Chapter 69 I'll reward you
I stare at the uneven strings, the asymmetry burning a hole in my focus. It’s a small, inconsequential thing...a thread, a piece of cotton...but it’s an insult to the order I’ve spent my entire life perfecting. I try to tell myself to walk away. To ignore the petty provocation. Kaden's baiting me into a reaction, and I know exactly what he’s waiting for.
But the problem is, I already fixed it. And that’s where it stops being nothing. My eyes stay on it. It shouldn’t be uneven anymore because I handled it. Because I corrected it. And I know, with a kind of quiet certainty, that if I leave it like that, it’ll sit in the back of my mind all night. A low-grade irritation. Persistent and unrelenting.
I don’t say it out loud, but it’s there, clear enough. 'Don’t mess with me.'
Kaden sees it, I know he does. There’s a flicker in his expression, like he’s just been handed exactly what he was fishing for. That maddening, symmetrical smirk of his doesn't flicker. I reach out again. My movements are slower this time, agonizingly precise.
I smooth the fabric and align the strings until the tension is perfectly distributed. I don’t break eye contact while I do it. Afterwards, I let go, one second passes, then two....but then before the fabric even properly settles, he moves. The absolute bastard. His hand lifts, fingers curling toward the strings with a clear intent that makes my blood pressure spike. I don't think. I lash out, my hand wrapping around his wrist like a shackle, pinning his arm in mid-air.
I glare at him, the silence in the room thickening until it’s electric. A ghost of a smile haunts his lips, amusement that makes my chest ache with a volatile mixture of rage and something much darker. I clock the look, and for a split second, I have no idea what to do with it, or with him.
"Stop," I instruct. Just the one word.
He tilts his head, unfazed. "Why?"
"Just...fucking don't."
I’m certain the message is clear, but Kaden's a glutton for friction. He uses his free hand to reach up and give the left string a sharp, mocking tug. "I prefer it this way," he says. Something in me finally gives way.
I don't let go of his wrist. Instead, I reach up with my free hand, hook my finger through the drawstring, and wrap the excess length once, twice around my palm. Then I yank...hard.
The motion is sudden, Kaden stumbles forward, caught off guard by the force of the pull, dragged into my personal space until his chest is inches from mine. By the time I stop, the entire drawstring is coiled around my knuckles, effectively tethering him to me. He looks down at his chest, then at my hand.
"Do you have O—" he starts, but I don't give him the air to finish. I start walking, still holding his wrist, dragging him with me out of the washroom before the word even fully forms.
"My shoes," Kaden complains, his voice tripping over his own surprise as I pull him past the vanity and toward the bedroom door. "They're still back there."
"You had your chance," I say without slowing. “You chose to be annoying instead.”
He stumbles to keep up, then lets out a soft, breathless laugh that sounds nothing like protest. He doesn’t resist, if anything, he keeps pace too easily for someone who’s supposedly being dragged.
“So where’re you taking me?” he asks. “Gonna tie me up in your basement with that thing?”
I shake my head and stop in the middle of the bedroom. I reach down, grab a pair of leather house slippers from beside the bed, and drop them at Kaden’s feet. I slide the tangled, frayed drawstring into my pocket and gesture for him to wear the shoes. He doesn't move. He looks at the slippers, then up at me, his expression vacant.
"Put them on for me," he finally says.
I stare at him, half-expecting to see a flicker of a joke. "Excuse me?"
"Do it, and I’ll reward you," he says, not even blinking. He tilts his head, that arrogant, beautiful tilt.
I let out a harsh scoff, though the sound dies in my throat. I should walk away. I should leave him standing there. But I’m already leaning, my curiosity a sharper hook than my pride. "Reward me with what?"
He gives me that look, the one that pulls at the tether in my chest, a mixture of heat and razor-sharp sass. "To be determined."
I don't know what the hell this is. I don't know the rules of a game where the opponent sets the terms while I’m the one bleeding out. I look around my room, the books on the shelves, the clothes in the closet. Everything is in its place, except for the one person currently dismantling it. He’s gutting the entire structure of my life. I mentally curse my own lack of self-control. And yet, I’m moving.
Before I even register it, I’m down on one knee.
Where does my logic go when he’s this close? It evaporates. It leaves me kneeling in my own bedroom, ready to serve a man I should be throwing out.
I reach for his ankle, guiding his foot into the slipper with more care than I intend to show. Then the other. My fingers brush warm skin for a second too long before I pull away. When I finally glance up, he’s beaming down at me, a look of pure satisfaction plastered across his face.
I scramble back to my feet, clearing my throat until it stings. I shove my hands into my pockets to hide the lingering tremor in my fingers and turn toward the door. "Let’s go."
I walk without looking back, hearing his shuffling footsteps trailing behind me. He falls into step once we hit the hallway, his presence a constant heat at my side. I lead him toward the cellar, the heavy, ancient-looking doors looming in the light like the entrance to a tomb.
I punch in the code, the heavy bolts sliding back with a mechanical thud that echoes through the corridor. I gesture for him to go first. Kaden eyes the interior, hesitating for a fraction of a second, before he crosses the threshold. I follow, hearing the lock cycle shut behind us. He waits a few paces inside, not moving, only when I step past him does he fall back into motion.
We walk down the short, narrow corridor, and then the space opens up. Thousands of bottles line the racks. I watch him from the periphery as he takes it all in.