Chapter 38 Eliana
ELIANA
intermezzo /?in(t)?r?metsō/: noun
The crime: having an extremely vivid sex dream about the man lying approximately eighteen inches away from me and then finishing while he was right there to witness the whole humiliating spectacle.
The verdict: sofuckingguilty.
My hand is still trapped between my legs, giving a whole new meaning to the phrase “caught red-handed.” And while we’re on the topic of the color red, my cheeks are about that tint. They’re basically stove tops, burning at a gazillion degrees Fahrenheit, and probably glowing in the darkness.
“I don’t—” I clear my throat and try again. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
But even I don’t believe me.
My condition is now both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, I can’t see whatever smug expression is currently plastered across Bastian’s face. On the other hand, my remaining senses have dialed up to compensate for my blindness, which means I can feel his awareness of me like a purring beast.
My body is still humming with aftershocks. Little tremors keep rippling through me, completely beyond my control. A moan almost sneaks past my lips and I bite down so hard that I taste blood.
Bastian’s voice lolls out again. “I’m not judging,” he says. “In fact, I’ve been lying awake for the past twenty minutes listening to you squirm and whimper, trying to be a gentleman and pretend I didn’t notice.”
Twenty minutes. Kill me now. Just take me out back and put me down like Old Yeller, please and thanks.
“But the way you moaned my name…” His voice drops another octave, practically subterranean now. “… Well, a gentleman can only be a gentleman for so long.”
I can feel him scoot closer on the mattress. The heat of his body radiates toward me like a space heater cranked up to “Inferno.”
“Want to tell me what you were dreaming about?”
The taunt in his voice is unmistakable. He’s enjoying this. The bastard is loving every godforsaken second of making me squirm.
“Shut up,” I snap, finally extracting my hand from its compromising position and wiping it on the sheets, as if that’ll somehow erase the incriminating evidence. “It was nothing. Just hormones. Pregnancy brain.”
Bastian chuckles. “Is that what we’re calling it?”
He moves even closer. Still not touching me—he’s careful about that—but close enough that the heat of his body bleeds through the thin cotton of my sleep shirt. Close enough that wintergreen floods my senses, making my head swim.
“Your subconscious is trying to tell you something,” he murmurs.
“All these boundaries you keep building between us… they’re just walls, Eliana.
Walls you hide behind because you’re scared of what you actually want.
” He licks his lips. “I think I know what you were dreaming about. Do you want to say it, or should I?”
My breathing has gone shallow and quick. My thighs press together involuntarily as that endless heat unspools in my belly.
“Stop,” I manage to croak.
“My hands on your hips… my lips on your throat…” He taps each body part in turn. Just one fingertip, but it might as well be a sledgehammer, if my nervous system has anything to say about it. Each point of contact lights up like a nuclear explosion. It burns, it stings, it feels so fucking good.
“My tongue between your—”
“I said stop.”
Bastian goes still beside me, but I know him too well to think that’ll be the end of it. He’s not going to let this go.
But I’m done being the one on the back foot here.
“You think you’re so clever,” I spit out, “and I’m just an open book before your eyes. But what about you, Bastian, huh?” I turn toward him in the darkness. “You think I haven’t noticed? I feel you looking at me constantly. Always, always looking at me.”
I gulp, terrified of what the price of running my mouth like this is going to be.
Then I double-down and keep going.
“Your hand on my lower back hurts you way more than it helps me. When I dropped my stick the other day, I heard you swallow.” I lean closer. “You’re every bit as desperate as I am. You’re just better at hiding it.”
Bastian doesn’t respond immediately. Then he exhales, a long, shuddering breath that comes from somewhere deep in his chest. “You’re right.
” He props himself up on an elbow. “I’ve been rock-hard since you walked into this bedroom.
Watching you sleep in my bed—” He breaks off with a rough laugh.
“It’s the sweetest kind of torture I’ve ever known.
I want you so badly, Eliana, that it physically fucking kills me. ”
His labored breathing is the only sound in the room.
“But I’ve kept to myself, even when it’s pure agony. For you. Because every time I get close, you flinch. I destroyed us once already and I refuse to do it again just because my cock has opinions about the situation.”
“Bastian—”
“Quiet now.” He presses a finger to my lips, but gently. “Don’t say something you’ll regret in the morning. Nighttime Eliana makes promises that Daytime Eliana can’t keep. You told me that yourself.”
He’s right.
Goddammit, I wish he wasn’t, though.
And for a moment, a short moment, a brief moment, I consider throwing all caution to the wind.
It couldn’t hurt, could it? If I just gave myself this outlet, then we’d both be able to find some semblance of peace.
Because this is no way to live. This constant, thrumming, aching need that burns below the surface…
neither of us can keep going on like that.
It’ll kill one or both of us sooner or later. Probably sooner.
So I could give up the fight.
I could.
Maybe I even will…
Then Bastian’s burner phone buzzes on the nightstand.
The magic disappears instantly. Bastian curses under his breath and reaches for the phone. My skin goes cold where his heat was radiating just seconds ago.
I feel him go taut beside me as he reads the message in a mumble I can’t decipher. When he reaches the end, he sucks in a surprised breath.
“What is it?” I ask, already dreading the answer.
“It’s Harold.” Bastian’s voice has changed completely.
Gone is the low, seductive purr from moments ago.
In its place is the clipped, all-business tone I remember and despise.
“He has information. Wants to meet tomorrow.” He gets out of bed.
“This could be the break we need. If Harold’s got something concrete… ”
I feel a cold spring of fear in my stomach where all the desire once was. It’s not Harold I’m afraid of, though—it’s Bastian walking out that door and not coming back.
I sit up, pulling the covers around myself. “Are you going alone?”
“You’re not coming, if that’s what you’re implying.” Clothes swish as he gets dressed again. “You need to stay here where it’s safe.”
I want to scream all the things I’ve been saying again and again—I’m not helpless, I can contribute, I’m so fucking tired of being left behind while everyone else gets to do something—but dead horses don’t come back to life no matter how many times you beat them.
Bastian must know what I’m struggling to keep to myself, because he says softly, “Not tonight, Eliana. Please. Just let me handle this one thing without worrying about you being in the crossfire.”
He steps back toward the bed. I feel his hand cup my face, his fingertips tracing along the curves of my cheeks like he’s memorizing the shape of me in the dark.
“I need you here,” he says. “Safe. Just give me that much, alright?”
I swallow back my arguments and nod. “Okay.”
“But when I come back to this bed… when this meeting with Harold is done and we’re alone again in the darkness…
” His thumb sweeps across my lower lip, feather-light, teasing, taunting, tantalizing.
“… I want to hear you say all those things you were saying in your sleep. But this time, awake. To my face. With no dreams to hide behind.” I feel rather than see his lopsided grin. “Do you understand?”
I nod. “Yes,” I whisper. “I understand.”