Chapter 13 #2
For the record, I didn’t smell. I’d showered this morning and my outer clothes weren’t technically dirty.
They were in that equidistant zone of too dirty to hang up or put away, but not dirty enough to wash.
But this was my last pair of clean underwear.
I would either need to do some wash soon or stop by a store.
Restraining myself, I noted that a sixteen-foot tree—at least—sat in the center of the space, decorated entirely in red. There was a faint scent of pine in the air. It was not unpleasant.
Alaric led the way to a bank of elevators. He pressed the up button and when the doors opened, he gestured for me to go in first. I stepped inside. He punched the button for the top floor. The doors closed. For a few seconds, we rode in silence.
I felt the pressure building, the way you do before a massive storm, and before I could stop myself, words broke free. “Why did you kiss me like that last night?”
“Like what?” he asked, like he’d been waiting for the question.
I spun, facing him. “Now look who’s pretending. You know how.”
He turned to me, lips pursed, expression patient but interested. “Please. Elucidate me. How did I kiss you?”
I forced the words out in a tight, low voice. “Like—like I was—like if you didn’t kiss me then you might actually die. Like you were—like you were addicted to me. Or desperate, okay? You kissed me like you were desperate.”
Alaric watched me impassively for a moment, then looked away, ran a thumb along the gift bag handle, but didn’t respond.
Thus, I spat, “Or do you kiss your former high school classmates that way? Do you and Cyrus Malcom make out whenever you meet up? Or how about Rex McMurtry? He looks like he’d be good with his hands.”
Alaric snorted short laugh that quickly turned into a much longer one. I didn’t join him because I wasn’t sure what Alaric was laughing at.
The elevator dinged, announcing our arrival
“No”—he sniffled and lifted the back of his free hand to wipe at his eyes, still grinning—“I do not kiss any of my former classmates that way except for you.”
The doors opened and he surprised me by grabbing my hand and hauling me off the elevator. Looking left then right, he pulled me after him and to a little alcove some distance and bends removed from the line of suite doors.
“Any other questions?” He didn’t release my hand. Instead, he laced our fingers, twining us together more completely.
“Then why did you do it and then leave like that?” Searching his expression, I tried to keep my voice to whisper. It still sounded raw with vulnerability, which I despised. I couldn’t help myself. I needed to know. “Why did you do that?”
He looked neither angry nor bothered despite saying, “Because you were pissing me off. You needed to know how much I want you.”
It was so blunt, so unfiltered, that I felt my spine stiffen as I absorbed his honesty, mouth parting in shock.
“So, I showed you,” he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Now you know.”
I took a half step back and withdrew my hand, not because I was afraid but because I felt like my body might short out from the crackle of electricity between us.
“Then why did you stop? If you want me so badly, why did you stop?”
“Aly, you were drunk.”
I scoffed. “I wasn’t. I was tipsy, not drunk.”
He arched an eyebrow. “You were tipsy and I was completely sober.”
“So, you stopped because you didn’t want to take advantage. Is that it?”
Alaric’s gaze darkened, flicking up then down my face, landing on my lips for a heavy beat of my heart before returning to my eyes. Just like that, the atmosphere around us somehow changed, growing charged.
Or rather, he changed and charged.
It was like he’d enclosed himself in invisible clouds of cordiality until right this moment. But now, the mirage of benevolence had slipped, allowing me to see his true self beneath.
An air of unapologetic confidence—or was that dominance?—had been unleashed, and I felt myself being pulled into the gravity of him. The alcove suddenly felt ten degrees warmer as his brutally beautiful and intelligent eyes held me transfixed, his entire aura a particular type of commanding.
This. This was how he did it. This was how he’d convinced people older and wealthier than him, perhaps even smarter, to invest in his schemes and make him a billionaire before thirty. He wasn’t inherently lucky. He was dangerously charismatic.
“Oh, Aly.” His voice was an amused rumble, like my question and desperation for an answer entertained him. “I did—and do—want to take advantage of you. That’s not why I stopped.”
My skin buzzed with some emotion I didn’t want to name.
“Then why did you stop?” In a stunning role reversal, I now sounded like the one begging.
Both my words and tone seemed to affect him. As though suddenly remembering himself, the illusion slipped back into place and he was Alaric the affable.
Taking a step back, his eyes turned familiar and kind. “Because I knew, if I took advantage, you would blame the alcohol and say it meant nothing.”
Outwardly, I bristled. Partially because this last statement was correct and I continued to despise how he knew me so well.
But also, now I knew what he kept leashed inside himself, the intensity.
It wasn’t creepy, witnessing this change in him, or how he turned it on and off like a switch. Not at all.
More like, I found the knowledge of it worrying, and it made me wary of him and how he might use this dominating, commanding charisma against me in the future.
Great. Now I needed to be even more on guard around Alaric Jordan, if possible. How exhausting.
While I worked to backtrack from my vulnerable moment, he added, “And when we are together for the first time, I don’t want to give you any escape clauses or grounds for plausible deniability.
I want you to own it.” His voice had deepened a few shades darker, giving me just a hint of his earlier aura.
Even so, my insides instinctively responded by wanting to transpose themselves into whatever arrangement suited his wishes.
I licked my lips, my mouth suddenly dry. So, this is how he’ll use his boss level one-thousand aura against me in the future. Good to know.