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But it didn’t help her now. Didn’t help with all of her attention.
She busied herself, getting ready for their dinner tonight.
She put on a blue dress, sleek and like midnight.
She rather enjoyed seeing her body in such provocative clothing.
She enjoyed it even more when she stepped outside and stood face-to-face with Cameron, who clearly enjoyed it as well.
“Excellent,” he said. “I see you readied yourself.”
“I did consider wearing a burlap sack. But I wanted to make a good impression on your friend.”
“Good.”
She looked at the tension in his jaw. “Are you nervous to see him?”
He turned to her, his blue eyes sharp. “I am not nervous. I do not get nervous.”
She laughed. “You’re a liar. You are nervous. Of course you are. You’ve been hidden away in a castle for the last decade. All of this is extremely new to you.”
“None of it is new to me. There are no mysteries yet remaining in humanity for me, lass. People are selfish, greedy, filthy creatures. And stepping away from them for ten years will have done nothing to change that. They are also shallow and vein. I will no longer challenge their vanity, but I will engender discomfort. That’s because of the shallowness. You can’t win everything, I suppose.”
She tried to read him. Tried to look deeper. The shock of his blue eyes, of the need she felt when she was near him made it nearly impossible. “But it won’t be like that with your friend.”
“Difficult to say.”
“Is it only Apollo tonight?”
“Yes. He felt that it would be best.”
“I agree. It is nice to know that your friends know you so well.”
He growled, and she suppressed a smile.
“You don’t like that. You don’t like having it pointed out to you that you have friends.”
“You are not my friend.”
“I am. Who else have you spent this much time speaking to?”
“Of the things we have talked about? No one,” he said, his voice suddenly honed to a fine blade.
She searched his face.
He was accustomed to using sex as a weapon. And of course, this was no different. The fact that he had talked to her, and not touched her even once, the fact that he had kept his distance, the fact that he had not taken his own release, all of that was part of it. Him taking control. Because he was afraid. He was afraid that she would test his control.
He didn’t like it. More than that, he loathed it. She had the power to challenge him. Whether or not he wanted to admit that. He wanted to pretend that he was immune. To everything. But he wasn’t.
And she was... She was learning something. How to knit herself into another person’s life. How to develop a relationship. And yes, she supposed in many ways theirs was built on forced proximity in the same way her relationship with Rose had been. But it felt different also. She didn’t have to befriend him. He hadn’t had to talk to her. They were a means to an end for one another, and yet for some reason, in spite of all that, they had gotten to know each other. It felt real. And it felt like it mattered.
They rode in the limousine to a large manor house outside of the city.
“Does he live here?” she asked, breathing out and in.
“Yes. Sometimes. Apollo goes wherever he wishes.”
“It’s amazing.”
