Page 92 of Anywhere

“Fine,” I said.

I bent to grab my shirt, then took Elewyen’s hand. She tried to tug it away, but I wasn’t letting her return to the timid shell she’d been a moment before the kiss.

“I be sowry,” Elewyen said, as I marched us past my cousin, irritated by the inopportune timing.

I was getting somewhere, and it all burst like a balloon. Maybe it was Elewyen’s tentativeness, or maybe it was the fact we were both a little unsure about one another. The wild, desperate need that I had with Rhys had been instant. It seemed to need coaxing with Elewyen. It was still there, but just responded differently.

“Where ya takin’ me?” she asked, pulling back on her hand again.

“To my room,” I said.

She stopped walking, jerking me to a halt.

“I… I dinnie tink I’z ready for what ya want,” she said.

Turning around, I looked into her eyes and smiled. “Just lie with me. Like sleep, not anything more, just sleep in the same bed?”

“Oh…I…” Her cheeks were bright red, and she looked over her shoulder where her bedroom was.

Stepping in quickly, I cupped her face, desperate to hang onto what we started. “You promised seven days to see if you want to stay, to see if you want to join in the union with me and Rhys. Two have already passed. If you were serious, then this is the next step. Did you mean what you said?”

“Aye…” she said, her voice wavering over the single word.

“Then let’s do this. We won’t do anything intimate if you don’t want to, but just stay in the room with me.”

“Why?”

“To see if you like it, like me, like the idea of what it would mean to be with me and Rhys for real. If you don’t like me and choose to go, then at least you’ll know for sure without any doubt about how you feel.”

Elewyen was quiet a long time, but I wasn’t giving in or letting her go until she agreed. I couldn’t explain why I was nervous for her answer, but I was.

She slowly nodded. “All right, but I’z need ta get Barry. I dinnie wanna leave him locked in me room alone.”

I nodded as we veered toward her room, but all I could think about was that the rodent was probably going to try to chew my cock off in the night. That was not what I had in mind, but if it was the only way to get her to agree, then I would take it and call it a win.

Elewyen

This was a terrible idea. When he asked me to sleep in here with him, the logical part of my brain said that this was not a good idea and wanted me to say no, but the steady yearning in my heart and the heat between my thighs had ended up winning the argument. The way he looked at me seemed to confirm everything I was taught and destroy it at the same time. The look in his eyes was dangerous, and when we reached his room, and he kissed me again, the world seemed to stand still.

The strange animal growl that came from his mouth as he pushed me up against the wall made my blood run cold and boiled me from the inside at the same time. How was that possible?

“Fuck, you’re beautiful,” Rook said, breaking the kiss that left my head light. I barely remembered him pulling me across the room, giving me one of his tops to wear and ordering me to get changed.

The bigger confusion was why I did what he told me to. Barry was annoyed and had told me off all the way back to Rook’s room. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that the little bugger had chewed holes in all Rook’s pants or something by morning.

My mind and my body wouldn’t settle, and it only got worse when Rook dimmed the light and rolled over so that he could wrap his arm around my waist. I bit my lip as he pulled me tight into his body. The initial nervousness quickly turned into something else.

I’d never been in the same bed as a man for any reason, and I had to admit that, at least with Rook, there was something comforting about the feel of his hard muscled body holding mine. The hard pounding of my heart in my chest on the other hand was making me anxious and my body hypersensitive.

When he exhaled heavily, I shivered as my hair moved with the breath. When his finger flexed ever so slightly, it was like he hit me with some form of lightning. I was silently panting for something and had no idea what I wanted from him.

Rook lay perfectly still, his breathing even for such a long time that I thought he was asleep until he spoke.

“Why are you still so nervous?” he asked quietly.

His breath brushed against my ear. The heat in my body tripled, along with the tendrils of power that I couldn’t see but could feel as they wrapped around our bodies.

“Answer me, Elewyen. Why are you nervous?”