Blood Vow (Black Dagger Legacy #2)(88)

“Maybe you’re just going after the series of events because you can’t get the real answers you want.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Like …” Axe cleared his throat. “Maybe you can’t ask your father what he really feels about the death. Maybe there are other things you’d like to know about him. What he thinks about your mother’s passing. What he worries about night to night. Maybe he’s unreachable.” Axe thought about his own father down in the cellar with those blocks of wood. “Maybe you want to know what he actually feels about you. But you know that’s never going to happen. You’re never going to be close. He’s always going to be focused elsewhere. And the shitty thing is, though … that just because you’re aware of all that, doesn’t mean the searching goes away. And you can only sit with that for so long before you go crazy.” He shifted his eyes from Elise … but then refocused on her and shrugged. “So you’re looking for facts as a way to get close to him, because that’s what people do. They go to the wrong places for things they can’t get in the right ones.”

When she just stared at him, he felt like a royal idiot.

She was getting her Ph.D. in psychology for fuck’s sake. What did he know?

“Or not,” he muttered. “I don’t know what I’m talking about—”

Elise cut him off by kissing him. “God … you are so smart.”

“I am? I mean … yeah, I’m an Einstein. Whatevs.”

She laughed. “No, really, you’re spot-on. I’ve just never thought of it like that.”

For a long moment, he stared at her. Until she prompted, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Axe kissed her, but then moved back. “You probably should go.”

“I think you’re right. If I’m going to spend the night with you, I want it to be on honest terms. And that is not going to happen over the phone with my father—and not just because I left that GPS-riddled cell of mine at home.”

“If he kicks you out, you can stay here with me. And I’m only half joking about that.”

“You are very sweet.”

The snort he let out was an ugly sound, the kind of thing that he tried to keep down, but couldn’t catch. And yes, she laughed at him—which made him resent the noise less.

But then Elise sat up and, tragically, began putting her clothes on. When she was back in order, she knelt down and pulled one of the blankets over his nakedness.

“Are you sure you’re going to be okay here alone? I’m worried.”

“If what we just did together didn’t kill me, I guarantee you I’ll make it to sunset.”

“I’m serious.”

“I’ll be fine.”

She kissed him and then went over to the fire, restoking it for him.

“You don’t need to do that,” he said.

“Too late.” She smiled at him over her shoulder as she poked at the logs she’d added. “You know what I’m doing right now?”

“Looking hotter than what’s going on in that hearth?”

“I’m trying not to ask when I’m going to see you again.”

“I got an easy answer for that. Four a.m. tomorrow.”

“Is that a date?”

“You better believe it.” He wadded an old sofa pillow up under his head. “Call me when you’re home safe?”

“Always. Where’s your phone?”

“Oh … shit. I have no idea. Probably back at the training center with what was left of my clothes. And I don’t have a landline.”

“Well … I’ll be fine. I can take care of myself.”

There was a long, long pause.

“Go,” he told her. “So I know you’re safe before the sun comes up.”

Elise nodded and then she was gone, the front door closing behind her quietly.

In the wake of her departure, he thought, God … the house was so empty.





THIRTY-FOUR


The following evening, as Elise got dressed to go to see Peyton, her thoughts were on Axe, not either of her cousins. She was worried about him having been okay through the day. How his wounds were doing. Whether he’d let the fire go out and turned himself into a Popsicle.

He had to get that heating system at the cottage fixed. The weather was going to get a whole lot worse before it improved. In, like, May.

The problem was, it felt a little too stalkerish for her to just show up at his house and be all, Hey!, just wanted to see if you’re still breathing! Besides, in the middle of their sexual marathon, he’d mentioned that he had to get his stitches out at the clinic, and surely if he failed to turn up there, someone would go looking for him.

Right?

“Damn it,” she said as she left her room—with her phone and its GPS tracker going strong.

She had skipped First Meal. There was just no way she could sit between her father and her uncle and make small talk, not only considering what she had done with Axe, but also in light of what she’d seen in her aunt the night before: Even with all her schooling and self-actualization, she wasn’t capable of shelving that much emotion.

Maybe she was her sire’s daughter after all, not wanting to share.