Safe and Sound

Chapter 3

My eyes fluttered as the shaft of slender rays of the light slid through the opening of the cave. I creased my eyebrows and buried my face somewhere I couldn't fathom as I tried to get away from chagrin beam of light.

The hot breath of someone kissed my neck, pumping heat and giving the tingling sensation all through my body, all over again. A hand was precisely wrapped around my waist and the other arm positioned on a side of my face, pressing my face against a chest as I could hear the synchronized, rhythmic beat of the heart, buzzing me off to a new delirious world. A tailcoat was cloaked around us, adhering the two bodies craving for warmth. I snuggled closer to the figure as my grip around its huge waist tightened. I inhaled the soothing scent and buried my face into the person's chest deeper and deeper. Until-

-the realization hit me like a stab in my guts that what I was snuggling into was not a comfortable pillow, no. It was the strong, hard figure of my employer, Mr Rikkard Ambrose, I shifted in my place as I tried jerk away from his body.

But I could only try.

Those arms gripped my body firmly as if I was worth a King's ransom, like I was his precious little money earned by sweating of hours and hours, like I was a lavish chest of the jewels which he extracted from underneath the depths of the ocean, like I was the priceless Alexandrite stone with the exquisite quality of changing colours with the few strokes of light, so precious to his dear heart - if he had any, of course - that he never intended to let go of.

But I was none of those. I was me, Lillian Linton, a human in flesh and blood, but right now I had to get away from him for my own good.

No, no, it's not that I've come onto the terms that I should turn a blind eye and go away from him and shouldn't show my face to him until the next ten years, leaving for his and my own good, sacrificing life and the whole caboodle they display in the cheap romance novel.

None of the above was my reason to leave. After all, I wasn't a heroine of some cheap romance novel. My life was far more adventurous and realistic.

My reason to leave him was simple, quite simple.

I needed to powder my nose - not to mention - very badly.

I untangled my arms off him and moved my face away from his chest. An uncanny voidness filled inside me with a tug in my heart. I looked towards him as he looked quite personable with eyes closed accentuating his dark, long and thick lashes, his jaw clenched with his lips slightly parted, a strand of his hair dangling below his hairline and almost touching his left eyebrow, his flexed muscles quite prominent in his thin white shirt and the chest of his heaving ceremoniously with a heart inside beating with a tranquilize beat.

Reluctantly, I placed both of my hands on his chest and tried to move away from him but to no avail. I tried again and again with all my might but he wouldn't budge.

Bloody hell! What was this man made of?!

I had to get away from him. If I don't, that would the end of the world.

Lilly, do something!

My inner voice yelled as I began to loose my curb.

This time I held his hands gently. My hands followed the length of his arm as I cordially entangled his hands off me. When our hands clashed against each other and the skin of ours came into direct contact, the blood rushed throughout my whole body and I felt a tingling sensation in my stomach which was.. very bad, indeed very bad considering the fact that I was leashing and doing my best not to empty my bladder right now.

Shrugging off all those feelings and his grip - reluctantly, of course - I managed to get out of his hold.

When I sleekly placed the hands of his on his side, I heard his voice or rather a mumble.