“Stop,” I chide—because she’s ridiculous.
After a time, she leans her head my way, still covering her mouth with the tissues. “Can you hand me my toothbrush and toothpaste, please? And a glass of water.”
I nod, doing as she asks. Ellie’s toothbrush is light pink—the same color as the paint on her toes and fingernails. After she brushes and rinses her mouth, I put the items next to the sink.
“Can you manage the walk to the bed or do you want me to carry you?”
She closes her eyes with a grimace.
“I can do it.”
I help her off the floor, holding her steady as she teeters across the room. “It’s hot.” She moans. “I’m so hot.”
Then she steps back and wiggles out of the snug silk gown, letting it pool around her feet, standing in nothing but tiny cream knickers and a matching lace bra. I avert my eyes, but not before the image of smooth legs, flat stomach, a snug heart-shaped arse and perky perfect breasts are branded permanently onto my brain.
Ellie’s nipples are dusky pink—an exquisite deep mauve—and part of me feels like a filthy bastard for knowing that.
Another part . . . feels something different entirely.
My throat convulses in a swallow because for the first time, Ellie Hammond doesn’t seem like a girl to me at all.
She crawls onto the large bed, her fine arse in the air, and collapses in the center. I grasp the edge of the blanket sitting at the foot of the bed and fold it over, covering her—for both our sakes.
“Hey Logan?”
“Yeah?”
“Will you lie down with me?”
Lie down with a half-naked woman who’s looked at me more than once like I’m an ice-cream cone she can’t wait to lick up and down? What could go wrong?
Henry’s damning eyes glare at me from inside my mind. “I don’t think . . .”
“Please—just hold my hand,” she begs, and her voice is so small. “If you’re holding onto me, you’ll stop the spinning.”
And it’s like I’m being wrenched in two—pulled in two different directions. The numb, hardened, calloused side tells me to say no, that this is a dangerous, fucking pointless move. But the other, more youthful side—that’s tender and impractical—wants to give this girl anything she wants.
Ellie moans softly and she looks so pretty and miserable, I can’t deny her.
I slide onto the bed and lie on my back, staring at the golden swirls in the fabric canopy above us, counting sheep and reciting the steps to assembling a rifle—anything to distract me from the tempting forbidden fruit beside me.
Ellie tugs her arm out from under the cover, reaching for me, and I don’t hesitate to engulf her small, soft hand with my rough one.
“Thank you.” She sighs, her closed eyelids relaxing just a bit.
She shifts closer, resting our joined hands on my stomach, pressing her soft, supple little body against mine. My cock stiffens, stirs.
Down, boy, I tell the savage beast.
“Go to sleep now,” I say quietly. “I’m right here.”
“And you’d never let anything bad happen to me, would you?”
I close my own eyes and swallow again—feeling something unfamiliar and unnamed tighten in my chest.
“Never.”
But a minute later, when I glance over at Ellie, her eyes are open, watching me—the blue of her irises is darker, deeper in this light.
“You’re always doing this,” she whispers.
“Doing what?”
“Saving me.”
I smile, just a bit. “I don’t mind.”
“Because it’s your job?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“And because maybe, sort of, you kind of like me too? Just a little?”
A chuckle scratches my throat. “Just a little.”
She wets her lips, those eyes still holding me close.
“And maybe because, when you save me it feels like . . . I belong to you? Even just a tiny bit?”
I know what I should say, but I can’t bring myself to do it. She’ll never remember this anyway. So instead, I let my fingers trace her lovely face slowly, from her temple down her soft cheek to her jaw. Like I have the right to touch her. Like she belongs to me.
“That’s right, Ellie.”
She closes her eyes on a sigh. And they stay closed so long I think she’s fallen asleep. Right up until her sweet voice comes again.
“Hey Logan?”
“Yeah?”
“One of these days . . . I’m going to save you back.”
Seven months later
I SHIFT THE SUV INTO park outside the address Ellie gave me—where her new flat is. New semester, new apartment, she’d said.
After the wedding, Prince Nicholas and Olivia’s fame rubbed off on Ellie Hammond, in a big way. She’s got a devoted group of fanboys all her own now and her breasts have gained their own Twitter handle: @Elliesweettits—not particularly creative. The bottom-feeding paparazzi have gone out of their way to zoom in on that particular asset whenever possible. It pisses me off—a lot. More than once I’ve had to restrain myself from shoving a long-range lens up a photographer’s arse.
She’s been living with her sister and her husband since the wedding—in the penthouse of an exclusive high-rise, which has made security simpler. Why Ellie wants to move is beyond me, and why she wants to move in November—when it’s colder than Jack Frost’s balls—is a complete fucking mystery.
It’s as if Tommy reads my mind. “Prince Nicholas and your sister’s place is as posh as it gets—tell me again why you want to leave?”
Ellie sighs. “Believe it or not, Nicholas and Olivia aren’t that easy to live with. They’re newlyweds—deeply, disgustingly in love. Their romance is like a fairytale, right up there with Snow White and the Prince. And I’m gonna die alone. It’s depressing.”
“Does that make us the dwarfs?” Tommy asks.
I raise my hand. “I got dibs on Cocky.”
Ellie chuckles and opens her door without waiting for me to come around and do it for her. Hate it when she does that. I meet her on the pavement while Tommy climbs out and stands on her other side. The three of us look at the big, square building that will be Ellie’s new home sweet home.
It’s fucking grotesque. Hideous. A dump. If it hasn’t been condemned yet, it damn well should be.
“You sure this is the place?” I ask.
Ellie squeals. “This is it! The perfect place to find myself.”
“Looks more like the perfect place to hang yourself.”
She waves a hand at me. “Oh, stop kidding around. Come on, get the boxes.”
We grab the boxes from the SUV and walk inside. It’s even worse there. The hallway smells like wet dog and the flat is a drab room with concrete walls and patches of missing paint. The floors are rotting in some spots, and most of the cabinets in the kitchen area are missing doors. The appliances are ancient and caked with grease, a flash fire just waiting to happen.
And Ellie’s not exactly responsible with her candles.
I set my box down and say quietly to Tommy, “I’m gonna go speak to the prince.”
He nods. “Took the words out of my mouth.”
I point to Ellie. “Don’t leave her alone.”