Chapter 131: The Kiss She Would Not Take

Of course Elias was not going to behave that obediently.

If he turned docile in front of Serena Blackwood, he would no longer be Elias Kane.

He began struggling hard enough that Serena, who had not seen him for days and had unwillingly missed him during that time, felt her temper flare almost at once. She could not understand how someone who had come home hurt, muddy, and bleeding still had this much energy left for rebellion.

Liora stood in the entry hall and watched the two of them drag each other toward the stairs. They looked less like a dangerous woman hauling an injured man to be cleaned up and more like two children fighting over who had the right to win. Serena pulled. Elias resisted. The house staff froze in place, wanting to help and not daring to touch either of them.

Then, in a brief blind spot outside Serena’s line of sight, Elias’s face changed.

One second he was glaring with theatrical anger. The next, under Liora’s watch, he turned his head slightly and winked at her.

Then he lifted his injured hand.

His full lips touched the patch where the skin had been scraped away. The wound was raw enough to look painful, pink flesh showing beneath thin smears of blood, but Elias treated it as if it were something sweet. He closed his mouth over it lightly, drew at the blood with slow care, then extended the tip of his tongue and licked the metallic trace before curling it back into his mouth.

There was no attempt to hide what he was doing.

It was vulgar, deliberate temptation, carried out in the middle of Serena’s house while Serena herself was hauling him upstairs.

They had been separated long enough for a relationship to cool and grow unfamiliar, but Elias seemed to know exactly how to restore the old shape of things in a single moment.

For Serena, he gave resistance.

For Liora, he gave temptation.

Liora laughed softly.

The sound was light, but it was sudden enough to make the staff nearby lower their eyes at once. None of them knew why Ms. Voss had smiled, and none of them looked eager to find out.

Only after Serena and Elias disappeared completely from view did Liora turn toward the private doctor.

"What could have caused his injuries?"

The doctor looked toward the blood trail, then answered carefully. "The pattern looks like he fell forward without warning. Someone may have pushed him from behind, and he landed badly on the ground."

"I see." Liora gave a small nod.

She understood.

Something like that was unlikely to happen to Elias by accident. It was far more plausible that he had thrown himself down on purpose and scraped the injuries into his own hand.

Elias could use his own body as payment when he wanted to play with someone’s heart.

In the bathroom upstairs, Serena and Elias stood inside the shower area.

The space was generous enough for one person, with stone tile, brushed fixtures, and a deep tub set beside the glass. With two people inside, it became cramped. Too much heat, too little distance, and no clean way to move without brushing against each other.

"Stop moving," Serena snapped.

Elias still refused to obey. His jaw tightened as he said, "I don’t need you to clean me. I can wash myself."

"It’s too late for that," Serena said, her voice low with anger. "You can’t even walk without falling like this. I’m afraid you’ll drown in the tub."

The insult was sharp, but the image was absurd enough that Elias nearly laughed.

To hide the curve threatening the corner of his mouth, he lunged forward and shoved himself into Serena’s arms, trying to push her out of the shower area.

The next instant, cold pressure touched the back of his neck.

Serena caught him by the nape.

For once, even she lost the polish in her voice. "For fuck’s sake, hold still. You’re exactly like a cat."

The little cat had been caught by the back of the neck, and at last, he went still.

Serena released a breath.

The room was too narrow for her to move properly, and she had been afraid of hurting him if she used too much force. That was why she had taken so long to control him. Now, with her fingers at his nape and his body finally quiet, the struggle ended.

He really was like a cat. The moment he heard he had to be washed, he fought with all four limbs. Only when she caught his neck did he settle down.

Serena turned on the water.

The bathroom gradually quieted into the rush of the faucet. Water poured into the tub, steady and loud, while heat rose from the surface and began filling the small space. Steam softened the mirrors, blurred the edges of the tile, and pressed warmth against their skin.

Wrapped in that mist, they looked less clear to each other. The distance created by the days apart seemed to fold into the damp air. Everything became blurred at the edges, and the atmosphere shifted before either of them named it.

In that kind of closeness, Serena could not stop herself from testing the boundary of this newly obedient Elias.

"Take off your clothes," she said. "How are you supposed to wash with them on?"

Elias did not answer.

He sat on the small stool with his head lowered, his wet shirt clinging unevenly to his body. Mud had dried into the fabric and then begun to loosen again under the damp heat. The sight should have been irritating. Instead, it made Serena hesitate.

After a moment, she reached for the hem of his shirt and slowly lifted it.

The fabric dragged upward, damp and reluctant. Through the steam, a narrow stretch of his waist appeared, pale and clean beneath all the mess.

Serena’s palm settled against it.

Elias’s body trembled.

He did not fight.

Maybe baths really did make people relax. Maybe, after enough time, simply entering a bathroom taught the body to lower its guard. Or maybe the little cat had finally become obedient because he had been caught properly.

Whatever the reason, Serena felt a strange steadiness settle inside her.

And beneath that steadiness, a happiness she had no intention of admitting.

Elias had come back.

Driven by that feeling, Serena moved almost without noticing what she was doing. Her hand slid over damp skin, cleaning away dirt where the shirt had ridden up, but the motion grew too slow and too intimate to remain simple care. She did not notice the way the boy shivered under her touch at first. By the time she did, the tremor had grown sharp enough that he might as well have been reacting to an electric current.

At last, Elias reached up and grabbed her wrist.

He turned his head toward her. His hair was damp, strands clinging to his forehead and temples. His eyes looked wet from the steam, and moisture gathered along his lashes until it seemed as if something bright might spill from them at any second. His lips were red from the heat, parted as he breathed unevenly.

"Stop..." 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

Serena showed no awareness of wrongdoing. "I’m helping you clean up."

"This is cleaning?" Elias exposed her instantly, his voice lower than before. He pressed his lips together for a second, then said, "If you want to do it, then do it. Don’t be so..."

He did not finish.

Serena stared at him and suddenly understood what lay beneath that unfinished sentence.

He actually thought she was being too gentle.

The realization almost made her laugh. Was he some kind of masochist? She was treating him softly, and somehow he was dissatisfied with that.

But the bathroom seemed to make even thought turn more delicate. In the heat and steam, Serena detected the real shape beneath his reaction.

He did not believe it.

He did not dare believe it.

He could not even bring himself to ask, because in his mind, the possibility should never have existed in the first place.

The key was that Serena had once wondered something similar.

When he took care of her, what had driven him? Responsibility, or something more dangerous than responsibility?

Was it love?

Steam thickened in the enclosed space until breathing felt slightly difficult. Inside that faint sense of suffocation, Serena looked at Elias’s full red mouth and felt an impulse stronger than anything she had allowed herself before.

If both of them were carrying the same question, then what harm was there in testing it once?

She caught his chin between her fingers and lowered her head.

Elias’s eyes had gone faintly unfocused from the heat. For a suspended second, the two of them seemed about to complete the kiss neither of them could control.

Serena missed.

Elias turned his head at the last moment and avoided her mouth.

He bit hard into his lower lip, and regret flickered across his face with a stubbornness that almost looked like self-punishment. "Didn’t you say..." His voice was unsteady. "Only people who love each other should kiss?"

The fog in Serena’s mind cleared instantly.

Anger rose first, hot and sharp, because he had dodged her kiss. Relief followed right behind it, colder and far more humiliating.

If she had kissed him, would that not mean she had fallen in love with him?

Reason told Serena that this was the moment to mock him. She should tear apart the last fragile piece of hope he had managed to hold on to and make him understand exactly where he stood.

But right here, right now, she wanted an answer too.

Serena looked at him deeply. Their eyes met through the steam, and she spoke each word with deliberate clarity.

"What if I said I love you?"

The moment the words left her mouth, visible light burst into Elias’s eyes.

Disbelief came first, raw enough that he could not hide it. Then came a joy so sharp and sudden that it looked almost painful.

Serena felt her own heart shake along with the tremor in his pupils.

Elias had really fallen in love with her.

The person she loved also loved her back. In theory, there should have been no greater happiness in the world.

Serena felt no excitement.

She felt no clean rush of joy.

Only the thing she called dignity remained, and beneath it, the self-destructive part of her heart grew restless again.

Under Elias’s expectant gaze, Serena opened her mouth coldly.

"Your body," she said slowly. "I think there isn’t a woman alive who wouldn’t love that."

Yes.

That was what she loved.

Only his body.

[Serena Blackwood favorability increased. Current level: 70%.]