Page 93 of Coveted

“I’d tell you, but I don’t feel like it.”

“God, you’re an asshole.”

The floor softly hums beneath the car, just enough that I feel it in my bones. Then comes a gradual, impossible shift, like we’ve become somehow weightless.

“Is this a time machine or something?” I ask.

“Or something.”

I grip the armrest. “I never should’ve agreed to come to your lair.”

This was a mistake. The last time he got me alone it ended with me on my knees, tears streaming down my face and my underwear soaked.

“You didn’t actually agree,” he says. “If it makes you feel any better.”

“It doesn’t.”

With an odd humming, the room around us moves, despite the car remaining still.

“Are we⁠—”

“Going up,” he says lazily, like people regularly drive into buildings and rise like gods.

The ascension is slow and steady. With no external windows, the journey is disorienting.

When the upward motion stops, a wall splits in front of the vehicle to reveal a foyer.

“A car elevator,” I say. “You have a car elevator.”

“You’re surprised I have one?” he asks.

“I’m surprised they exist. I had no idea.”

“Now you know.”

Lucan opens my door, and I step into the soundless, polished space with nerves jangling.

If I wanted to flee, how would I even manage it? Steal his car?

One glass wall overlooks the glimmering town below. The room is otherwise only concrete, polished to a sheen.

Standing there, surrounded by a deep silence, I realize that wealth is more than I thought.

It’s the obvious things like freedom, choice, luxury. All of that.

But also control. Power. Isolation.

I feel as though I understand more about Lucan by being here, enveloped in this feeling that’s both calming and eerie.

“Do you like it?” he asks from behind me.

Somehow I know he doesn’t mean the shining glass and sky-high space.

He means the feeling.

“Yeah, I think I do,” I say softly. “It’s like another realm or dimension. Like time’s suspended.”

He’s silent for a moment. “I knew you’d get it.”