Madame X - Wilder Jasinda - Страница 28

“You matter, Jonathan.” I dare another sip, a longer one, a mouthful of tart, crisp bubbles washing over my tongue, rushing through my brain. “And . . . we are friends.”

“But only friends.” It isn’t a question, but there is a faint, vague, boyish note of hope.

It hurts to crush it.

“Yes, Jonathan. Only friends. It is all that is possible.”

“Why?” You turn, pivot to rest a hip against the bar, face me.

I stand with my back to the bar’s edge, flute held in both hands, watching the crowd flux and shift. “I cannot answer that, Jonathan. It just . . . is.”

“Can’t you change it?”

I let out a breath. “No. I cannot.”

“Do you want to?” Your breath is on my ear. You are too close. Too close. I hate it when you do this. You are my friend, Jonathan. And that is something monumental to me, but you cannot see it.

I wish I could make you see what your friendship means to me. But I do not know how.

“It wouldn’t matter if I did.” I whisper this, because it’s something I should not say. But I do, recklessly.

Thomas is far enough away that he cannot overhear our conversation. I don’t think. But he still makes me nervous. He’s there to keep me safe, and to keep me close. I cannot help wondering what he would do if I were to try to leave, here and now. Bring me back, probably. But . . . where would I go? The world is an expensive place.

A dangerous one, too.

“Why not, X? Why wouldn’t it matter?” Your voice is so close I can feel the vibrations.

Something snaps inside me. “Damn it, Jonathan! Stop asking questions I can’t answer!” I toss back the rest of the champagne, half a flute’s worth, swallow it, feel it rush through me, burn my throat on the way down, hit heavy in my stomach.

I flee. Through the crowd, head ducked, angling for the small discreet doorway hiding the restrooms. Thomas is behind me, following silently at a distance.

I push open the nearest restroom door, lungs seized, eyes burning, chest aching, heart thumping heavily, seeing through a blur. Stall door, slammed open, slammed closed. Lean back against the cold metal door, fight for calmness. Fight for breath.

I do not desire you, not physically. But there is something there, some spark of need. You incite doubt in me. Make me wonder at my own life, at my ordered existence. Make me question who I am.

And those questions bring on panic attacks.

I sniffle. Blink hard.

NO.

I cannot let loose this flood of emotion. I am in control. I am in control—breathe, breathe—I can’t do this, not here, not now. Not because of Jonathan Cartwright the Third. You know nothing of me. You want me because you can’t have me, and that is all it is. And whatever kinship I may feel for you in return is based on less than that. You represent my most obvious success. That’s all it is.

I like my life.

I am content.

I do not need more.

I do not want to know what else may exist, out there, for me.

I am safe under Caleb Indigo’s protection.

So why am I fighting tears?

I hear the door open, close. A faucet runs.

Silence, but the knowledge that someone else is out there, fixing her makeup, probably, steels me. I cannot be weak. Will not be. I viciously push down my emotions. Shut them off. Bury them. Hold my head high, and exit the stall.

Freeze.

I am in the men’s room.

When I exit the stall, look up, see the man, I am struck dumb. A man stands facing me, a cell phone in his hands.

I am left breathless.

There is beauty, and then there is perfection. I have known many beautiful men. Some rugged, some pretty. Some merely handsome. None of them have ever compared to Caleb Indigo, however, in terms of sheer masculine appeal.

Until now.

This man?

He is the splendor of heaven made flesh.

TEN

Hey there. Looks like one of us has the wrong bathroom, I think.” His voice is low and warm and amused and kind, bathing me in sensation.

I cannot move, cannot breathe. He is looking at me, seeing me with eyes so blue they make my heart stutter in my chest, eyes that defy description.

There are countless shades of blue:

Azure. Periwinkle. Baby blue. Navy blue. Ultramarine. Celestial. Sky. Sapphire. Electric. So many others in variation.

And then there is indigo.

Oh, how ironic.

His eyes, they are indigo.

I try to speak, but my mouth only opens and closes without producing sound. Something in me is broken, off-kilter.

“You okay? You look upset.” A quick step, and I am assaulted by the scent of cinnamon gum, laced with hints of alcohol and cigarettes. But the cinnamon, it is in me, in my nose, on my taste buds.

His hand touches my elbow; another brushes past my cheek, not quite touching my skin, sweeping errant hair away from my eyes.

“I’m fine.” I manage a cracked whisper.

He laughs. “I wasn’t born yesterday, honey. Try again.”

My eyes prick. “I’m sorry to disturb you.” I force my body into motion, push past him.

He grabs me by the bicep, spins me back around, and I’m pulled up against his hard warm broad chest. “You haven’t disturbed me. The opposite, if anything. Take a minute. No need to rush off.”

“I have to go.”

“All the better reason to stay, then.” Holy gods above, that voice.

Warmth, like afternoon sunlight through a window on closed eyelids, warming skin. The warmth of early morning, before true consciousness has taken over, when all of existence is narrowed down to the cocoon of blankets.

I don’t understand what he means, but his hands are gently, politely, firmly on my shoulders, my cheek is against his chest—not at all politely, not at all appropriately. And I do not want to move. Not ever. I am at a height that my ear is over his heart, and I hear it . . .

Bumpbump—bumpbump—bumpbump.

Slow and steady and reassuring.

“What’s your name?” he asks, a single fingertip tracing an intimate line from my temple around the curve of my ear, down to the base of my jaw.

A simple thing, asking one’s name. So easy for everyone else. Something I never considered until today—how impossible a normal interaction such as this could be, away from what I know.

I panic. Push away. Stumble. I am caught, held up. “Hey, hey, it’s okay. I’m sorry, it’s okay.”

I shake my head. “I have to go.”

“Just tell me your name.”

I won’t lie. “I can’t.”

A snort of amused disbelief. “What, it’s a secret?”

“I shouldn’t be here.” I manage another step away.

“No kidding. It’s a men’s bathroom, and you are most definitely not a man.” His hand wraps around my wrist, easily engulfing it and keeping me in place.

A tug, and I’m back up against the tectonic wall of his chest. His fingertip, the one that traced behind my ear, across the delicate drum of my temple, it touches my chin. I must look, though I know I should not—I must look into his eyes, so nearly purple, so arresting in their strange shade of blue. So knowing, so warm, seeing me somehow as if the book of my soul is bare to him, laid open.

“Listen, Cinderella. All I want is your name. Tell me that much, and I can do the rest.”

“The rest?” I know—intellectually, cerebrally—that I should pull away, leave, get out of here before anything compromising happens. But I can’t. I am a creature in the deep, deep sea, hooked on a line, drawn up to the light. “The rest of what?”

I swallow hard. Everything in me is in a boil, weltering and coruscating and dizzied and mixed up and lost and wild.

“The rest of you and me.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes you do, Cinderella. You feel it. I know you do.” He frowns, and even this expression is dizzyingly gorgeous. “I shouldn’t be here either. Not at this party, not in this bathroom, and certainly not with someone like you. I don’t belong here. And neither do you. But here I am, and here you are, and there’s . . . something. Fuck if I have a word for it, but there’s something going on between us.”