Or I would die trying.
Even now I shook with the power she gave me, the power that I’d always tried to hide — ever since the elves deaths. I had too much of it — I always did, I always would.
“Look,” I grabbed both of her hands. “It’s been fun, but this—” I pointed between us. “—is nothing but an agreement that mutually benefits us both. We have a world to save from itself, and you have… things to plant.”
Her stunned expression made me want to take back the words the minute I said them.
She huffed out a breath. “So, I’m basically your sex slave.”
“With,” I said cheerfully, “a 401K. Think of the possibilities, kiddo!” I pulled her to her feet and slapped her on the ass. “Now, out you go. I’m exhausted.”
“But—” She choked out the word as tears streamed down her face. “Was I not good enough? Did I do a bad job?”
I hated myself. “I’ve had worse. And with proper teaching, you’ll get better.” She was the best I’d ever had. Even now I craved her, could smell my scent all over her.
Hope was still frowning and silently crying when I shoved her toward the door.
I didn’t have room in my life for failure.
Not now.
Not when I had a job to do.
And I refused to fail them, her race, for the second time.
Distance. She needed distance away from me. Better she know that now than getting her hopes up that this relationship would be anything more than physical.
It was survival.
Necessity.
It would never be love.
Hope
WITH EVERY STEP I took away from Alex, a tingling sensation burned down my arms, like a low-level shock to my skin. I clenched my fingers tightly and kept walking until I reached his bedroom door.
When I placed a hand on the doorknob, another jolt had me resting my head against the sturdy wood before I was finally able to turn the knob and pull the door open.
Why was I so weak?
And why did it feel like I was getting weaker?
That was why he hated me.
I represented nothing but weakness to him.
But how was that my fault?
How was any of this my fault?
The burn transformed into a slow pulsating hum as I glanced one last time over my shoulder to see Alex pull out an old-fashioned kitchen timer and turn it a few times.
“Cooking a ham?” I tried joking. It was either that or actually face the fact that I’d been completely screwed in more ways than one by one of the most beautiful creatures I’d ever laid eyes on.
I’d been a loner all my life.
And yet in that moment, I’d never felt it in such a suffocating way. Maybe it was the warmth he gave off, for one split second I felt beautiful, flawless, important.
Wanted.
I gulped back tears and straightened my spine.
I might be physically weak.
But showing him my emotional weakness was out of the question.
That was mine.
And I wasn’t going to give it to him — even if my heart felt shaky with every breath I took.
“Sex clock.” Alex winked. I hated his wink. It made my legs turn to jelly and my body burn with desire. It would be easy to hate him if his smile wasn’t so perfect. If his scent didn’t roll off of him in waves, tempting me, teasing me with every inhale.
He would be easy to hate if he was anything but a siren.
“Sex clock,” I repeated dumbly as my body roared to life.
“I like to be punctual in all things.” He crossed his toned arms over his bronzed chest. He almost looked normal. If normal meant he had diamonds for eyes and hair with shots of shimmering rainbow colors that changed with each movement — each breath. And his lips, full, tempting, made for sin, like they had a mind of their own. How could something so normal, albeit hot, make him stand out as something far more than human? Even now my body betrayed me, but what was worse, he felt — like home. Right. Like all my life I’d been missing a piece and finally found it, only to get told I was wrong. “When the clock strikes….” His grin grew as he moved his fingers in a little come hither motion. “You come… running.” He paused. “Amongst other things.”
My body was completely in agreement with that plan.
My heart hated my body.
And my mind hated everything.
Even him.
I closed my eyes briefly before I opened them again and said the only thing I could say. “I have plants to water.”
His expression fell.
And for a second, he looked like he was going to say something, like he was going to reach out and pull me against his chest and tell me he’d been kidding, or that he couldn’t handle another second without touching me.
Instead, he reached into his pocket, tossed me a pair of keys and said, “Take one of Ethan’s spare cars, it’s right out front. Not the first time he’s been forced to share, oh and Hope? Make sure you shower before you’re in my bed again… I don’t like sharing your skin with dirt. Gets on my tongue… understand?”
I had a sudden vision of chucking the keys at his head or maybe just shoving them into his heartless chest — instead, I shrugged and said. “I’ll be back when my job’s done if I’m too dirty you can always find some other human to torture.”
His predatory glare was back. “Why would I waste my time on another human when I’ve spent all day training you?”
Just when I thought he couldn’t get any ruder, any more cruel.