Tease Me (Teased and Broken Book 1) (16 page)

I stared at it dumbfounded for a moment. “What?!”
 

Thorn flashed me a bright smile, dark green eyes aglow. “Let’s get away from this place for a while.”
 

I continued to stare at the ticket, unable to look at him. “I can’t,” I said finally.

“Why?” He sounded confused.

“Because…” I trailed off. Shit. This was
much
harder in person with his formidable beauty and intensity bearing down on me.
Stay strong, Elena,
I coached myself. “I wouldn’t want to give you the wrong idea,” I started slowly.

Thorn threw back his head and laughed.

“Why is that funny?” I scowled at him.

“Too late. You are a magnificent tease. You have already given me the wrong idea several times over, and many other ideas since. Here’s one of them.” Thorn placed a little jewellery box on the table.

My eyes widened in horror. Hell to no. This couldn’t be happening, not when I was about to break the man’s heart.
 

“No!” I pushed the box back. “Don’t.”

Thorn’s brows raised in surprise. “So presumptuous! I’m not asking you to marry me. Are you crazy? We barely know each other!”

“Oh!” I felt my shoulders fall forward in relief.
 

He opened the little box, and presented a gorgeous white gold necklace – with a little raven affixed to it – its eyes were tiny red rubies that glinted up at me accusingly. It was beautiful. I loved it. I thought I might cry, but stuffed the tears back down. “It’s beautiful,” I breathed.
 

“I want to be with
you,
Elena. The men in my line had a tradition, when they realized they had fallen in love with someone. They had one of these little raven necklaces crafted for them. It was a pledge, I guess,” he sneered, a look of distaste flickering across his face. “The modern day equivalent to a promise ring is what I would call it. But it means so much more than that. I have no soul to promise you, I said that much to you before.”

I shook my head, and rolled my eyes a little at that.
 

“But traditionally, the raven contained a splinter of the Warlock’s soul inside of it. This is powerful, and not a thing to give someone on a whim or flight of fancy. You would not just give such a precious thing to just
anyone
.” His dark green eyes stared into mine meaningfully.
 

“I will take your soulless raven any day,” I joked as my fingers touched the lovely piece of jewellery. I lifted it reverently from the box.
Really?
I reprimanded myself. You’re going to try to joke about this? There is no lightening the significance of this Elena! His
feelings
were choking me.

Thorn smiled sadly. “The ritual is a bit of a bitch so I guess in a way, I’m glad I have no soul to put into this tiny bird.”

“You are truly insane, you realize that?” I couldn’t help but laugh. “And giving me this. Really, Thorn? Is this any
less
crazy than asking me to marry you?”

He laughed so hard his shoulders shook with it.

Oh, fuck me dead. I loved the sound of his laughter. His non sinister, warm, happy, careless rumble. It was infectious. I loved how it lit up his dramatic intense face.
 

I loved… him.

I loved… Brett.

I sighed.

“So I visited a practising Warlock,” he went on seriously. “And he helped me do some binding work on the little raven.”

I dropped the jewellery in alarm.

“Relax, you look like I just told you I cursed the thing!”
 

“What did you do, Thorn?” I asked, my heart starting to pound.

“Whenever you want me – I will always return to you – that locket binds me to you.”

“And if I don’t want you?” I ventured in a trembling voice.

“I hadn’t considered that possibility,” he admitted. He took up the raven necklace, and fastened it around my neck. I let him. I was stupefied. There were no words as he sat back and watched at me expectantly.

I thought briefly about running, but used the awkward stretch of silence to gather my thoughts instead.
 

“You
do
want me, don’t you, Elena?” he asked softly.

Tears blurred my vision. “No. I’m sorry. I can’t do this anymore, Thorn.”

He slumped back in the booth, the corners of his mouth turning down.
 

Don’t look at his mouth!
I ordered myself sternly. So I looked at the polished wood of the table between us.
 

“I don’t believe you.” His breath came out in a shaky rush – like I had punched him in the heart. I winced.

I studied the condensation ring of my glass on the table. It was truly the most mesmerizing thing I had ever laid eyes upon.

“Look at me,” Thorn insisted.

Fuck no. Bad idea. I kept my gaze downcast.

“Elena?” His voice cracked slightly.
 

Unbidden, I found my hand rising up to grip the little raven protectively, and then I flinched as if it burned me. I stared at him ; this was the worst, this was how Aaron had coached me how to do it. He told me I had to do it this way, because anytime I had tried to be nice about telling someone to fuck off out of my life, they ended up even more enchanted and beguiled by me.
 

Yes, crazy, but no, not really when I looked upon the antics of the badass enchantresses in my family. These words were so cruel, though. I had practised them over and over again with Aaron, in front of the mirror, and now I was going to tell my muse, the most wonderful fucked up mistake of my life - Thornton Darko - I didn’t love him in the cruellest way I knew how.
 

“No, I don’t want you,” I said. “I never really did. I was bored. I teased, you responded.”

Thorn’s stare was unwavering.

“You were a little experiment to me. I wanted to test whether I could make a rock star fall madly in love with me with words alone; that’s what my proposal to tease you every day of December was about. You gave me some great material for my book,” I smirked. “One I was going to write anyway, by the way… you know, the book you insisted I write about… this situation. Well, I was already ahead of you, I already thought of that.”

He was shaking his head. “No.” His fists were clenched before him on the table and trembling.

“Yes!” I insisted. “I
used
you, Thorn. I know you big bad ass rock stars aren’t used to that happening. But I did. I had a lull in creativity, it happens. You were a welcome distraction, and you gave me solid gold, by the way, thanks for that. But…” I shrugged. “There’s nothing more you can give me, I got what I needed. So this is goodbye.” I rose to my feet.

Thorn was breathing hard, I saw his nostrils flare, his mouth was a line of pain; I couldn’t bear to look directly in his eyes right now. “Witch!” he barely breathed, his whole body quivering with rage. “How could you be so fucking heartless?”

“I think you already answered that when you called me ‘witch’,” I tossed over my shoulder as I walked out of there.
 

He let me go, but I felt his gaze on my back. It was hot and angry.
 

As soon as I was outside, I ran around the building down the road toward Daniel sitting in the BMW. I almost made it to the passenger side door when a heavy hand slammed down on my shoulder and spun me around.

Thorn. Jesus. He looked on the verge of tears, his dark hair askew from his hands raking through it. “Who?” he roared in my face. “Who the fuck are
you?”

Twenty
 

“Get your hands off of her!” Daniel had launched himself out of the car in a heart beat.

I waved him off. “Please,” I shot him a pained look. “Let me handle this.”

He looked unconvinced.

“Who are you?” Thorn repeated again. “To do this to
me
!”
 

I tried to turn away again, because I was about to burst into tears.

“I
love
you, Elena,” he insisted brokenly.

“Well buddy, take a hint, the lady doesn’t love you, so maybe you should back the fuck up and take your freak show else where,” Daniel suggested, angling his imposing body between me and Thorn.
 

“Be careful, babe!” I heard Aaron shout as he ran down the street toward us.

Thorn punched Daniel in the face.

Holy shit.

Daniel was a big guy, but the punch had clearly caught him off guard. He fell sideways – out for the count, blood trickling from his nose. I crumpled to my knees, touching his face, and I heard Aaron start screaming.
 

“Have you lost your fucking mind?!” I yelled at Thorn. “Get out of here!
Now!
”

“You lied to me,” he said quietly. “I don’t know why you’re doing it, Elena. But I know when I am being lied to. You love me. I know this; I’ll be coming back for you.”

I didn’t trust myself to speak. When I looked back at him, he was astride a mean-looking black motorcycle, and roared out of my life.

He had not looked back. Not once. Because, as he had promised, I shivered, he was coming back for me.
 
I needed to give my lawyer friend Abby a call, because fuck me, I needed a level head to speak to; what were my options? Should I go into hiding for a while? Should I get a restraining order? Who would take me seriously? Normally, people like Thorn had to take those out those things on people like me. Maybe I shouldn’t have taken Aaron’s advice. What I said had broken the man’s mind clearly. I shivered, remembering the way he had stared at me before he punched Daniel.
 

I started crying. I was the ridiculous architect of my very own nightmare. All that teasing. Finally… it had come back to bite my ass. Most men had taken it well, no harm done. But Thorn? Shit. I couldn’t have anticipated falling in love with him, or he with me. But my heart belonged to Brett. We were in trouble for sure. He still hated me. But I wanted to figure that out. I wanted to give us a chance. Someone like Thornton Darko sucked all available attention, focus, and oxygen from the room – he was too big to allow me to think straight, and I needed my mind working right now. More than ever. I believed that Brett’s life and mine depended on it.
 

Later that night, I wrote in a satin bathrobe. I hadn’t been able to write in my normal lingerie since Thorn had bruised my flesh that night. I couldn’t bear it. I felt like he had marked me everywhere. The bruises were fading, but persisted, much like reality. I wanted to write to escape it. My bags were packed neatly near the door. I planned to leave tomorrow morning. I couldn’t stay here. As far as I was aware, Thorn and his freak army didn’t know where Aaron lived. I considered it a relatively safe place to hide, although that Aaron allowed me to stay at all after Thorn broke his lover’s nose was beyond the call of duty as a friend. Fuck me. Thorn was hurting people in my life now. First Brett, now Daniel.
 

I know he insisted he didn’t have anything to do with strawberries ending up in that cake, but I believed him as far as I could throw him, which I couldn’t, the man was freaking huge. Thank God for Aaron, I would feel safe at Daniel’s pad. This house, however - I cast a nervous glance about me - not so much. But just to be sure, I had organised security nonetheless. It made me feel better to know they were out there guarding me against a rock star who also happened to be a fucking powerful warlock with an army that already hated my ass.
 

My writing playlist switched to Cellrager. Shit. I pulled my headphones out of my ears at once and groaned; too late, his blistering hot dark voice was already in my mind. I scrolled through and found something else to play, and was about to resume my novel when all the lights went out in my house.
 

I freaked, and hit the button on my remote to lower the security blinds straight away - something I should have done earlier, but I literally got lost in another world when I wrote. I slammed my laptop shut – whoever was out there didn’t need to know where I was. I buzzed through to security. Nothing. I tried again. Nothing. I heard laughter outside. Banging on the windows. I scrambled beneath the table, and shimmied across the room to the little panel showing the security cameras in the linen closet. And my heart froze.
 

Folk in black gimp masks, at least twenty, I counted, prowled around outside. I heard the door handles being turned at either end of the house (I had all of them dead bolted, of course), some feet thundering across the roof. My mind was racing along with my heart. I bit my lip, thinking hard; was there anyway they could penetrate the house? I heard glass breaking above me. Fuck. Skylights in the study upstairs, of course. Shit. I closed off the first floor as best I could and looked for a place to hide. I had already alerted the police, then I deliberately set off the house alarm to create confusion. As it happened, the insistent jangling bell sound was only enhancing my own. I grabbed my phone and called Brett; he picked up on the first ring. I hadn’t expected that. “Elena!” he shouted down the line.

“I didn’t know who else to call!” I cried.

“Is that the house alarm?” He sounded concerned; I heard his car keys jingling.

“Yeah. I set it off, I’ve tried to alert the police – it’s Thorn’s fucking minions. I made it clear there was no future with their messiah today, and they’re right pissed. Please help me. I think they’re going to kill me. They seriously think I’m a witch, and I’m going to fucking kill him or something. Please! Help!”

“Find something to use as a weapon, anything… and hide.”

“There’s twenty of them out there at least, be careful!” I warned.

“I’ll be careful,” he assured me, sounding amused, although I didn’t know what the fuck was the slightest bit amusing about this situation right now. A weapon, a weapon… my eyes found the medieval sword I had bought for Brett’s birthday, and I scrambled to the wall it was mounted on. Who was I kidding? I had no idea how to use that thing, much less lift it – it weighed a freaking tonne. Shit. I guess a knife would have to do. I hated sharp pointy things, and was loathe to use one. But I grabbed the biggest badass kitchen knife I possessed, and a water gun – it sort of looked real, I reasoned. I tumbled into a closet and shut the door quietly, hearing more glass breaking above. After ten minutes that seemed to last a lifetime. I heard a door fly open on the lower floor, and then the most brilliant amazing sound, Brett calling my name. Brett. Here.