Chapter 46 Eliana
ELIANA
live fire /līv ?fī(?)r/: noun
Later, when the chaos of apologies and explanations settles, I find Bastian alone in the bedroom.
He’s leaning heavily against the dresser, one hand pressed to his bandaged abdomen, the other gripping the edge of the nightstand like it’s the only thing keeping him upright.
I approach slowly and stop close enough to feel the heat radiating off him.
I can still smell wintergreen beneath the antiseptic and dried blood.
“I don’t know how to thank you,” I begin without preamble.
“Or even if I should. You refuse to stay dead no matter how many times the world tries to kill you. I didn’t know that was something to be grateful for, but—well, here we are. ”
Bastian’s hand grazes my cheek. It’s rough, calloused, and faintly trembling. His thumb brushes away a tear. “Your mother saved my life,” he explains.
“You said that,” I remind him. “That she stitched you up.”
“Not that,” he says. “Well, yes, that. But not just that. She said something to me. Something that finally broke through my thick skull.”
“What?”
“That anyone can die for someone.” His forehead drops to mine, and I feel the shudder that runs through him. “But living for them… that’s the hard part.”
My breath catches.
“I’m done dying for you, Eliana,” he swears. “From now on, I’m going to try living instead.”
I rise up on my toes, mindful of the bandages beneath his shirt, and press my lips to his.
The kiss is gentle. It’s careful of his wounds, wary of everything we’ve broken and are trying to piece back together.
But it’s also certain in a way I haven’t allowed myself to be since the night I ran from that alley.
When I pull back, my lips brush his as I whisper, “I’m going to hold you to that.”
Bastian doesn’t let me go far. His arms come around me and keep me close to him. His chin rests on top of my head, and for a while, we just breathe together. In and out, in and out. It’s like we’re reminding each other of how it is to just share space.
“You’re shaking,” I murmur against his chest.
“Blood loss,” he explains. “And maybe relief. Who’s to say?”
His laugh is weak, more of a wheeze than anything, but it’s real. I’ve missed the sound of it. I’ve missed so many things about him.
My hand drifts to his side and finds the edge of the bandages through his shirt. “Does it hurt?” I ask.
“Like a motherfucker,” he admits.
“Too much?”
I feel his frown. “Too much for what?”
I can’t stop a shy, sly, heated grin from drifting across my face. “Fulfilling promises.”
“Eliana…”
“Close the door,” I tell him.
Bastian hesitates. His hand drops from my face. “Eliana, you don’t have to—”
“I’m not leaving this room tonight.” I reach out and curl my fingers in the fabric of his shirt.
“And neither are you. You made me a promise, Bastian. You said when you came back from meeting Harold, you wanted to hear me say all those things I was saying in my sleep. But this time, awake. To your face. With no dreams to hide behind. Does that sound familiar?”
“I remember,” he says roughly.
“Good.” I release his shirt and step back. “Because I meant what I said. I’m holding you to it. All of it.”
For a painful few seconds, nothing happens, and I feel the sting of rejection.
Then I hear him move. The door closes. The lock clicks into place.
And the air begins to heat.
I stand frozen in the center of the bedroom, bathed in sounds.
I pick them out one by one and savor them each in turn.
Bastian’s labored breathing, rough and shallow from the wound in his gut.
The creak of floorboards as he shuffles toward me.
The distant babble of a TV in the living room. The sigh of fabric.
Wintergreen grows stronger as he comes closer. Closer. Closer. When he stops, he’s inches away. I shiver at the onslaught of heat, then sigh and relax into it. His breath stirs the fine hairs at my temple. My pulse pounds in my throat, my wrists, between my legs.
Neither of us moves.
Neither of us speaks.
Bastian’s fingers find my chin first. He tilts my face up gently and my breath stutters. His other hand settles on my hip, anchoring me in place as he leans down and brushes his lips against the corner of my eye where tears have dried.
Each touch is a question.
Is this okay?
Can I have this?
Will you let me in?
I answer by gripping the front of his shirt and pulling him closer.
His wound must be screaming at him, but he doesn’t pull away. Instead, his hand slides from my hip to the small of my back, pressing me flush against him until there’s no space left between us.
“Eliana,” he breathes against my skin. He says my name like he’s tasting every syllable and finding each one more delicious than the last.
“I’m here,” I whisper back. “I’m not running anymore.”
His forehead drops to mine. I feel the tremor that moves through him. It matches the one rumbling through me.
I begin unbuttoning his shirt. The fabric parts one button at a time, revealing inch after inch of the thick bandages wrapped around his torso. My hands freeze and I start to wonder if I’m being greedy. Is this wrong of me? Should I stop?
Like he can hear me questioning everything, Bastian covers my hands with his own and presses them flat against the bandages anyway. I feel the ridge of medical tape beneath my palms, the warmth of his skin above and below the wrapping. His heartbeat thrums steady and strong under my fingertips.
“I’m not fragile,” he tells me.
My thighs clench involuntarily at that masculine, rasping baritone. “You got shot,” I remind him.
“And I’m still standing.” He chuckles. “Tell Aleksei to aim better next time.”
“There can’t be a next time, you big, dumb brute,” I snap through sudden tears. “I don’t think I can do this again.”
“You won’t have to. I’m here. I’m fucking here, Eliana. I’m not going anywhere.”
I nod, swallow, and push the shirt off his shoulders. The fabric whispers down his arms and pools at our feet.
Then I start to map him.
My fingertips trace the planes of his chest first, following the architecture of muscle and bone that I once took for granted when I could see.
The scars and bandages make my heart twinge in sympathy.
I can’t feel the tattoos, but I know they’re there, and those make my heart ache in a different sort of way.
But even though he’s been hurt and he’s done plenty of hurting, a thousand times over to a thousand faceless victims—and to me, too, if we’re doing a full census of Bastian Hale’s damage—I wouldn’t take that pain away from him even if I could, because it made him who he is and it brought him here to me.
I have to be grateful for that. I don’t really have any other choice.
When I reach the edge of the bandages, I detour around them carefully. My palms skate over his ribs and continue to his back. The muscles there are knotted with tension. I massage my fingers into them as I huddle against him.
His breath whispers across my forehead. “Eliana,” he sighs again.
His hands find the hem of my sweater. He pauses there, knuckles brushing the bare skin of my waist, silently asking permission.
I lift my arms in response.
He peels the sweater over my head slowly, leaving goosebumps in his wake. The cool air hits my skin first, prickling across my shoulders and chest. Then comes the warmth of his palms smoothing over my belly—rounder now, undeniably changed from the flat plane he knew before.
He spreads his fingers wide across the curve and holds them there. “I missed so much,” he says. “I missed so fucking much.”
I thread my fingers through his hair. “You’re here now. That’s what counts.”
I reach behind me to unclasp my bra and let it fall. The vulnerability of standing bare before Bastian, unable to see his reaction, sends a shiver down my spine. My nipples tighten in the open air, even though he’s still baking me in his heat.
With a strangled inhale, he lowers his mouth to my collarbone and drags it, hot and open, down to the swell of my breast. Just like that, all self-consciousness goes out the window. I stop caring about anything except the sensation. His lips drag across my skin and that tortured moan drags with it.
My head sags back. My fingers clamp onto his shoulders for balance as his lips close around one nipple, tongue swirling, teeth grazing with just enough pressure to make my breath hitch.
A moan escapes me before I can catch it.
“There she is,” Bastian chuckles against my skin. The vibration of his voice sends more heat arcing between my thighs.
He walks me backward toward the bed, hands on my hips to keep me steady. When my calves hit the mattress, I sit down hard. He catches my wrists and presses them gently into the comforter on either side of my hips, pinning me in place.
“Stay,” he orders against my throat. “Let me look at you.”
He steps back, and the loss of him makes me whine, a plaintive little “Bastian” that sounds so meek and submissive that he can only growl in response.
“I know,” he says. “I know, baby. Just give me this. One minute to remember what I almost lost.”
So I stay. I let him look. And even though I can’t see his eyes on me, I feel them, burning trails across every inch of skin.
Then I hear him sink to his knees on the floor.
The position puts his face level with my belly, and his breath fans across the stretched skin before his lips follow.
He kisses a path from my navel to my hip bone.
When he runs out of skin, he slowly peels my leggings down my legs and sets them aside so he can keep going south.
My hands fist in the comforter beneath me, fighting the urge to cover myself, to hide the belly that’s changed so much, the body that feels foreign even to me now.
But Bastian doesn’t give me time to spiral. His palms slide up my calves, my knees, my inner thighs, and spread them gently apart as he settles between my legs.