I chewed on her words for a long time, and even though I trusted her with my life, I couldn’t believe that it would be fine. There was a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, an impending sense of doom that I couldn’t quite shake off.
I didn’t know the protocol with Elden now. I’d only been in relationships with boys before. Games were played. They texted me exactly five minutes after I texted them, therefore I would send my message exactly ten minutes after them.
The stakes were never high. My life was not at risk of ending because my relationship with a seventeen-year-old lacrosse player was over.
Jacques was what I thought I’d been waiting for. A man who had an established life. Was educated. Knew about fine wines. Treated me like a woman.
Or so I’d thought.
I’d hadn’t truly been treated like a woman until I met Elden.
He called me regularly now. Not just when it rained.
Our conversations weren’t long or pining, that wasn’t exactly Elden’s style. But he called. He asked me what I was doing, if I ate that day. What I was wearing.
Before him, I’d truly thought phone sex was tacky and something people only did in the movies.
It turned out it was not at all tacky. And if you had an alpha biker on the other end of the line, it was really fucking hot.
Even with the phone sex, with all of the assignments, the parties, all the things I was doing to keep busy, to burn off the excess need, I was not sated.
He was always at the back of my mind. I slept like shit, knowing he was so far away, worrying about what he was doing, what kind of danger he was putting himself in.
My self-control was rather impressive, though. Every time I woke from a nightmare or was pacing the house at three in the morning, imagining him bleeding, locked up or in some sort of gun fight, I managed to get myself off to sleep with the help of Sariah’s stock of edibles or with one of my comfort shows playing in the background.
This particular night, though, over a month since I’d seen him last, my self-control snapped entirely. I hadn’t even thought when I grabbed my phone off my nightstand.
He answered after three rings. “Violet,” he murmured, voice smooth and rough, causing all my hair to stand on end.
“I need you,” I whispered into the phone.
“I’m on my way,” he replied instantly. “Who hurt you? I’ll fucking kill them.”
I smiled at the raw fury in his tone. I shouldn’t have liked it. What with my feelings about violence, about male anger left unchecked and the damage it did to society. But I fucking loved it. “No one hurt me,” I replied quickly. “I just had a dream about you fucking me, and I woke up alone in bed. And a vibrator is a sad substitute for you. So I should’ve said that I want you. But it really feels like aneed.”
There was a loaded pause. I bit my lip worrying I’d been a little too brash, a little too … clingy. Did I seem like some spoiled brat? Had I ruined things now? Were there games being played that I’d been too naïve to see?
“I’ll get on my bike right now.”. Things rustled in the background, and I imagined him getting out of bed.
My jaw dropped. “You can’t ride all the way here.”
“My woman just talked about dreamin’ about us fuckin’ then mentioned a vibrator,” he countered, voice husky. “I so can fuckin’ ride all the way there.”
Heat warmed my cheeks. He’d called mehis woman.
“It’s thirty hours, Elden.”
“And?”
I didn’t know how to respond.
He was willing to drive thirty hours on a motorcycle in the middle of the night because I told him I had adreamabout him.
I sat up in bed, putting the phone on speaker and squinting as I pulled up maps, tapping furiously. “Okay, there’s a motel roughly halfway between us,” I said, zooming in. If I leave now, we should get there at roughly the same time.”
“Violet,” he grumbled. “You are not driving across the country in the middle of the night on your fuckin’ own. Stay where you are. Wait for me.”
My lips spread into a huge smile, getting out of bed. “I’ve never been very patient,” I informed him. “I’ll text you the details of the motel. See you in fifteen hours.”