Chapter 21

It was early evening by the time Elijah finished giving his one-man tour of the House of Horrors. By this point, I knew more about dead bodies, postmodernism, and surprisingly, the 1931 release of Dracula than I’d ever thought I would.

We were done, and while I’d had a great time my legs demanded that I take a break. When I let him know I was tired Elijah led me to the museum’s lone souvenir shop, and as soon as he pushed open the door a little bell chimed somewhere inside, alerting the shop’s owner of our arrival.

An old woman, plump and red cheeked called out to us in French from behind the counter, and as soon as her eyes settled on the man beside me she let out a cry of delight, speaking in rapid bursts so that the only thing I picked up on was Elijah’s name repeated several times.

It turned out she was Guillaume’s wife, Brigitte Moreau, and when she pulled Elijah into a hug I felt myself stiffen, worried that he would push her away. To my surprise, Elijah leaned in, and when he finally pulled away he was even smiling.

They lapsed into a conversation that left no room for intrusions. Quite frankly, I even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t have been able to join in, and so I occupied myself with taking in the shop. After a moment, I heard my name and turned to find the two of them looking at me.

Brigitte had her hands clasped under her chin and her eyes shone with unshed tears which made me frown, only later would I realize that she was a very emotional person, and this was her usual response, but in that moment I didn’t know, and when she motioned me forward I approached cautiously, not sure of her motives until she pulled me into a motherly hug.

Over her shoulder Elijah smiled at me, before wandering off on his own to the inner sanctum of the shop to go make a call, I assumed. Brigitte and I pulled away, and the fact that she spoke hardly any English barely stopped her from trying to communicate with me. After a moment she shooed me off and I returned to track down Elijah, who I found standing by a shelf stacked full of skeletons of all shapes and sizes.

When he got off his call he pulled one up and moved it around in a mime like it was dancing. The involuntary jerking motions it made had me cracking up, and in return the corners of his eyes creased up in amusement. After almost a few minutes of this his phone beeped with a text and he paused for long enough to pull it out.

“Come, let’s go.”

He lugged the skeleton along, and when we got to the counter, he pulled out his wallet to pay for it, but Brigitte waved dismissively, sending me a sly glance as she said something that made Elijah’s face go furiously red. He cleared his throat, shaking his head slightly before turning to look at her. A tense moment passed, and in a lightning-fast motion he dropped several euros on the counter before rushing past me.

“Run!” he called over his shoulder, and after a moment I did though we weren’t fast enough that we didn’t hear Brigitte swearing furiously behind us.

Outside, Guillaume Moreau was nowhere to be seen, but a BMW I recognized idled in front of the building, and we rushed inside, giggling like a pair of teenagers who’d just stolen a life-sized skeleton from a Halloween store that now sat between them.

When I eventually recovered from the laughing fit, I wiped tears from the corner of my eyes and turned to look at Elijah.

“What did Brigitte say at the end, right before we left?”

Elijah’s smile dimmed by a fraction, and for a second I feared what he had to say, but then his eyes met mine and he said: “She thought that you were my fiancée.”

His words were a like a bucket of ice-cold water thrown directly at me, and my smile fell off as I shifted imperceptibly away from him. Elijah’s smile lasted for one second longer before he realized that I was pulling away from him, and then he straightened in his seat, leaning forward to tell the chauffer that we would be going back to our hotel before settling back.

By my own design all was as it should’ve been, but it appeared as though my heart hadn’t gotten the memo as it galloped around wildly inside me to a point that it almost felt painful until I realized it was either one of two things:

I was in the middle of a panic/heart attack, or;

I was falling even deeper for Elijah.

I knew which option I found preferable, and it wasn’t number two.

•

The drive home may have been silent, but to my surprise dinner was not a somber affair and over two plates of Thai fried rice Elijah and I (dare I say) bonded. Watching him move between working on a new crossword as he proved to me that he was even more of a horror nerd than I’d thought while somehow managing to pause and look over the notes I’d compiled from our last conference made me realize just how truly magnificent he was.

Now he was telling me about Japanese horror movies.

“The reason I say that Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Pulse one of his most prolific films is that”—Elijah paused to scribble into the crossword, then took a bite of his rice and didn’t resume until he was one chewing—“it is a perfect embodiment of his signature slow-burn terror.”

He continued on like this as I listened on attentively, chewing slowly while my eyes roved over the document. It wasn’t that he’d become more talkative even though this was the case, it was that he suddenly seemed less reserved, lighter somehow like he was happy to have someone to talk to about something he so obviously cared about.

He was still Elijah Wilder, the Elijah Wilder, but after our afternoon together (even though it’d taken a downward turn after the fiancée comment) I found that I could breathe easier around him. He must’ve felt the same way.

I turned a page and immediately my eyes zeroed in on a line I’d roughly underlined several times. After a moment I picked it up and handed it to Elijah, who paused for long enough to take it, but he let go of the sheet and it drifted down to the space between the both of us.

Together we reached for it at the same time, and for the first time since we’d started eating Elijah fell silent. I could feel an electric charge start up in the air, and our eyes met. A second passed in which I remained static, and after that I let go of the sheet like it’d burned me, excusing myself as his gaze sought mine out and making a beeline straight for my room, where I immediately rushed into the bathroom to splash some tap water on my face.

I looked at my reflection in the mirror and noticed how flushed my face looked.

“Get a hold of yourself, Martin,” I chided, straightening. “He is your boss. You’re tired. Get some rest and tomorrow everything will be good as new.”

But even this was not enough. Unwittingly, Elijah had found his way around my defenses, and now I was lust (not love) sick. It felt like someone had lit a furnace beneath my skin, which tingled, and when I walked out to find Elijah waiting by my doorpost these symptoms only worsened.

His lips pushed up into the approximation of an unsure smile, one I’d never seen him wear before and when he asked if everything was alright I swallowed, swaying slightly on my feet.

The moment felt too much, too real—the both of us standing just paces away from each other after the wonderful day we’d had, one I wished I could hit the reset button on time, so I’d get to live all over again.

We still wore the clothes we’d gone out in and both stood barefoot, facing ourselves.

I hadn’t answered him, and he arched a brow, cocking his head to one side but I remained silent, battering myself on all sides with reasons for why I had to stay away: One, he was still my boss. Two, he was engaged. Three, I wasn’t ready to—

Fuck it, I thought, discarding every single one of these thoughts as I crossed the room, closing the distance between us in a spark of impulsivity and standing on my tiptoes to plant a chaste, sweet kiss on Elijah’s lips.

Elijah was an itch that needed scratching, and in my somewhat frenzied state I was thought: If you can’t beat them, join them.

He froze, unresponsive, and for a moment I feared that he would push me away but when I noticed that he wasn’t doing this I moved to deepen it and he responded in kind, meeting me halfway, but after a moment he pulled away, taking a few steps back so his eyes scanned my expression.

“What happens if we do this?” he asked in a voice that was at once strained and hoarse.

In response, I closed the small gap between us, swept him into a breathless kiss, and when the time came to come up for air I took a step back, breathing heavily. Grabbing him by his shirtfront, I started to unbutton it as I led us backward, and he followed obediently until my calves pressed firmly against my bedframe.

“I don’t know,” I said, helping him out of his shirt, silencing the voices in my head which claimed that once I let this happen there would be no going back. “And I don’t care.”

I reached for his belt, and he let out a slight hissing sound, grey eyes going to molten silver as he suddenly took hold of my hands, standing motionless for one second before using a firm shoulder to send me tumbling into the soft mattress.

Calmly, he began to unbuckle his belt. “This changes things.”

I knew this. Oh God, I knew it more than anyone. But I figured that one time wouldn’t hurt, and as he stripped down to his briefs I mirrored him until we both remained in just our underwear (I had on a pair of Sponge Bob panties, why I don’t know, but that’s a topic for another day.)

The bed dipped when Elijah leaned over, pulling me into another searing kiss that made me see stars at the back of my eyelids, and when he pulled back he had the devil in his gaze. The memory of our first night together flashed through my mind, how torturously he’d slid into and out of me as I panted, helpless under his ministrations.

That night he’d made me ask, and once again we were at a place where I was sure Elijah would do so again.

My breath quickened, Goosebumps raising up my skin as he let one lone finger trail a path over my stomach, into my navel, down my hips, and back up again until his thumb sat on my lower lip—seeking permission.

I parted them, and after a drawn-out moment of anticipation he slid the digit into my mouth and I closed my lips around it, sucking gently so Elijah’s breath caught, and he crawled predatorily onto the bed with his finger still in my mouth.

“Tell me what you want,” he ordered into my ear, tone rough, voice a purr. I did.

He pulled his finger out of my mouth; let his hand come to rest at the base of my throat, and as he kissed me again he squeezed lightly, not cutting off my air supply exactly, but leaving me breathlessly delirious all the same, and by the time he withdrew, releasing the pressure, I felt heady, entirely under the spell he’d cast on me.

“Tell me again,” he repeated softly, and because he left me no choice, because I was sure I’d never needed another human being as much as I did him in that moment, I told him again, exactly what it was I wanted him to do.