“You are perfect. Why change?”
She snorts. “There are many, many reasons why I am not perfect, Hunter.”
“Anyone who doesn’t accept you as you are is not worth knowing.”
“What if no one accepts you? Do you resign yourself to a life alone?”
“No, but if you let someone in for long enough to get to know you—the real you—perhaps they will surprise you. But if you only allow for superficial contact, then you can only expect superficial relationships.”
She goes quiet for so long I wonder if she’s fallen asleep. I cover another hundred miles before she finally answers, her words cracking my heart.
“Life has taught me many hard lessons, Hunter. The most valuable being the more open you are, the closer you let someone get, the easier it is to break you. Power comes from owning someone’s desires, their fears, their hopes and dreams. If you fail to share private things, then they can, at best, launch a superficial attack on your psyche, one easily recoverable from. If you let someone in, if they wind themselves around your life and make themselves integral to your existence, your world shatters when they leave, and your soul is set adrift in a sea of loss, pain, and grief.”
A mile ticks by as I wait for her to continue, my heart in my throat. “I fought my way back from that once, and I don’t ever intend on giving someone that much power over me again. Take someone’s right to education away, and they will fight to become the smartest person in the room. Try to control them with the love they have for family, and they stop loving anyone. If they dig for your fear, day after day, and subject you to that terrorover and over, you stop letting it in. If you don’t, it will consume you. Ultimately, you die. Perhaps not in the physical sense, but mentally you check out to protect yourself from fracturing into so many pieces you have no chance of ever being whole again.” Her eyes cut to mine, her body stiff. “To answer your question, no. I am not willing to let someone in long enough to uncover my many flaws and use them against me. No, I will not make myself vulnerable to someone who may or may not hurt me. No, there is no chance of me changing my mind. It’s not worth the risk.”
What the hell have you been through?Also, the irony of her receiving two calls from people who clearly care about her isn’t lost on me. She needs to wake up to the fact that she doesn’t control how others feel about her, and without realizing it, by showing up for them, she has earned their respect and more importantly, their friendship. “Then you are living a half life.”
I glance at her as her lips wobble into a smile as she stares out of the windscreen. “Yet that’s still a life far greater than the one I was born into, the one I was destined for. Every day of freedom is a gift, one I will not risk with notions of love or connection. Am I happy?” She scoffs, the sound brittle and hollow. Empty. “I’m not sure. But I am my own woman, one free to make decisions about her life and its direction. I am content, that I know, and perhaps that’s all I am meant for.”
My gut twists. I shouldn’t push her, but my body screams for me to do something. Can I guarantee I’ll never hurt her? Is that realistic? My heart crumbles in my chest. No, not really. Even people who share the greatest of loves still cause each other pain. My parents can attest to that—forty-three years of marriage and I’ve watched them fight hard and love harder. Passion isn’t being content, it’s the opposite. Volatile. Messy. Breathtaking. If Eleanor is after a peaceful, content life, I should walk away now before either of us get hurt.
But there’s this little niggling thought I’ve had since I first got to know her months ago, one that screams about not letting someone go that is hiding something magnificent. That she’s waiting for the right person to prove to her love is worth the risk, worth the fight and the pain. Because the reward, the one filling the hole nothing else can, is life changing. Like two pieces of an impossible eight billion piece jigsaw, two pieces made to connect, to fit perfectly… the probability of solving that puzzle is virtually zero, but we’re right there.
Soulmates. Not something I’ve ever thought about before today. I always thought we could end up happy with a multitude of people. How else would marriages and partnerships last? It’s unrealistic to think you could find the one person meant to be yours in the world. Improbable. Statistically impossible, Eleanor would say, but we only understand a fraction of the mysteries of the universe. Maybe soulmates are another bit of magic alive and well in the world.
She settles into the seat, breathing deep and steady to calm the tempest within her, building the wall higher and higher between us. Gulping, I focus on the road stretching before us. I think Eleanor is meant to be mine. My fingers creak against the steering wheel, my body practically humming now I’ve accepted what I have been fighting for months. All I need to do now is crack the giant firewall she’s built around herself.
Hope you are ready, temptress. I’m about to make your head spin.
Chapter Sixteen
Eleanor
Daddy can have so many meanings.
Idon’t know what I was expecting for the home of a gruff, leather wearing, biker bad boy to resemble, but it was not this. Where’s the converted warehouse with sliding metal doors and loud graffiti on the walls? The unkept bachelor pad with garbage-strewn floors and empty beer bottles littering chipped furniture that’s seen better days? His home is the antithesis of this. It’s full of warmth and light and well-built antique furniture. It’s lived in but clean. Organized but homely. It’s everything I can’t achieve but wished for.
The main living space is an open floor plan, much like my own. The living area is delineated by an overstuffed cream sectional couch surrounding a thick oak table. A neutral kitchen fills the back wall, separated by a wide island with a reclaimed wooden worktop. There are three stools tucked under for easy living, but also a wide wooden dining table with mismatched yet somehow cohesive chairs.
Hunter waves his hand across the space. “Living area is pretty self explanatory.” He starts down the hallway, and I follow him with my bag in hand. He insists on carrying my suitcase.
He opens the first door on the left. “Bathroom.” I glance around the spotless space, clocking the large sunken tub, toilet, and sink. There’s no shower or bathing products, so it’s clearly not the one he uses.
He opens the next door, revealing a cream and gray bedroom featuring a high four poster bed with swaths of gauzy fabric twisted around the spindles. “This is your room,” he explains, sliding my suitcase on top of the fur blanket covering the foot of the bed. He jerks his head at a set of double doors before opening them. “Shared walk-in closet. I’ll make room for your things.”
I wander in after him. Damn, being a biker apparently pays well. There’s another door at the other end and one in the center of the space on the far wall. He cuts into the one at the center. “Shared shower room. You are welcome to use this or the bath. Whatever works.”
“Shower,” I say without thinking through the shared part. I don’t do baths. Washing in your own stink seems counterproductive. My lip curls as I glance into the pristine space.
His lips twitch as he leads us to the other end of the room and throws open the door to a bedroom twice the size of the guest room. The bed is huge, and the decor is darker, in rich navies with mahogany furniture. It smells like him. Wild, rich, masculine. Delicious. Oh. Fuck me.Stay focused, Eleanor. Come up with a plan, get back to Jonathan, and finish this.My eyes catch on the ceiling, and I blink as I push past him. I don’t know whether to be impressed or disturbed by the circular mirror above his bed. A little of both, perhaps.
“My room.”
“Do you enjoy looking at yourself while you fall asleep?”
He snorts and leans down so his breath tickles my ear. “It’s not for sleeping, Ellie.”
A thousand wild and dirty images flit through my mind. How his ass would look as he powers inside of me. His body covering mine, pinning me to his enormous bed. Me riding him with my head thrown back so I can watch the way our sweat-slicked bodies move together. I take a step back and bump into him. That’s just about enough of that.
