"Why was the bond so...lustful?" Evie panted. The hot feeling was still coursing through her, and the intensity of Rohmir's gaze was too much. She felt like a deer in headlights—mesmerized, hypnotized—as his dark eyes bore into her. She couldn't bring herself to answer his question. The evidence of her body's betrayal was already pooling between her thighs.
"It's how you feel about me." Rohmir's voice was quiet but certain, as though he were making an observation rather than a guess. His expression didn't shift, his eyes still locked on her. "Other masters wanted greed, power, control. But you..." He stepped closer, slow and deliberate, his presence thick in the air around her. " Evie you just want me."
It wasn't a question.
The realization sent a shudder through Evie. She wanted to argue, to deny it, but how could she when her body was telling a different story? When her heart pounded at the nearness of him? When her breath hitched at the way his voice wrapped around her name like a silk ribbon?
Rohmir pulled his chair next to hers and sat, his proximity sending a surge of heat down Evie's spine. Her thoughts scrambled as she tried to keep her composure. He was just a man—an infuriatingly gorgeous, undeniably magnetic man. But he was also something else. Something dangerous. Something bound to her.
She needed to get a grip.
Rohmir reached out, threading his fingers through a few strands of her dark hair. His touch was light, almost hesitant, but it made her breath stutter all the same.
"I've been wondering if it was as soft as it looked..." he murmured, rubbing the strands between his fingers as if savoring the texture.
Evie swallowed hard. Her entire body felt like it was thrumming, straining toward him like a magnet drawn to its source. It was infuriating.
"Rohmir... have you been... sexual with your previous masters?" she forced herself to ask, needing something—anything—to break the spell he had her under.
His fingers stilled. His expression darkened slightly, but not with anger. More like... something unreadable. "There was one," he admitted. "She tried. But I did not want her. Her bond to me was greedy. She wanted everything I could give, but I refused to give her more than what was already being taken."
Evie's stomach twisted.
"So no," he continued, tilting his head slightly, watching her reaction like a predator studying its prey. "I have never been. But why, Evie,"—his voice dipped, low and intimate, sending a fresh wave of heat through her—"do you want me to be sexual with you?"
Evie's mouth opened, but no sound came out. His bluntness was something she would have to get used to, but right now, it was only making her blush furiously.
"I—I want to free you from this bond," she blurted, barely trusting herself to form words. "That's what we're supposed to be doing."
"And that's all you want from me?"
His eyes bore into hers, and before she realized it, his face was closer. So close she could feel his breath, could almost taste the warmth of it on her lips.
Evie nodded—just barely—before abruptly pushing herself to her feet, breaking the trance she had fallen into. She needed space. She needed air.
"Umm... I'll clear the table and... uh, if you could wait for me in the living room, I'll get some pillows and a blanket for you," she rambled, her voice shaking slightly. "Since, you know, there's only one bed..." She let her voice trail off, refusing to associate Rohmir with the word bed.
He didn't argue. He didn't smirk or tease her. Instead, he simply stood and moved to the living room, his expression contemplative.
Evie quickly cleared the table, doing her best to keep her thoughts in check. She grabbed a blanket, some pillows, and a towel before returning to where Rohmir sat on the couch. She shoved the items into his arms, avoiding eye contact.
"The bathroom's just down the hall, first door on the left if you want to shower," she said. "I'm going now. Also... they shut my hot water off. So yours will be cold. Sorry."
Rohmir nodded but didn't respond.
Evie turned on her heel, retreating into the bathroom as quickly as she could.
The cold water was a shock to her system at first, but after the night she'd had, she welcomed it. Anything to clear her mind, to pull her away from the effect Rohmir had on her. But then... the water grew warmer. Slowly at first, until it was just the right temperature.
She froze.
"Is this you?" she called, glancing toward the ceiling as if expecting him to be hovering there. "Are you making the water warm?"
Yes.
The voice in her head was unmistakable. Rohmir's.
Evie nearly slipped in the shower. "What the hell was that?!"
I am able to communicate through mind link as well...I apologize if I startled you. His voice was soft.
She exhaled sharply, leaning against the shower wall. Just one more thing to add to the growing list of insanely messed-up things she would need to get used to.
But despite the shock, something about the gesture warmed her.
He had given her hot water. Not because she asked. Not because he had to.
Because he wanted to.
Thank you for the water, she thought, hesitantly testing the mind link connection.
My pleasure.
---
Evie lay in bed, exhausted but unable to sleep.
She could hear Rohmir shifting on the couch, the occasional sound of the blanket moving as he adjusted his position. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to will herself into unconsciousness. But her mind was alive, restless, completely tangled in thoughts of him.
This man—this warlock—had upended her life in less than a day. She had spent years building her quiet, safe routine: her little bookstore, her simple, solitary life. Now, that life had been shattered, replaced with this. With him.
She should be worried. She was worried.
But not in the way she probably should be.
Clearly this was a powerful being. Evie felt that she was out of her depth. Should she be asking for him to solve all her problems? That would be what a normal person would do right?
But she couldn't bring herself to do it. Because when he talked about his previous owners, though subtle, she should feel the underlying hate. The anger. He must have hated serving people and not had any will of his own. And she didn't want him to hate her.
She didn't want him be even more miserable at her expense.
Her stomach twisted at the thought. It wasn't fear that was keeping her awake. It wasn't anxiety over his power, or the fact that she now had a bound immortal warlock sleeping under her roof.
It was the way he looked at her. The way his voice wrapped around her name like a whispered promise. The way he had touched her hair.
She buried her face into her pillow, groaning softly.
This was dangerous.
She couldn't afford to get distracted. She had to figure out how to break this bond, not fall deeper into it.
But as she listened to Rohmir's steady breathing in the next room, she knew she was already losing that battle.