I sat up, hugging my knees to my chest.
He didn’t look at me, just stared at the ceiling, his neck working as he swallowed, fighting thoughts he wouldn’t share.
The golden glow of the lamps painted him in reflections and interrogations. Somehow, even after what’d just happened, I still found him otherworldly in his perfection. He was a broken prince. The knight who didn’t fight the dragons but pencilled them on himself, borrowing their power to fight the darkness within. The flames from the chimerical beasts might help ward off what he most feared.
He cleared his throat, making me jump.
His lips twisted with a bitterness that hurt my heart. “Untie me, Pimlico. Immediately.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
______________________________
Elder
IT WAS OVER.
It was done.
I had a split second of blissful mental silence before everything I’d been running from found me. The noise, the chatter, the obsession to fix and collaborate and order. I yanked at the rope around my wrists. “Pim. Now!”
Her body tightened into a smaller ball as if she could pretend we were the same as before. She rubbed her nose with the back of her hand. Her eyes strained and stark.
She didn’t move.
My imprisonment drove me crazy. My cock already switched from minor relief to stoney need. I wanted to be free to take her again. There were many hours in the night, and I wouldn’t waste them by not being inside her.
Jerking my arms, I snarled, “Pim! Untie me. Instantly.”
My yell finally knocked on the shut door of her mind, making her flinch. Quickly, she unfolded from her ball and reached over my head to fumble with the knots.
Her breasts swung over my face. An invitation. An offering.
I couldn’t stop myself.
My mouth opened and I sucked on her nipple hard. So fucking hard.
She cried out.
Her spine bowing, her belly clenching, her moans undoing the last figment of my control. My hips rocked with need, desperate to start again.
My heart skipped a beat then two, tattered and torn with adrenaline.
Get it together.
Fight it.
Sucking her nipple, I groaned at how weak I was. If I was free and not strung up like a dog, I would’ve been back inside her and chasing my second release by now.
It was a good thing she struggled with the knots I’d pulled far too tight in my rush to fuck her. It gave me a few seconds’ reprieve where my rationality could tiptoe in front of my feral desires and slap some sense into me.
You need to leave.
Right now.
Tearing my mouth away from her breast, I growled. “Now, Pim. Let me go. Now!”
I had to get away.
Fast.
If I could run while sane, I had a chance.
The rope tightened and then loosened as Pim finally undid the left wrist then my right.
The moment I could move, I shoved her away from me and threw myself off the bed. I stumbled to one knee in my rush to run, the rope still tethered to one wrist by a loop.
I didn’t care it trailed after me. I didn’t care I wobbled on legs compounding with pain to return to her.
I half-ran, half-tripped to the bathroom.
I didn’t stop to make sure she was okay. I didn’t look back. I careened into the marble tiled haven and slammed the door before locking it and wedging the plush chair by the bath beneath the handle.
Only once my solitude was secure did I lurch to the mirror, look into the crazy eyes of my youth, and come face-to-face with the man who’d destroyed my everything.
I clutched the sink as ghosts I’d long since killed came back to haunt me.
The pain was agonising.
The urge to return to Pim and pin her down terrorising.
My muscles quaked as I held onto the basin, locking myself in place even as my flesh bruised to obey other orders.
Orders to fuck and never stop.
Orders to give in and let go.
The infection turned thicker, louder. Bending in half, I clutched the sink with all my might.
I won’t give in.
I won’t.
I won’t.
But even as I promised myself, I knew it was only a matter of time before I failed. Pim had crossed the line. But I’d sprinted over it. I was so far gone, I couldn’t see who I’d been or how to get back.
Denying my mind the allure of what it most wanted made it hiss and crow and turn to other things. I had no cello. I’d run out of marijuana. There was no reprieve from the ceaselessness inside my head.
Just the knowledge that Pim was outside that door, waiting to spread her legs—
Christ!
I shook harder as things crawled over my hands. Not insects. Not phantoms. Just itches and imaginary filth. But it had to be cleaned. Immediately.
Ripping open the taps, I lathered my hands with soap and washed.
I rinsed.
I washed again.
I rinsed.
I washed again.
One, two, three times.
And once the magical number was met, my thoughts hopscotched to a new one.
The drive for utter cleanliness overrode my teeth-chipping tension for more sex.
I threw myself into it, accepting the lesser of the two evils.
Crashing into the shower, I didn’t wait until the water was warm before hurling myself under the spray.
I never stopped shaking as I palmed handfuls of hotel shampoo and dug it into my scalp.
I rinsed.
More shampoo. More washing. Nails scraping my skin and bubbles stinging my eyes.
I rinsed.
One, two, three times I washed my hair.
The rest of my body was next.
One, two, three towels I used to dry every last droplet.
One, two, three times I brushed my teeth.
One, two, three razors I used to shave.
One, two, three…
One, two, three…
Stop it!
Breathing hard and out of control, I once again bent over the sink and held on as if my life would end if I let go.
Which was true.
The life that I knew and carefully cultivated would be gone if I didn’t find the strength to ignore these awful psyche-bending urges.
I fought the need to wash the basin three times, to cut my nails three times, to rub the foggy mirror one, two, three.
I listened to the noise of numbers and became physically ill trying to fight them. I was microseconds away from tearing from the bathroom and spreading Pim wide.
Every inch of me howled for her. I wanted to be inside her for every goddamn minute of every goddamn day. I needed her more than I needed blood in my heart and oxygen in my lungs.
Stop it!
I clutched my head.
It couldn’t be like this.
I’d had myself under control for years.
I hadn’t had a breakdown since the last heist that made me who I was today.
I needed Selix to bring some weed and for him to remove Pim from my immediate vicinity.
What I needed were the open seas. I needed the waves beneath my feet and open skies upon my face. I needed to be free. I needed to dive into cool water where everything was muted. The ocean was my medicine. And I was in desperate need of it.
All I had to do was get it together, stay the hell away from Pim, and make it until morning when all of this could be over.
It would be the hardest night of my life.
You could be fucking her all night and stop this in the morning.