Page 8 of Elf

“Why did you go along with it?”

Ezra shrugged, making his sore shoulder complain. “Just call it one last attempt to appease the master. I stuck it out for a few years, but there was never anything real between us. It was a disaster really, so I left earlier this year. He wasn’t happy. Kemper doesn’t like to fail at anything.”

“Was he mad enough to hire assassins?”

“Don’t know. Probably. He’s drawing out the divorce. Refusing to sign the papers. I’m going to have to confront him.”

“You’ll do that with me present.”

Ezra snorted. “Of course. I’d planned to meet him somewhere public, anyway. Just not yet. Not until I’m healed.”

Something flickered through Alaric’s expression, but he schooled it—just not quickly enough. Ezra narrowed his eyes. “What do you know about my ex?”

“That he has his hands buried in the dirtiest of crimes. But he’s good. Covers his tracks well. Not to mention the people actually willing to turn on him tend to go missing. He’s dangerous, Ezra. Very.”

“It was nice of my dear father to pay him off with me, wasn’t it? I didn’t know just how bad he was until I moved into his mausoleum. Which is a fitting description of that house, because the man is dead inside. Completely and utterly dead.” He glanced at Alaric’s stoic face and decided to poke the bear again. “Sex was like being with a robot.”

Alaric briefly closed his eyes as if his patience was barely hanging on by a thread. “I don’t need to hear about your sex life.”

“Well, it was bad. I don’t even think he liked sex. The kicker was, he ordered me not to get sex elsewhere. I was like some kind of possession that he trotted out for appearance’s sake. The ultimate trophy husband, just because my last name was Forsberg. He never failed to crow about that, like owning his enemy’s son was some kind of coup.”

“How long were you with him?”

“Three long years. My father was so angry when I left, he refused to speak to me. I just couldn’t…take it anymore.” Plus, he’d seen something that had scared him so badly, he knew he couldn’t stay in that house another day. Jake had actuallybeen the one who helped him escape. The hired guard had a surprising soft side, despite who he worked for.

Ezra watched Alaric take a sip from his mug, his gaze lingering on the elf’s Adam’s apple as it bobbed. He wanted to put his mouth there. Maybe that would elicit a reaction.

This fierce attraction he had toward Alaric frankly flummoxed him. He liked sex, but he’d never felt like he needed it badly before. He hadn’t been lying that sex with Brian had been lackluster. Lackluster was actually too nice a word for what it had been like. Brian was a cold fucker—both literally and figuratively. He fucked like he was a corpse and had a soul that was made of ice. He did everything with a perfunctory manner that had left Ezra feeling like nothing but a hole. Brian hadn’t even liked to give or receive oral sex—said it was too unsanitary. Fuck, he’d been weird.

The sad thing about the whole situation was that at first Ezra had expected something different. Yes, he’d gone into the arranged marriage hardly knowing Brian, but the man was seriously handsome and had been attentive in the beginning. Ezra had actually believed they might be able to make it work at first. But Brian had been donning a mask of kind humanity. It hadn’t taken one week before Ezra had realized there was zero chemistry, and that Brian wasn’t even capable of feeling. He was a true sociopath who acted his way through life. They’d only had sex a handful of times in the entire three years he’d lived there. Not at all in that last year, which he’d been thankful for. He wouldn’t have been able to fake his way through another one of those awkward experiences.

Plus, he’d seen enough to know Brian was just…evil. Ezra knew that had nothing to do with his mental condition. Not all sociopaths were bad people. But Brian was. All he cared about was amassing wealth.

Which could be the reason he might be the one after Ezra. With what he stood to inherit, Brian could want it all.

Chapter Six

Ezra

Ezra placed his hand on the door handle, then turned toward Alaric. “Maybe you should wait in the car. He probably won’t talk to me with you there.”

“No.”

“But I know him, and he wouldn’t hurt me. Was always nice because we bonded over the game Fallout. When he’s not looking out for my ex, he’s always playing video games. But he’s cautious, won’t talk in front of a stranger.”

“I go where you go. Always.”

Something about those words struck Ezra on a deep level. For one moment, he allowed himself to feel what those words would be like from someone who loved him. Actually loved him. It wasn’t something he’d ever experienced, and the deep desire for something like that still shocked him. He’d long ago decided there was something wrong with him. Some undefined trait that made him not deserve that kind of devotion. That kind of adoration. What would it be like to have that one person who saw you that way?

He’d never know.

The knowledge sent actual, physical pain into his chest. He could only hold his breath. He hadn’t realized how deeply that need went until it reared its ugly head.

“What just happened?” Alaric asked as he touched Ezra’s arm. “Ezra? You have this expression…that’s bothering me.”

Ezra made himself meet Alaric’s eyes. “It’s nothing.”

Alaric just stared for a long time, then nodded.

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