Page 24 of Blind Devotion (Letters of Ruin #1)

“Wake up, Mademoiselle Tessa.”

Marie was far too chipper in the morning.

After the night I had, I wasn’t ready for it.

First the nightmare, then tossing and turning all night with vivid dreams of Adrien climbing in bed with me and ravishing me so long and thoroughly that I forgot the possible reality that my nightmares were real memories.

Her thin heels rapped through the room, first toward the far end to the little table where Adrien had folded his origami days ago.

Like clockwork, I heard the breakfast tray tap and slide onto it.

The plates, silverware, and glass cup gently clanked.

The mouthwatering smells of coffee, toasted bagel, and bacon, plus the tang of orange juice, made it easier to get up despite the fatigue.

Familiar with the room’s arrangement by now, I crossed it with barely any more soreness in my legs.

“Oh, very good,” she said, clapping her hands. “Look at you. A day or so more, and you shall be sprinting like a gazelle.”

Today, when I went to pick up my morning coffee, something rough and crinkly met my fingers.

“What’s this?”

“I wondered the same. Looks like a tigre .” Tiger. “I was told to keep it on the tray for you.”

I felt around the edges and points, the curves and bends. An origami piece from Adrien, I just knew it.

A warm and fluffy sensation bubbled up inside, and my face heated.

It wasn’t the butterfly or the lion I requested.

It was different, and that was all right by me.

It was our own thing, instead of what belonged in a memory.

Memories of a man, sometimes boy, also named Adrien, who cared for me and whom I wholeheartedly once loved.

Those same niggling doubts came back with a vengeance.

My mysterious captor and my dream man couldn’t be the same person, could they?

I shook my head. I was being foolish.

Marie’s steps moved toward the balcony doors. She unlocked them and opened the wooden shutters that needed a little greasing. Fresh air with a tinge of seawater filled the room on a comfortable, warm breeze.

“Now, we cannot have the boss waiting,” she said, beating the curtains. “We need to get you dressed and prepped. He will take you to your appointment.”

With a bagel at my lips, I froze. “He will?”

Alizé hadn’t been lying.

“I don’t question the boss.”

So, the big ol’ grump was making time for me and during the day to boot. I liked that, maybe a little too much, considering our situationship. I tamped it down, schooled my small smile, and ate my breakfast without another word.

Marie helped me pick out a sundress with short-heeled sandals for the occasion.

I took the time to apply a little light makeup—it seemed at least that required more muscle memory than anything else.

Once ready, Marie led me through the house, down the stairs, and to the entrance.

The sun warmed my skin, and I tilted my head up to meet it. A sea breeze fiddled with my hair.

A woman’s hands wrapped around my shoulders.

“You look beautiful.” Alizé pecked both my cheeks before her mouth met my ear. “I told you he was taking you.”

“Alizé.” The name was a warning on Adrien’s lips. Deep and penetrating.

“Don’t you worry. I’m not corrupting her. Enjoy your time together.”

“It’s just a medical appointment.”

“If that were all it was, p’tit frangin , you wouldn’t be going.”

He grunted.

“Come on,” he said to me.

His arm came to the small of my back before wrapping around my waist, firm and steady.

He led me down a couple more steps and walked through gravel.

Not once did he let me trip. We slipped into the back seat, a gulf of space left between us as if he’d not just been touching me, as if we’d not spent hours talking the past few nights, as if I hadn’t felt his lips against my skin.

The door clonked shut, and the car rumbled to life.

It smelled of crisp leather and pine, completely unfamiliar and disorienting.

“Your sister could’ve taken me.”

“My sister is the reason we’re in this mess.”

“The mess being me?”

He didn’t have to answer, but I thought we’d made progress over the last few days. That was boosted by what Alizé told me and the excitement Marie cast out when waking me up. Only to be given the cold shoulder.

I’d made it clear last night that I was done with this. I was prepared to give him a piece of my mind, a good, thorough slap of common sense and courtesy, but the moment the car began moving, I lost all words, suddenly adrift.

Strapped in, I felt like I’d been dropped into a vast unknown with nowhere to go, so completely and utterly lost. We cruised down the drive, turning left or right at random.

At some point, we must have reached a road with other cars.

They honked. People yelled. Tires screeched.

Our driver braked, the seat belt digging into my shoulder.

Left. Right. Front. Back. It was chaos everywhere, that I couldn’t see, couldn’t estimate, couldn’t judge, and it was only going to get worse the moment I got out of this car.

I hadn’t missed my sight in my room in Adrien’s home, not really. The lack of it was simply a part of me there. The room was mine. It was safe and thoroughly investigated by yours truly.

Here, though, there were so many unknowns.

Where we were, how fast we were going, what was around us, the dangers I couldn’t anticipate, and the uncertainty of not knowing.

Secluded in my little room, I hadn’t realized how much trust I needed to hand over to give up this much control over my life.

My thigh bounced. Loud, shallow breaths escaped me, and I clung to the seat edge.

Adrien pressed his thigh against mine. Warm, present, hard, and reassuring.

I couldn’t explain why he did it or what it meant…

if it was an accident of circumstance or intentional.

All I knew was that it allowed me to focus on him and nothing else, and that was the biggest reassurance of all.

Oddly, I did trust him. Maybe that was stupid, but he’d seen me through harm already. He was the devil I knew.

I reached for his hand, and he gave it. No flinching away.

No avoidance. No words. Just a squeeze of his fingers around mine before letting me find his pulse.

I breathed through the steady thump thump that said so much.

I was safe with him. His eyes were mine today.

He’d not let me flounder. He’d be my guide.

My heart skipped a beat, and I ducked my head away from him to hide the blush warming my cheeks.

Adrien wasn’t the best conversationalist or the most warmhearted, but he cared in his own way. His actions were worth a thousand words.

As foolish as it was, my heartbeat slowed to match his, falling deeper into whatever confusing mess there was between us.

With Adrien ushering me through the radiology center, I wasn’t worried or afraid. The crowds, the echoes of conversations, the squeaks on tile, the beeps of machines, the roll of wheels—none of it bothered me as we walked down hall after hall, not with him at my side.

His hand never released mine, and no one ran into me. If I veered too much one way or the other, he gently nudged me with a push or pull of our interlocked hands. He didn’t treat me as if I were anything less than me.

“Is that woman blind, Papa?” a passing kid asked their parent. I didn’t hear the answer, but I held my head high and shrugged off my unease.

“What kind of scars do you think those hide?” A woman snickered to another before even crossing us.

“Something ghastly, I’d bet. There’s no way someone like him is with someone like her .”

They weren’t the first to make comments within earshot, almost as if they thought being blind and deaf were the same thing, but it was the first thing said that tapped into an unknown fear.

I tugged Adrien close and nuzzled against his chest. He froze against me, but I didn’t let that stop me. I couldn’t let it show how much their words hurt.

“No wonder you think sighted women are a lost cause,” I practically purred at him, my voice honeyed and overly sensual. “Some are just so ugly on the inside.”

He didn’t react at first, and I worried he’d ruin the act. One second of hesitation, and then his arm curled around my waist. I flattened my palm against his heart in gratitude.

“Maybe…” he started calmly in a deep rumble. The hair on my arms rose with the thrill of the menace in that one word. “They need a lesson. A permanent one. One my knife and I would be happy to enforce.”

Apparently, I wasn’t a good person because their frightened gasps pleased me way too much. Add in their hurried footsteps, and I was practically bursting with glee.

I laughed and patted his chest. “Oh, you’re good. Who knew fake threats to protect my honor were a kink? You, sir, are a gentleman.”

“They weren’t.”

Confused, I listened to the women scampering away. “They weren’t what?”

“Fake threats.” He held my hand over his heart, his fingers on my pulse. I swore the world slowed. “No one but me is allowed to dim your light.”

I let him guide me blindly through the radiology center, warmed from head to toe with a particular glow emanating around my heart.

We checked in, the machine spitting out a ticket—of course it had a number on it I couldn’t see, pretty damn useless, if you asked me.

We made our way through the reception area of radiology.

It was busier here, a blend of different conversations that weren’t moving around.

I ducked my head, overly conscious of the prickling heat still swarming my cheeks like a mad fool.

“You didn’t have to say that.”

“I don’t just say anything.”

There was something wrong with me, with how flushed his words made me, especially in that deep guttural tone of his.

“You’re full of surprises, grump.”

He scoffed. “No. I see no point in lies.”

“Only threats then?” I teased.

“People insult what they don’t understand. It’s human nature. I’ve learned it’s a compulsion that few are able to escape.”

“You sound as if you have experience.”

“I’m not blind, if that’s what you’re implying.”

“Don’t be facetious. You know that’s not what I’m saying.” I didn’t push further for information. He obviously didn’t want to talk about it. “Are there seats for us?”

He directed us a few steps to the left, his arm still around me, a constant reassuring pressure.

The back of my calves tapped against the chair seat, but his arm cinched tighter around my abdomen, not letting me sit.

I tilted my head up. His breath feathered against my face.

We stood like that, clinging to each other, ignoring the rest of the world.

“I don’t like to be touched,” he finally said softly.

“But…” I frowned. He never said anything the dozens of times I laid a hand on him, or when he kissed my forehead, or when he held my hand earlier. Did I make him uncomfortable?

“I learned to hide that.”

“Why?”

“Because while a child enduring a traumatic experience is understandable, people tend to put a time limit on its acceptability.” Fingers swept hair out of my face, brushing a momentary caress along my skin.

“Words can be as sharp as a knife, as precise as a sniper rifle, as destructive as a bomb. And they are all the more cruel when you leave yourself vulnerable to attack.”

“I didn’t.” My indignation burned. I defended myself and put those nosy shrews in their place. “Why are you telling me this?”

“I was that boy once. For months after, people were lenient to my new…eccentricities. Then that wavered. They’d had enough.

It took me years to build the character I needed to protect myself from their censure.

Even now, most physical contact invokes a need in me for violence.

Seventeen years later, you’re one of the few people whose touch doesn’t cause me pain. ”

I searched for the right words to respond to that admission. His finger pressed to my lips.

“Don’t. I don’t need pity.”

“Why do you think I’d pity you? You obviously grew up strong despite adversity. You should be proud of yourself.”

That finger dragged down my bottom lip to my chin, his thumb coming up to cup the angle of my jaw.

“You’ve been blind for a month, conscious of it for barely a week, and yet not once have you let it hinder you.

I admire that. I admire you. Yours is a light not worth dimming in the slightest.” His lips grazed mine before pulling back.

It was barely a peck, but I wanted more. So much more. “Wait here.”

I let him help me into a seat, too shocked by his words and almost-kiss to resist. My jaw hung slightly open.

So much noise. So many people. Wide-open spaces I didn’t know, and yet I didn’t feel an ounce of panic.

Deadly, strong, and fierce Adrien admired me.

He held me. He stood up for me . He shared details of his life with me.

I might not have known him for long, but I doubted he did that with just anyone.

It was enough to give any warm-blooded woman a heady rush.

A beep sounded overhead.

“That’s your number,” Adrien said, helping me up and out of my seat. “Come on.”