Free Web NovelChapter 173: Chapter 173: Refusal
Chapter 173: Refusal
Only when their mouths touched did Yvonne understand how badly she had miscalculated.
Elias Kane could not be trusted.
She had known that from the beginning, so why had she believed him when he claimed he did not know how?
His so-called inexperience turned into a kiss that almost tried to devour her. It carried the heat and energy a boy his age should have had, along with a skill that did not belong to his age at all.
His lips looked fuller after the kiss, damp and flushed, shaped like they were asking for more even when he was not moving. He lifted his spine and looked down at her from above, smiling with a sweetness that only made him seem worse.
"Yvonne," he said, as if he meant every word, "you really are amazing."
It sounded like praise. frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓
After that kiss, Yvonne heard the comparison underneath it.
He was measuring her against the women before her, and he was pleased with the result.
Yvonne did not comment on that. She only repeated, "Kneel."
"Don’t be so impatient." Elias raised a hand and patted the top of her head, scolding her with a soft little complaint, as if she were the shameless one. "Seriously."
Then he bent.
Right in front of her, he softened his body and slid down from her lap and the couch with the loose, graceful motion of a snake. A moment later, only his head remained within her line of sight.
Elias lifted his eyes.
Their corners tilted upward. His expression was far too wanton, yet his voice turned obedient and light.
"Is this okay?"
Yvonne sat steady, looking down at him like an empress examining a kneeling subject.
A moment later, she leaned forward.
Elias’s body had to tip back, his waist bending into a curve that looked almost breakable. The movement should have been difficult, yet he held it with startling ease.
Yvonne glanced at him once, then sat back.
She had only reached for a tissue from the table.
Slowly and carefully, she wiped her right hand clean, the same way she might clean an instrument after a procedure. No embarrassment showed in her face. No urgency. No sign that anything about this had disturbed her.
When she finished, she finally said, "Yes."
Elias did not use his hands to brace himself. Relying only on the strength in his waist, he rose from that kneeling, backward-bent posture and settled into place again.
"Then I’ll start."
Yvonne closed her eyes.
From the day she was born, her life had been full of rules.
Her parents had not written those rules down for her. They had not forced her to follow them. They had simply lived that way, and by watching them, Yvonne had learned to do the same.
Control your desires.
Only then could every task be completed perfectly. Only then could limited energy be used to its fullest.
For thirty years, Yvonne had lived like that.
But rules did not erase desire.
They buried it.
Day after day, year after year, everything she restrained and pressed down had twisted in the dark until it became something strange, ugly, and impossible to look at directly.
Something that had never seen light could not be expected to grow toward kindness.
It could only sink.
Yvonne opened her eyes.
The first thing she saw was half of Elias’s head and a pair of eyes blinking up at her. His lashes moved like dark wings. He looked focused, almost earnest, as if he were performing some delicate, sacred task.
The thing he was actually doing was something no god would want to witness.
Then Elias suddenly rose.
In one smooth motion, he climbed back onto Yvonne’s lap. His eyes gleamed with mischief, and his wet lips went straight for hers.
Yvonne’s hand landed on his shoulder.
With one firm push, she shoved him away.
Elias was not angry. If anything, the rejection delighted him. His eyes curved, bright and sly, like a little fox that had finally found the loose latch on a cage.
"Yvonne," he said, smiling down at her, "do you dislike yourself that much?"
He said it as though he had already won.
He thought this would make her lose control completely.
It did not.
Yvonne’s lips also held a faint sheen now, but her eyes remained still. "You haven’t finished."
Elias did not care at all. He saw no problem with quitting halfway through.
"Yvonne, I’m a bad boy." His smile widened, lawless and proud. "Bad boys don’t keep promises just because they made them."
Yvonne looked at him. "Then I don’t mind turning you into a good one."
That had been the premise from the beginning.
Elias’s face shifted into a frightened look, as if her words were some terrible threat. A heartbeat later, his lips pushed out, and he started acting spoiled with a skill that came far too naturally.
"The floor is hard," he complained. "And cold. My knees hurt. I don’t want to kneel anymore."
His arms wound around Yvonne’s neck, clinging to her with the shameless persistence of a boyfriend who had been indulged too often and knew it.
Yvonne only watched him.
She said nothing.
Elias clearly had more prepared. His lips moved to her ear, and his voice lowered, each word placed with deliberate clarity.
"The floor is too cold. This won’t work here."
A pause.
"But the bed is soft."
The invitation was direct, as always.
Yvonne removed her other glove.
The coldness around her did not fade.
"I refuse."
Elias’s expression fell at once, turning hurt and confused, like a child who had seen a toy through a store window and been told no.
"Why?" he asked.
The answer came to him almost as soon as he said it.
His eyes narrowed slightly. "Dr. Quinn, don’t tell me you think I’m sick."
Yvonne’s face remained calm. "Those little fangs are a dental abnormality. If you have time, you should have them corrected."
She was talking about his teeth.
They both knew she meant something else.
Elias’s expression darkened in an instant.
His moods changed like weather, bright sky one moment, storm front the next. The sweetness vanished from his face, leaving only open displeasure.
"Do you have protection?" he asked.
Yvonne did not answer.
Elias got off her at once.
His face turned cold, impatient, and openly disgusted. "Do it or don’t. If you’re going to worry about every little thing, then move. Why is nobody else this much of a damn hall monitor? Is everyone else reckless, or are you just useless?"
He did not stop.
"No wonder you’re thirty and still haven’t dated anyone. The untouchable goddess in a white coat? Fine, I get it now. Goddesses are supposed to be above desire."
His smile turned vicious.
"No, wait. Maybe you’re not above desire. Maybe you’re just sterile all the way down."
Elias went straight for the throat.
This was not anger because Yvonne had suggested he was ill. It looked more like the fury of a fighter brought to the edge of battle, only to be told the match was canceled.
"Bad luck," he snapped. "Forget it. I’ll go find Naomi. She’ll do."
He did not even bother buttoning his shirt.
Elias turned and started toward the door.
The moment he took his first step, a hand caught his wrist with a sharp slap of sound.
