Undulate (Alchemy, #2)

by Elodie Hart

I miss hearing her screech tunelessly from the shower that I’m her fire, her desire.

Knowing you were on the same team as someone else, that another human had your back and was your biggest, loudest, most steadfast cheerleader forever and ever became less a blessing and more a given as the years wound on.

He’s not my type. My type is kinky and insatiable. I’m looking for Christian Grey—or a whole roomful of Christian Greys on rotation, if you please—and this guy is Gilbert fucking Blythe.

I take back the Gilbert Blythe comparison. This guy could definitely be a spankier version of Captain von Trapp.

Nobody gets to tell you what to believe. Nobody gets to own your mind, your heart or your body. You own them. You get to decide.

I fucking hate Disneyland.

‘Then what the fuck were you doing in Alchemy?’ ‘It’s specific. To you. No matter how fucked up my home life still is—and believe me, it’s a total shit show, no matter what it looks like from the outside—my brain is so fucking full of you I can barely hold it together. All I can think about is doing unspeakable things to you. The whole. Fucking. Time. So for the love of God, please stop fiddling with your hem, because I can’t look away.’

‘Bloody hell,’ he says. He squeezes my entire cheek hard. ‘I’ve just realised what you’re wearing.’ ‘You must have been seriously sleep deprived if you didn’t notice these before,’ I joke. ‘Seriously.’ He’s definitely making up for lost time, copping a pretty good feel down there. ‘Aren’t these a bit kinky for work? Not that I’m complaining.’ ‘You’re so old. They’re super fashionable. And they’re Balenciaga.’

‘I want you to relax and enjoy it, sweetheart, okay? I need to play with you for a while. I’m just getting started. When you absolutely can’t hold on anymore, stomp your right foot hard on the floor and I’ll make you come so hard, okay?’ ‘Okay,’ I whimper. He kisses the corner of my mouth. ‘I promise I’ll make it worth the wait.’ Hmph. He’d better.

‘I’d give anything,’ he says, ‘to take you home with me and curl myself around you all night.’

‘There are people in this life who are takers by nature, and that makes them drains, and those are the ones we avoid, hmm? But there are also truly good, wonderful people who have so much to give when they’re in a good place, but who may end up draining us all the same when they’re struggling, without either party being remotely aware of it.’

All I know is that I’m utterly besotted with Madeleine Weir, and whatever it looks like, I want her close. I want it to be official.

‘I do social media for them,’ I say, my voice steely AF. ‘I’m not a sex worker, and if I was, it would be precisely none of your business. I also have not one but two trust funds, thanks to my parents’ messy marital situation, so get this straight. I’m independently wealthy, and I’m not interested in Zach’s big, fat bank balance.’ I lean in and deliver my parting shot. ‘I’m only interested in his big. Fat. Cock. Got it?’

‘I love you,’ he says, his voice almost breaking with emotion on the word love, before crashing his lips against mine.

I love Zach. I am totally, outrageously and horrifyingly in love with my older, gorgeous, nerdy boss who is the kindest and most thoughtful man on the planet and the best dad in the world and literally so completely opposite to what I thought my type was that it’s actually laughably ridiculous. Oh Jesus fuck, I love him so much. I, like, adore him.

‘I love you,’ I manage to blurt out in a kind of desperate and not hugely romantic way, but I need him to know, like, yesterday. ‘I love you so much.’

‘Um. I may have, um, lashed out at her.’ He grins and smooths my hair out of my face. ‘That’s my girl. What did you say?’ I smile, and it’s not my armoured-up smile from the past few days. It’s victorious, and amused, and pretty fucking smug. ‘I told her I had not one but two trust funds and that I wasn’t interested in your big, fat bank balance but only in your big, fat, cock.’ His shout of laughter is so unexpected I actually jump, or I would if I wasn’t squashed beneath him. He slaps the pillow hard before kissing me even harder. ‘You little fucking beauty. Oh my God.’

‘Obviously the stakes are high here—I don’t want to break the girls’ hearts again. They wouldn’t survive it. But the reason I’m not coming on more strongly right now is purely that I need you to move at your own pace for your own reasons. It’s not out of any reticence on my part. I’m all in.’

I want to make his pain go away, and not just in the bedroom. (Or his desk.) (Or the shower.) He seems to have some weird theory that I lighten his heart, and if that’s even one percent true then I want to deliver on that. I want to lighten his load a little more every day of my life. And, you know, have multiple Zach-French-branded orgasms while doing it.

‘We’re only getting started. I swear to God I’m going to find a way to get you to utter that immortal word in this bed one day.’ ‘What word is that?’ I wonder aloud. He puts his lips to my ear. ‘Spreadsheet.’