Stay here until you’re told the estate is clear.”
Then he put a hard, distant, cold kiss on my mouth. But before he managed to slip away from me, I grabbed his face between my hands.
“Let me help you,” I whispered.
He pulled away from me.
“Go inside, Elle. Leave me alone.”
His behavior had become so dark, and it scared me.
Tears burned my eyelids. I shook my head.
“No, I won’t leave you…I won’t go.”
He shrugged as if to say suit yourself.
So I followed him. Like a stupid little girl, I followed him.
He went around the corner and through a door leading up another flight of stairs.
The attic space hadn’t been renovated like the other parts of the house. Oak floor planks were worn and scratched. Walls revealed lath and crumbling plaster. And exposed stone.
Dimly lit sconces threw off unsettling shadows.
Battered wooden doors with tarnished gold brackets lined up along the corridor like soldiers. I imagined the little cards once displayed in those brackets with handwritten names on them—the names of servants from a time long ago.
Of course, Will knew I was there, but he continued down the dark corridor anyway.
We walked in silence.
The only sounds were his heavy steps and the creaking boards beneath our feet.
Then the first window appeared, finally, and light rain drummed against it. Huge clouds circled the moon.
Will stopped walking at that point, and I plowed into his back. He didn’t turn around. His back vibrated. A slight tremble you had to be close enough to see. A warning. A threat.
“Elle, it’s not a good time for you to be near me. Go to your room.”
But I was determined not to leave him alone in that state.
Will had been there for me. He’d taken care of me. And he still carried the weight of my burdens. So no, I wouldn’t be passive while he fell deeper into his darkness. I wouldn’t allow him to bear his own grief alone.
I loved him. His pain was my pain.
Watching his shoulders rise and fall as his breath flowed in and out of his body, I waited quietly for his next move. We stayed right there for several long minutes, standing close to each other but not touching, both of us silent and on edge.
When the cadence of his shoulders slowed down, I reached out and touched his back with just my fingertips.
His breath stopped. Everything stopped. His shoulders. Time.
Finally, he turned around, and warning was written in his wild eyes, his beautiful blue eclipsed by black.
I swallowed and straightened my back. Beast or not, I wasn’t leaving him.
“Will, you need me.”
He closed his eyes, nodding. And as his spicy warm scent filled the space, it seemed like an eternity passed before he opened his eyes, but when he did, he drove his gaze hard into mine. He bared everything, showed me everything. His pain, the fear, the guilt he felt, and the anger that had become rage.
I winced.
He stepped closer, looming over me, and hunger joined the emotional chaos in his eyes. His hot breath touched my face.
“Good. You should be frightened.”
I wasn’t. Will had never intimidated me.
“You know I’m not afraid of you. But I am afraid of losing you, so if you won’t fight your demons, I’ll fight for you.”
After freezing for a second, he exploded. All of him…his body, emotions, soul.
He grabbed handfuls of my hair, pulled my head back, and covered my mouth with his, forcing his tongue past my lips. His kiss was unyielding and more than savage.
In that moment, all I wanted for him, for me, for us, was to ease his torment, to chase away his heartbreak. I would give him anything. I would give up everything. I pressed myself tightly against his tense body, encouraging him to kiss me more, to kiss me harder.
The force of his kiss split my lip.
The metallic tang hit our tongues, and he came down from his ruthless high but only long enough to look at my bottom lip and suck away the droplets of blood. Then his hand pushed under my skirt, into my panties.
I melted onto his palm, and he snarled at my ear.
“I’ll fuck you right here if you don’t walk away now.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Then you’ll scream for me, Elle. You’ll scream my fucking name.”
He pushed two fingers inside me, and with the third he earned his name cried out loud as it echoed through the attic corridor.
He covered my mouth with his hand.
Will’s mastery of my body was undeniable. I came fast when he moved his fingers in and out of me, twisting them, using his thumb on my clit to drive me over the edge.
I tried to shout his name again, but this time he covered my mouth with his and thrust his tongue against mine, in and out, fucking my mouth, swallowing my scream.
Satisfied after taking from me all that he could in that way, he jerked us, jerked our bodies like they were one, pushing up my skirt, positioning us with my back against the wall.
He held me so tightly that nothing that wasn’t part of us could survive in between.
Will put the fingers he’d had inside me into his mouth, and a growl moved up from his chest to his throat, where it paused, waiting, just waiting.
He somehow tore off my panties and then pushed his erection against me.
I tried to push him back to unbutton his shirt and his trousers, but my strength was no match for his madness, so I clawed at the buttons and ripped as many as I could away from their tiny threads.
He eased back with a smirk, but just enough to give me access.
Because his smooth, sculpted chest was my home, and he knew it.
My hands roamed his chest wildly as I kissed his neck.
I bit one of the cords in his neck…hard.
He grunted and grabbed a fistful of my hair, dragging my mouth back to his for another insane kiss while his erection strained and jerked between us.
I fumbled frantically with the fastenings on his trousers, and when he was free, I took his heavy length into my hand and stroked him.
A guttural sound escaped from his throat as I squeezed, making it clear that he was far beyond the point of return.
Will would take what he wanted from me with abandon and without regret.
He jerked me off my feet, into his arms, and put my back against the wall again.
I wrapped myself around him, my arms, my legs, and when he shoved inside me with a severe thrust, I screamed his name. Again. And he yelled mine.
But then he forced his vibrating body to stop and burrowed his face into my hair.
I didn’t know how long we held each other that way, both panting and fevered, him inside me, before he finally lifted his head and searched my eyes.
I dragged my fingers through his hair.
“Don’t stop. Please don’t stop. I love you, Will.”
“Christ, Elle.”
His hoarse voice didn’t sound like him but like an injured, feral animal.
To encourage him, I rocked my hips, though the movement wasn’t much because he held me so tightly.
He pushed against my body with his, pressing me harder against the wall, to stop me. Then he brushed over my ear with his sweltering-hot lips.
“You don’t know how mad it is—the way I need you. You don’t know what you’re asking me for…you can still go.”
I shook my head.
“I won’t go.”
“Damn you, Elle.”
The tone of his words matched the increased strength in his arms, and then he started moving inside me.
Will threw the chaotic mix of his emotions running through him into our fire, and he let us burn. The thrusting of his hips deepened beyond the force he’d ever used with me as he lost himself to rage.
Rage was the one demon that grew when tossed into fire.
Our flames reached higher as he thrust into me, his emotions driving him, fueling him, engulfing him within his own fiery hell.
Deeper he thrust. Harder and harder.
I couldn’t take much more. His strength and force were so strong. But still, I didn’t make him stop. I raked my nails over his back and shoulders and screamed.
And at the same time, the roar of his climax blasted through the corridor.
I collapsed onto his shoulders, seared and drained, leaving him to support the weight of my limp body while we worked to catch our breath.
His arms, his lungs, and his voice, they all trembled.
He kissed my neck with remorseful tenderness.
“I’m sorry, baby. It was too much for you.”
“You were lost,” I whispered.
Nodding, he lowered me to my feet but kept me in his arms, and then he lowered his head to press his face against mine.
“Say you’ll forgive me, Elle.”
I panted, still trying to catch my breath.
“Baby, forgive me. Tell me you will.”
His second plea shocked me, so different than his usual commands. Pain lived in those words, and that pain slapped me across the face, making me see his vulnerability—hurting me.
This strong, controlling man who had it all, who gave zero fucks about hurting others.
But hurting me? That could put him on his knees. Knowing that horrified me. And deep down, it also pleased me.
Will hadn’t hurt me, not yet, but the intensity in his strength had been close to unbearable. If he had pushed me any further, even slightly so, I would have stopped him. I understood how far gone he’d been in that moment. And I knew it would have taken a harsh slap to his face to stop him.
“Elle, I won’t allow you to move away until you say something.”
“Come back to me,” I demanded.
He understood, lowering his eyes to mine.
“Will, listen to me. You didn’t hurt me, but you could have. You can’t ever lose yourself that way again. Not with me.”
He nodded.
“I know, baby. I know. Never again. I swear, I’ll never hurt you.”
He stepped back but held our eye contact as he pulled down my skirt and fastened his trousers. With my back still to the wall, he rested his arm there next to my head. He kissed me, putting soft, sweet kisses on my lips, soothing me, pulling me into his protective embrace.
When he rested his hand on my back, a sudden sting caused me to involuntarily arch.
Will stepped back again.
“What’s wrong…what is it…are you hurt?”
I stalled.
“It’s been a really long day, and neither of us has slept much. Come to bed with me, Will.”
“You’ll tell me, goddamn it. Did I hurt you?”
“It’s nothing, Will. It’s…I think it’s just from the wall.”
Will spun me and lifted the back of my blouse, and we both realized at once the friction from the old stone wall had gone through the fabric and made several deep abrasions on my back.
“I did fucking hurt you.”
I tugged down my blouse and looked around for my panties.
“I’m sure it’s nothing, just a scratch.”
He stared at me with wide, angry eyes…like I’d committed some terrible offence against him.
“Don’t you fucking dismiss what I did to you.”
“It’s from the wall, Will, not by your own hand. Honestly, you should see what I did to your back.”
My words made him angrier.
“I’m the last man who should ever leave a mark on you.”
He raked through his hair and started pacing and cursing at himself, cursing at the God he wasn’t convinced existed.
“Will, please. We have more important things to deal with,” I said.
His fury escalated more.
“There is nothing more important to me than you. I’ve been clear about that, Elle, and still, you test me over and over.”
Shaking my head, I reached out for his arm.
He pulled away.
“You deserve much better than this, better than me.”
He backed away until bumping into a door. He turned and punched it. The old door broke from its hinges and crashed to the floor. He kicked it, sent it flying several feet beyond the doorway. But that wasn’t enough to satisfy his anger. He jerked up the wrecked door over his head and threw it, smashing it against the wall inside the room. It splintered into pieces.
I ran to him, but again, he pulled away from me.
“Will, don’t do this. Please!”
He blew out slow, heavy breaths, making it hard to tell whether he was winding up more or trying to calm himself.
A voice echoed behind me. Thomas.
“Ellie, step away from my brother,” he said.
Will snapped and stalked across the room toward Thomas.
“This doesn’t concern you…you get the fuck out of here.”
Thomas stepped in front of me.
“That’s right…you come at me, not her. What the fuck are you doing…do you want to hurt her?”
Will stopped dead in his tracks. He stared at Thomas, then at me, and his eyes softened.
“I love her, Thom. I’ll never hurt her.”
“But you see, you’re losing it, and she’s too fucking stubborn to walk away.”
Will stared at me again. Then he reached out his hand to me, his eyes pleading with me to trust him. I put my hand in his, and he pulled me to him and held me against his heaving chest.
“I’m going to London for a while, Elle,” he said.
He lifted my chin and forced our eyes to connect.
“You will stay with Thomas.”
While keeping my hands on his arms, I pulled back, shaking my head.
“No. No, I won’t stay here without you. You can’t?—”
“—please. You will do it,” he commanded.
Hot tears fell, stinging my cheeks.
“For how long?”
He softly kissed my lips.
“I’ll come home soon.”
I clutched his shirt tightly in my fists, so tightly, and buried my face in it.
“No, you can’t leave me. I won’t let you leave me.”
My breath stuttered on those sobbed words. And I choked on them as they replayed in my head—the same words I’d said to my sister.
Will’s fingers wiped at my cheeks, and his warm lips kissed mine again.
We both tasted my salty tears.
“Shh…I’ll come back as soon as I can. I need to take care of some things…need to fix this. I’ll make everything right again.”
“No,” I sobbed.
“Yes. Thomas will keep you safe.”
Will pried my fingers away and eased me backward into Thomas’s arms.
“You keep her in this house. You fucking keep her here.”
Thomas gripped my arms from behind and tilted his head at the corridor.
“Go on…you get it fucking fixed,” he said.
But I twisted against him. And I pulled.
My heart refused to accept the truth, making me panic. It told my mind that Will was leaving me…just like everyone else in my life had done.
I pulled and struggled to get away, to follow him.
Thomas had no choice but to secure me inside his arms.
Will stared at me for a second, and I could see the resolve in his eyes.
“Please don’t leave me,” I whispered.
He turned and walked away.