Chapter 20 Riot #2
“I was taken out of school in second grade so I could have more hours a day to practice. For years, I wasn’t allowed contact with anyone other than Dave, my piano teacher, the guard, or my private tutors.
I never went to school, never had a boyfriend or even friends.
All I did—all I lived for was to play piano.
And I started to hate it. I started to hate everything.
“I was consumed with it—this horrible, ugly despair. It tarnished everything I looked at, stripped the color from beautiful sunsets, and made it impossible to do even the simplest tasks. I was lonely, desperate, and sad. So very, very sad. The kind that infects, festers, and slowly drains the life from you until nothing is left but a husk. And so, on my sixteenth birthday, I tried to take my own life.”
I jolt, my mind picturing the articles I found all those weeks ago. Eloise’s mysterious hospital visit, and the months that followed, when no one knew where she was. “No… Eloise…”
“Clearly, I wasn’t successful,” she says.
“Dave found me in time, and the doctors were able to save my life.” She looks off into the distance, her eyes glazing over with a faraway look.
“When I woke up, I was strapped to a bed in the psych ward. For months, I was in there, and it was…” She shudders, unable to continue.
“It was unbearable. And I was so excited to get out that I never considered what my life would be like on the other side. I never stopped to think it would be worse than before.”
“And… it was.”
She nods. “When I got out, I found out Dave was granted full conservatorship powers over me. He convinced the courts that I wasn’t capable of handling my affairs or even basic decisions.
Over the years, he staged several more ‘breakdowns’ until they eventually awarded him full power over me and my estate on my eighteenth birthday.
They stripped me of my bodily autonomy, my rights, and declared I’m to live with Dave until it’s decided I’m capable in the eyes of the court.
” She laughs, the sound cold and hard. “Which will never fucking happen. I’ve tried so many times to have my case heard, to get away.
Every time, I’m turned away, given back to Dave, and it’s even worse than it was before.
I’m trapped. Truly and utterly trapped. And there’s nothing I can do. ”
“Oh, sweet Eloise…” I’m floored by the information, unable to wrap my head around it. How could this happen? How? “You’ve never had anyone to talk to? No one you could go to for help? No family? No friends, ever?”
She shakes her head. “Never. And just my guard, Forest—if you can count him as a friend. He’s not the biggest fan of conversation, so I’m not quite sure if we’re cool or not.”
My heart breaks for her, but at the same time, she doesn’t seem all that upset about it. “That sounds… horribly lonely.”
“Oh, it is.” She smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach her beautiful eyes. “But I have my music. I have my books. And now… I suppose I have you, too.”
She reaches out, initiating contact, and warmth spreads over my skin.
“You have me, Eloise,” I whisper. “You have all of me.”
Her cheeks heat, and she goes to pull back, but I flip my palm over and grip her wrist, holding her in place. “Please don’t go.” Please don’t shut me out. Not now, not when we’ve come so far. Not when I’m so close. “Please… just sit with me for a little longer.”
She lowers her gaze, but keeps her fingers wrapped tightly in mine. “Okay,” she whispers.
We sit in awkward silence for a long while until I can’t take it anymore.
“Hey, Eloise?”
“Yeah?”
“If I ever get rabies, I’m sinking my teeth into Dave Blasko first. I just wanted you to know that.”
She snorts, bringing her free hand up to her mouth to cover her grin. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“Why would you say that?”
Because it made you smile. “Not sure. It just seemed really pertinent.”
She throws her head back with a belly laugh, and it’s the most beautiful song I’ve ever heard. “You are such a weirdo.”
I squeeze her hand, moving closer so she’s pressed against my side. “You like this weirdo. Admit it.”
She looks down at our clasped hands, the moonlight bringing out the faint pink glow of her cheeks. “Maybe I do.”
Not a no. It’s enough for me.
I turn my gaze back to the horizon, watching the waves ebb and crest, their peaks sparkling with the silver light of the moon.
“Riot?”
I’m surprised to find her wide eyes locked onto my face. “Yes?”
“I need to know…” She looks away, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. “Does this… Is this going to change everything? Now that you know about my baggage, I mean… Are you going to wake up tomorrow and want to stop seeing me? Because I can deal with it if you do. I just need to know…”
“You really have no idea how I feel about you, do you?” When she doesn’t respond, I reach out, cupping her cheek in my calloused palm.
“This… us… it’s not some casual thing for me.
The things I tell you aren’t just pretty words.
You’re my fucking oxygen, Eloise. Nothing on this earth could scare me away or change the way I care for you.
I still want to hold you and protect you and worship you.
In fact, knowing this has only made me want to do those things more fiercely. ”
“Promise?”
Instead of answering, I hold out my pinky. Her face heats as she hooks her finger with mine, her eyes lowered as she goes in to kiss her thumb. Just before she reaches it, I yank our hands downward, and Eloise’s mouth collides with mine.
She’s so surprised it takes her a second to move, but when she realizes what’s happening, everything changes. Eloise lets out a low moan as her eyes lower in bliss, her lips working against mine in a beautiful dance that leaves me breathless and needing more.
I sweep my tongue over her lower lip, and she opens wider, allowing me to deepen the kiss. Her fingernails dig into my shoulder as another moan fills the silence, the sound vibrating low in her throat and driving me wild.
“Eloise,” I murmur, breaking away to place my forehead against hers, using the angle to stare deep into her eyes. “I need you, little muse. I need you like nothing I’ve ever needed before.”
“I know,” she whispers. “I know because I feel it too.”
I throw my head back with a stifled groan, tasting blood on my tongue from how hard I’m biting my lip. “God, I’d do anything to hear that again.”
She grins, leaning in to give me another long, slow kiss. “I need you, Riot. And I’ll say it as many times as you’d like.”
Fuck. She’s going to kill me. My cock strains painfully, but somehow, I find the will to pull back. I can’t very well fuck my student on the beach in the middle of the night. That would be wrong. Right?
I tell myself I’m making the right choice as Eloise leads the way back to the main deck, but it really doesn’t feel that way. I want to pull her close, to feel her perfect lips moving with mine.
To shove my cock so deep inside her pretty little cunt she’s choking on my name.
“Thank you for coming all the way out here. I don’t know if I said that yet.” She turns her head over her shoulder, and the moonlight hits her cheekbones in a dazzling way. She looks like an angel.
“Riot?” She stops reaching for the rope, her hands frozen and face crinkling in worry. “You okay?”
I blink hard, swiping away the fog of my daydream. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ve never been better, actually.”
She smiles, and the sky opens up, spreading warm, radiant light across the sands. And I could not imagine anything more beautiful.
“Eloise,” I whisper, “I—”
I love you. I yearn, I ache, I… want. Wholly and desperately, I want. Your hurts and your smiles, your sound and your silence. Hell, I even want your anger, your claws, and your teeth, if only it means they’re for me.
“Riot? What is it?”
“I was just thinking about how beautiful you look in this light.”
“Oh.” A tinge of pink spreads across her cheeks. “Thank you. You’re very sweet.”
“Not sweet.” I step closer, wrapping my arm around her waist and pulling her close. “Never sweet. Just honest.”
She shakes her head, biting her bottom lip. “I think you’re sweet. At least to me, you are.”
“You, little muse, are the exception to every rule,” I murmur, leaning in to nip her bottom lip. She gasps, her eyes wide, pupils dilating.
Mine.
The words crash to the front of my mind as I press my lips to hers. It pulses through my veins, flooding my being with an overpowering, unbearable heat. A desire so intense and all-consuming, it’s like flames licking at my insides, devouring me from within.
She pulls away all too soon, stifling the raging fire. There’s an apology in her eyes, a twist to her mouth that makes my heart drop to my stomach.
“Don’t. Don’t say it.”
She shakes her head, her eyes dropping to her feet. “I have to.” She gestures to the horizon. “My guard, Forest, wakes up soon, and he can’t find me missing. I don’t want to go, but I have to, Riot. I have to go home.”
“When will I see you again?”
She reaches out, taking my hand in hers. The touch offers me some comfort, but not enough. “When, Eloise?”
“Next weekend? Dave is leaving on another work trip on Saturday. I might be able to get out that night.”
A week? I have to wait an entire week to see her again? “Can I talk to you?”
She shrugs. “I might not get my phone back before then. Either way… plan to meet at midnight? You know the big Australian pine tree at the end of my street? I’ll be waiting there.”
“Okay. I’ll be there.” I step forward, wrapping her in my arms, deeply breathing in her scent, allowing it to calm my racing heart. “Next week.”
“Next week,” she repeats, burying her head into my chest.
It makes it so much harder to let her go.