Either way, it doesn’t matter. He won’t touch me. I know that now. Even though he’s still pacing, his steps have slowed. He’s calmed down. He won’t break his promise.
Slowly the door opens, and Caspian enters.
His shirt sleeves are rolled up haphazardly. His blue tie hangs loosely around his neck, and the first few buttons of his once crisp white shirt are undone. There is a hint of red on his shirt, not enough to be blood. Or is it?
I continue my scrutinization of his body. His pants are slightly wrinkled from wearing them too long. And his body hunches slightly, like he doesn’t even have the strength to stand upright anymore.
His hair is disheveled. He usually styles his hair in a purposefully tousled way. He’s got the perfect bed hair down. But this is more. It’s not styled. Just messy. It matches the chaos in his eyes.
He looks like a disaster, but despite whatever he went through to make him look like this, his mouth and body don’t give away any distress.
He hasn’t said anything since entering the room. He puts his hands in his pockets, most likely to remind himself he can’t touch me.
I let go of the sheets and toss them down to my waist. Caspian both scares me and electrifies me. His eyes travel to my breasts, and I ache for more. I see the promise in his eyes, that he will do more if I say the word.
I don’t.
I won’t give in to his steamy stare. He saved me, but I’m still not free. I will never let a man touch me again until I’m free.
“What happened?” I ask, after several minutes pass of nothing.
He stares, and I see everything. It was bad. Blood everywhere. But he’s used to seeing blood and death. The same as me. He lost someone. Not a close relative or friend, but someone he was responsible for. He never fails.
I see it all in his eyes. I’m used to not being able to read people, but Caspian reads like an open book. I’m not sure if I’m not usually observant, or if I prefer not to know. Because if I were able to read the people in my life, I wouldn’t like what I found.
Caspian doesn’t answer, except with his eyes.
“What do you want with me, Caspian? Let me go. Let me call my family.”
He doesn’t answer. He stares at me. His jaw eventually ticks familiarly. He does it to hide his real emotions. Because he doesn’t want people to know what he’s feeling. But I notice.
“Seven more days,” he says.
I stare at him, trying to decipher the meaning of his words. He’ll let me go in seven days, or he can finally touch me in seven days? He doesn’t clarify.
“What do you want with me, Caspian?” I half whisper, half scream.
I expect a smirk or a half-hearted grin. I expect him to think of some deliciously, naughty thing he wants to do to me that I only get a hint of in his eyes.
I get none.
His mind doesn’t leave the room. His thoughts stay in the present. And his quietness scares me more than any dirty thoughts ever could.
“Nothing, I should have never taken you,” he says so quietly, I’m not sure he said it.
Caspian turns and walks out, leaving me alone with my thoughts. I will never admit my thoughts turn dirty when it comes to him. That Caspian stars in my fantasies. It’s just because I’ve been without a man for so long. It has nothing to do with the man, and it has everything to do with me.
One day left.
Days left in my month is how I keep track of time. It’s better than counting seconds, like I was doing before at Dante’s.
My body wants to spend the day in bed. It’s so comfy, and even though I’ve healed tremendously in the last month, I still have a long ways to go. Another day in bed would do my body good.
I won’t lie around my last day though. I need to get up and out. I need to enjoy my last day, if it is, in fact, my last day of ‘freedom.’
I stretch, before moving to the edge of the bed. I’m wearing pajama pants and a tank top. I consider changing, but I’m not allowed out of the house except to sit out on the deck, so there is no reason to change. I brush my teeth and comb my hair, which finally has all the knots out of it. And then I walk to the kitchen, smelling the delicious french toast cooking on the stove.
I pour myself a cup of coffee, before Michi realizes I’m awake.