I try to think about the things that turned me on the most about her. The smell of coconut in her hair when she’s freshly showered. The fluttering of her eyes when her head rolled back in an orgasm. The shape of her mouth when she called my name. The softness of her touch when she clung to me.

There were too many things I find sexy and utterly irresistible about her. From the twitch in her nose to the slight bite of her lip and straight to the twinkle in her eyes.

So when it comes down to a specific answer, it’s easy. “Everything,” I say.

“Everything?” she asks, voice laced with confusion.

“Your passion, your darkness, your fire, and even your damn stubbornness. I find all of them sexy and there isn’t a thing I would change about you. So yes, everything.”

Her lips part and her eyes soften with deep affection before she turns her gaze away as if hiding her reaction.

“You’re touched, aren’t you?” I poke her arm.

“Shut up.” Her cheeks turn crimson.

I smile. “Pay me back, sweetheart.”

“Pay you back?”

“Yeah. Tell me what you like most about me.”

“No.”

It’s my turn look at her twice. “No?”

She lifts her chin in defiance, eyes glinting. “It’s a secret.”

“You don’t get to keep secrets from me.”

“Yes, I do.” She lay her head on my arm. “I can’t have you lose interest in me.”

“Believe me, that will never happen.”

“Still no. You need a challenge, remember? I’ll be that challenge and more.”

I smile to myself. This is why Elsa is one a kind. This is why she’ll always be mine.

No one understands me as much as she does.

Her breathing calms down and she yawns. “I’d kill for something to eat right now.”

And then her eyes flutter closed. Her slender body snuggles onto my side and her chest rises and falls in a steady rhythm.

I probably exhausted her. It was my goal since the beginning.

The only way to stop Elsa from thinking about the dark reality is to distract her. That’s why I claimed her virgin arse, came one more time in her pussy, and then I ate her out to relax her even more.

She whined, saying she has to go back to yoga if I continue fucking her all the time in different positions.

I stroke the blonde strands off her forehead and place a kiss onto the top of her head.

Her stomach growls so loud. She winces, groaning softly.

I said Agnus would return, but it’s been nearly two days.

My initial reasoning is that he won’t do something that will throw him completely out of Ethan’s grace. Leaving us here for two days is extreme even if he wanted to teach Elsa a lesson and force her to not talk about her mother’s death.

I’m still sure he wouldn’t risk Ethan’s wrath, though.

Did he somehow miscalculate something?

While I kept Elsa distracted with sex, we’re both losing our energy. We can only survive on water for so long before it becomes a problem. We’re lucky this place isn’t freezing like the outside, but I can feel the cold seeping through my bones from the ground.

“Do you regret it?” she murmurs, her tiny hands gripping my arm.

I like how she’s holding on to me with all her might. Her entire body clings to mine like it’s the most natural place to be.

“Regret what?” I ask.

“Getting to know me. Pursuing me. All of it.” A stuttering breath chokes out of her. “If you stayed away from me, you wouldn’t be here.”

“I regret nothing, sweetheart, least of all knowing you.”

“You said you regretted two things from the past and I’m the third.”

“Hmm. Do you store everything I tell you?”

“Yeah,” she says wryly. “I guess I do.”

I consider not telling her, but it’s useless to build a wall between me and Elsa. Besides, it’s better to keep her distracted.

“When I was a child, I always wanted to tell Alicia to leave Jonathan. I didn’t because I saw how much she loved him, and I regret not speaking up. My second regret is not fighting to stay with you when you pushed me out of this room. My third regret is believing you were dead and not searching for you.”

She remains silent, but nods.

“How about you?” I ask slowly. “Any regrets?”

For a second, I believe she went back to sleep, but then her quiet voice drifts around me. “I regret not telling Dad about the subtle way Ma abused me. She took me to swim in the lake Eli drowned in and kept me underwater until I thought I would die. She hit me when I didn’t listen to her. Back then, I didn’t say anything because I was scared Dad would be mad at her and they’d fight. It wasn’t the right thing to do. If Dad knew about the way she treated me, he would’ve sent her to the psych ward. She wouldn’t have hurt Knox, Teal, and you.”

“You were a child and loved your mother.”

“Do you think love gives you the right to compromise?”

“I don’t know. Do you?”

“Sometimes, yes.”

She grips me tighter as she talks about her childhood and the memories she repressed for so long. Most of them are happy memories about her older brother and her father and even her Uncle Reg and Uncle Agnus.

Talking is her way of distraction.

I force myself to focus on her words instead of how much I want to spread her legs and fuck her once more. The only reason I stop myself is because we need the energy we have left.

Survival is such a fucking bitch.

“I’m glad I met you back then,” she says after a while. “You were my light in the darkness.”

My chest expands with a mixture of strange feelings. I never thought there would be a day Elsa would call me her light, even in past tense.

I was always the shadow to her darkest desires and I thought I was fine with that. Turns out, I’m a selfish bastard who wants it all. Both her light and her darkness.

Her best and her worst.

Her everything.

“And now?” I ask.

“Now you’re just you.” She sighs.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning you drive me fucking crazy, but I love every second of it.”

I grin. “You love every second of it, huh?”

“Yes, dickhead.” She shoves me, but then digs her fingers into my pullover and draws me closer to rest her cheek on my arm. Her skin is warm.

“I meant it the other day, loving me is a one way road. You can’t go back.”

“Oh, I know…I won’t...” Her voice is quiet.

She falls back asleep. We remain like that for half an hour until she starts mumbling something in her dreams.

“Elsa?” I cradle her cheeks and pause at the burn in them.

I thought the flush and the heat were only because of how thoroughly I fucked her.

Is she having a fever?

“Elsa, open your eyes.”

“I love you, Aiden. I really, really do.” She tightens her small hands in my pullover one more time before they fall on her side.

Fuck! Fuck!

I take her hand in mine; they’re feverish, too.

“Have you been running in the rain again, Elsa?” I curse under my breath.