Chapter 11 Guilty Pleasure
Guilty Pleasure
When Karim turned to face me, his serious expression was back, and he didn’t look directly at me.
Was he one of those guys who behaved differently when his friends weren’t around? My ex had been like that: an exemplary boyfriend when with others and a dickhead when alone with me. I really hoped Karim wasn’t like Peter.
Pfft, what am I thinking? Karim wasn’t like anyone I knew–intense, magnetic, with a dangerous edge that drew me in… He was like a force of nature wrapped into the most attractive package.
And why did it matter, anyway? It wasn’t like I could hook up with the Elf Prince. That dream of mine was the closest I’d ever get to him. It was my recovery I should be thinking about, not my attraction to Karim.
“The effect of the mapsa leaves will fade soon,” he said, dragging my stray thoughts back to reality.
His gaze was fixed on the door to my left. Unlike the one Tisvali had just passed through, this door was a curtain of interwoven flower stems with blossoms here and there. It was beautiful, but hardly new enough to Karim for him to be so focused on it.
“You will feel pain then, but not as bad as before, since the healing plants under your bandages should already be working. The swelling around your knee should subside within hours.”
“Graciem.” Hopefully, that meant thank you. “For both dressing my wounds and saving my life earlier.”
“You should thank Deidre,” he told the door.
“Did she wash me and change my clothes?” Whatever I could see of my skin was free of any blood and dirt, so someone had to have cleaned me up. And I didn’t think the Prince would do that.
My question elicited a look my way so quick I would have missed it, had I not been using the opportunity to study Karim’s profile.
“Of course.” He sounded offended. “Deidre brought you the dress and cleaned you up before changing you into it. Tisvali and I waited outside. You don’t remember? It was right after I bandaged you.”
“Sorry, I don’t.” Feeling uncomfortable for having questioned his honor, I opted for a joke. “Then it is only Deidre who will have nightmares of my hairy legs.”
“She’s accustomed to the sight of her human side,” he said delicately, without even the ghost of a smile at my jest.
I smiled at him anyway. “Still, it can’t have been easy for her to touch me. For you either, I imagine. I understand your kind can’t stand mine and–”
His hands curled into fists; then he abruptly crossed his arms to hide them. His lips pressed into a thin line. Had I offended him again?
“Touching holds special meaning to elves,” he said slowly, as if choosing his words carefully.
“It’s not given lightly to anyone, regardless of their kind.
It means deep trust, closeness… Affection.
” He sighed, his stance easing. “Of course, it’s different when the circumstances require it, like earlier today. Therefore, you need not thank me.”
“Will you have any problem helping me get to your garden, then?” I asked tentatively. Because he sure had a problem looking at me ever since Tisvali had left. Seeing him tense up again, I quickly specified, “I just need a hand for balance. I can hop along. It’s not far, is it?”
He sighed again. “Deidre was supposed to assist you under my supervision, but in her absence I will do it.”
That sounded worrying. “Is everything okay with Deidre?”
“Yes.”
His tone suggested otherwise. “Is she in trouble?”
He hesitated before replying. “Only with me.”
“Why?” I just couldn’t let it go. Must be those leaves still messing with my inhibitions.
“Because she refused to stay for the replanting. Despite my request.”
Oh. “And why did she refuse?”
He finally turned to look at me. “She said she didn’t want to ruin the intimate moment between me and the female I had dragged to my moss.”
“Umm.” I felt another blush creeping up under his words and heavy gaze. Still, I kept going, incapable of keeping my mouth shut. “But Deidre agreed that taking me to the healers was a bad idea and that coming to your home–”
“That was before she saw me placing you on my moss, rather than the sofa.”
He must have read the confusion on my face because he nodded at the wall niche opposite the bed.
With no furniture in sight other than the bed of stone, I should have guessed that the hole in the rock with colorful cushions inside was the sofa.
“The cushions are stuffed with feathers from a perished wild goose, but they’re still not as soft and rejuvenating to lie on as my moss is. Particularly when you’re recovering from wounds.” His eyes moved over my prone form as he spoke.
“I see.” I’d barely managed to choke back a giggle at perished goose, but now I was starting to feel nervous.
Karim’s gaze lingering on me, carefully taking me in, was partially to blame: before, it was as though he couldn’t bear to look at me, and now he was incapable of looking away.
The other part had to do with my head clearing up, like brain fog lifting.
Which made me see my current situation more clearly.
Karim might have done all these amazing things for me today, contrary to his kind’s customs, but it must be because he needed me.
Once my task here was done, I’d be back in the gardens.
By chatting him up, I was only postponing the inevitable all the while testing his patience and allowing myself to get attached.
He was like a sundew: irresistibly beautiful but deadly. And the more time I’d spend in his heady presence, the more he’d draw me in. Making me forget that he was a dangerous being and I, one helpless human who was way over her head.
“Shall we go to your garden?” I broke the charged silence. I slowly pushed myself into a sitting position, thankful that no dizziness assaulted me this time.
Karim was suddenly next to me. In the blink of an eye, I was off the moss and in his arms, bridal style.
“Karim! You don’t need to–”
“I’ve got you.” He was looking straight ahead, avoiding eye contact.
I could feel the tension radiating off him, and yet he held me as close to his body as physically possible. Why wasn’t he trying to minimize the contact?
“Thank you. But shouldn’t I start practicing walking? Once the edelweiss is planted and I’m back in the gardens, I’ll have to–”
“We live in the present, not the future.” His tone was firm while he maneuvered us with ease through the flower-decorated door.
“Uh, yeah.” No talking about the future, got it. I didn’t want to think about it, anyway. Better to enjoy my time with Karim while it lasted. “I’ll focus on the replanting and keep silent.”
He stopped amid the corridor. “Nai, Jasmine. Continue speaking freely. I… enjoy conversing with you.”
He resumed walking after that, so he missed my ears darkening. My heart did a little somersault.
Unable to find the right words to reply, I ended up asking, “Do you think Deidre would speak to me again? After the moss versus sofa issue?”
The corners of his lips lifted ever so slightly. “I believe so. She won’t be able to resist your sense of humor.”
As we turned right to pass through another plant-decorated door, I realized I didn’t want Karim to put me down. His hands had taken the lives of who knew how many humans, yet I craved them on me. Before the world went to hell, people would probably call this a case of the Stockholm Syndrome.
But did it matter what people used to say before the apocalypses? This was a brave new world we lived in; why adhere to old standards?
I nestled against Karim’s warm chest and let myself enjoy the guilty pleasure of his touch.