Page 53 of Stolen Vows
She pinches me, hard. “How about Poisonous Wretch?”
“We’re not discussingyournickname,” I reply easily. “Besides, I don’t want to degrade you like that when I’m making you come. I’d prefer something like Mistress Darling.”
“Mistress—” she groans. “What the hell is wrong with you? Why can’t you just leave me alone? Was ruining my career not good enough, so you had to spoil any potential fun I could have, too?”
Gritting my teeth against the weight of her words and lack of understanding, I shift so she’s not sliding off my back and stop at the entrance to the Glass Tower. “The night’s young,stellina.Perhaps I’ve not spoiled anything.”
With my free hand, I fish the key from my jacket pocket, unlock the door, and push her inside.
20
STELLA
Leo drops me in the elevator—or rather, he waits for the doors to trap us inside before letting me fall back to my feet. I have half a mind to take my heel off and stab him in one of his gorgeous eyes, but the elevator starts moving, and I’m catapulted against the far wall.
My hands grapple with the unsteady rail, gripping so tightly that my knuckles blanch a bright white. The car we’re in creaks as tremors rattle it from side to side, and my eyes grow so wide that it feels like they might fall out of my head.
The elevator shifts violently, and I let out an involuntary squeak. Seconds later, Leo wraps himself around me, so the only thing I can see is a sliver of light between his chest and the elevator wall.
“Didn’t realize you’d scare so easily.”
“More than seventeen thousand elevator-related injuries are reported each year in the United States,” I murmur into his shirt, craving his comfort even though I’m so fucking angry with him. “This one doesn’t evensoundlike it works. When’s the last time it was serviced?”
“That college education is really paying off, huh?”
I clench my jaw and shove at him. “You could’ve just killed me down there.”
He tightens his arms around my waist. “Not trying to kill you,stellina. You’ve got to get this idea out of your head that I’m some monster.”
“Demon,” I mutter. “The Demon of Boston.”
The car rocks, seeming to hit the shaft wall, and my fingers instinctively dig into Leo’s chest when we’re partially thrown off-kilter. He braces a shoulder against the corner of the elevator, staring down at me with an unreadable expression on his face. Then he tucks a strand of hair behind my ear.
“A demon no longer.” His voice is unspeakably soft. “Not to you anyway.”
My heart hammers against the inside of my rib cage. The same way it did the first time we stood this close.
I kissed him first back then. To gain some semblance of control over everything that was happening. It spiraled quickly, too fast for me to even comprehend, as Leo took charge—the way he seems to prefer things.
Uncertainly, I drop my gaze to his lips. They look as soft as I remember, such a stark contrast to how rigid the rest of him feels. Every night since we married, I lie awake and try to re-create the moment our mouths met for the first time, but I always come up empty.
Depending on where you’re at in the world, a total solar eclipse happens once every 375 years. Kissing Leopoldo De Tore was my solar eclipse, and even standing here with him right in front of me, I’m not sure that initial sensation is possible to recapture.
Not when so much has happened since.
Shaking myself out of the memory, I push out of his grasp, flattening myself against the wall away from him. “Don’t say stuff like that to me.”
“Like what?”
“Like this means something to you. Like…Imean something.” I maintain eye contact with him as the last words leave my mouth even though every atom of my being screams in agonizing protest. Panic sews itself into my DNA, leaving me a quivering mess of emotion, but I force myself to stay in place and not be the one who breaks.
Leo doesn’t move either, save for the muscle above his jaw. It jumps once, then twice, and I wonder briefly how hard he has to refrain from snatching me up again.
It wouldn’t be difficult, if the maze downstairs was any indication. Maybe I should’ve spent less time over the years researching how intravenous vaccines can prevent immunodeficiency viruses or reading about the life histories of soil bacteria in different biomes, and more time preparing myself for a fight.
But you like that he came for you. A tiny voice calls out in the recesses of my mind.You want him to put in the effort. You want him to choose you.
Some part of me has always liked that he seemed tocare. Especially when everyone else around me didn’t.
