It’s beautiful.
I can’t wear it. A surge of fear grips me at the thought of it closing around my neck, rubbing against the thin band of scar tissue there.
My voice emerges in a croak. “This is too much.”
Maddox meets my gaze in the mirror. His eyes must see something different from mine because a warm smile spreads across his face before he strokes my hair away and rubs his thumb along the curve of my shoulder.
It’s oddly intimate. More than him teasing the barrel of a gun into my mouth.
He takes the necklace from its case, but I push the chair away, jumping to my feet, a pulse ticking in my throat until I cover it with my hand, protecting it against the jewellery. “I don’t… it’s not anything against your taste but I don’t like things around my neck.”
Maddox tilts his head to the side, coaxing me back into the chair with a curl of his finger. “Then you can wear it as a bracelet.” He arches an eyebrow. “Or do you not like that, either?”
I extend my arm, letting him wrap the leather around three times before fastening it. The pendant falls on the inside of my wrist and he again strokes the sensitive area with the rough pad of his thumb, sending a spiral of heat whirling straight into my lower abdomen, making my legs tremble.
When I swallow, it becomes an impossible feat. Too many moving parts I don’t remember being aware of before.
He lifts the pendant with his forefinger, balancing it on the tip.
“When you hold it in the sun, there are deep green highlights. They remind me of your eyes.”
A frown creases his brow as he stares at the pearl, then he clears his throat and moves away, letting it drop back into place.He throws away the tissues protecting my clothes, and fluffs out my hair, staring at my reflection.
My mood plummets and the scar on the back of my neck itches.
The sensation of being a doll swamps me and I wonder if that’s what he’d prefer. An unmoving object that wouldn’t protest when he positions her how he wants.
Of course, it’s what he wants. He told you as much.
My eyes glance down, plucking the new perfectly fitted kilt away from my knees.
“It’s okay,” he murmurs in a velvet voice. “This isn’t what you think. There’s no price tag attached.”
And I nod, the repeat disclaimer making me more anxious rather than less. So much I busy myself standing, adjusting my skirt, anything to move my body and release the mounting anxiety.
Maddox signs for everything, then casts an appreciative eye over the result. “You’re so small, I feel like we should get it a size larger to give you room to grow.”
I wrinkle my nose at him. “I’m only a few inches below average. You’re the one who’s far too tall.”
He stands behind me, resting his hands on the sides of my waist, fingers nearly touching in the middle. In the mirror, his reflection raises an eyebrow, but I refuse to be drawn.
“You’ve just got very large hands,” I tell him, then blush an instant later as he moves them to crisscross my abdomen, pulling me back against him.
I arch my back, pushing out my arse until it rubs against him, every sensation heightened by the intense gaze from our reflections. My right hand finds his, encouraging it lower until his fingers splay along my hemline, the tips a ghostly caress against my bare skin, slowly drawing the fabric higher until the pads rest against the soft skin of my thigh.
Then he tugs his hand free, breaking eye contact as he steps away. “It’s nearly lunchtime,” he announces, checking his phone. “You want to grab something here or wait until we’re at school?”
A simple question but I’m so confused by his retreat, I swear someone’s emptied my brain and forgotten to replace it with anything useful.
Luckily, he’s not fazed by my lack of contribution, announcing, “School it is,” when my confused silence lasts too long.
The drive across town doesn’t take long even with the competing traffic. Ten minutes later, Maddox pulls into the student carpark, nosing the vehicle into a prime spot near the main administration building.
As I get out of the car, I see a small crown next to the R for reserved. “What does that stand for?” I joke. “Are you royalty?”
“Well, yeah, but it’s just a dumb nickname. I’m notactuallyrelated to any royal families from any country.”
“A nickname.”
