Roses Revenge novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: Elliot's House

I wrote back to Paisley from the passenger seat.

Tomorrow, nine in the morning. Elliot's address is below. Come alone.

She answered in under a minute: I'll be there.

"You're letting her into my house," Elliot said, mildly, pulling out into traffic.

"It's the one place Colton doesn't know about."

"That's the only reason?"

"Tonight I'd also like to see it," I said.

He drove the rest of the way without speaking, and I watched his hands on the wheel.

He lived at the end of a quiet street, in a narrow brick house with a green door and one light burning in the hall.

It smelled of coffee and old books.

There was a long kitchen with a scarred wooden table, and a staircase with a worn runner, and nothing in it that was meant to impress anyone.

"It's smaller than I thought," I said.

"You thought about it?"

"For two years. In the car, mostly."

He put his keys in a dish and stood very still.

"Rose, if you'd like to stay in the guest room, I'll bring you a clean towel and go to bed without a word."

"Is that what you want?"

"No."

"Then say what you want."

He looked at me for a long moment, and the dry man I had known for two years stepped aside.

"I want you upstairs, in my bed, in my light, where I can see all of you," he said. "I want to take as long as I like."

My knees went soft.

"That's better," I said.

He took my hand and led me up.

His bedroom was at the back of the house, with a wide bed, a lamp on a low table, and a window that gave onto the dark front garden and the gate.

I kicked off my shoes at the door.

He turned the lamp up.

"Last night we were in a hurry," he said. "Tonight I'm not."

He undid the buttons of my blouse one at a time, and every time his knuckles brushed my skin I felt it in my stomach.

He eased the blouse off my shoulders, then my skirt down over my hips, and he knelt to take it off my ankles.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Roses Revenge from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.