“Miss, you’re home late,” Stewart commented as I let myself in and wandered through to the kitchen. “Good day at school?” He gave my obviousnot-school uniform a pointed look, and I blushed.
“Uh, something like that. Are the DNA donors still in the city?”
The elderly servant smothered a smile and nodded. “Yes, I believe they are due to return tomorrow or the next day.”
“Cool,” I murmured, looking around and feeling a bit lost. “Uh, do you think I could order pizza for dinner or something?”
“Absolutely, Miss,” Stewart replied with a warm smile. From a drawer, he pulled out a stack of paper menus and presented them to me. “Master Oscar was particularly fond of Romano’s, but I’ll let you choose. Just call down when you decide and I’ll get it ordered on the house account for you.”
Smiling back at him gratefully, I took the menus and headed up to my room. Nightmares or not, I was determined not to go fleeing into Beck’s embrace again tonight. Sooner or later, I needed to learn to face my demons alone.
After my pizza and a long shower, I decided to tackle some school work in the hope that it would send me to sleep. After about an hour of staring at quadratic equations, my eyelids were drooping like they were coated in lead.
Satisfied that I was tired enough to actually sleep, I flicked off the lights and crawled into the middle of my huge bed. It took a couple of tosses and turns, but eventually I found a comfy position and closed my eyes.
Gloved fingers bit into the soft skin of my neck, squeezing tighter and tighter, cutting off my air supply until—
“Fuck!” I yelled, sitting bolt upright and gasping greedy lungfuls of air. “Fuck, fuck, shit, fuck.” Tears streamed from my eyes, and I began to shake as residual terror washed over me in waves. “This can’t keep happening,” I sobbed into my arms as I hugged my knees.
Dimly, I heard my phone vibrate softly—again—but I ignored it. Beck had been messaging all afternoon, and I’d been clearing the notifications without reading them. He needed to learn that I wasn’t a leg of mutton that he and his friends could fight over like hungry wolves. Checking his messages would have only made my resolve crumble, especially after how sweet he’d been last night in the cinema. The way we had kissed... I groaned, but happily let the confusing, fuzzy emotions push aside the fear that had been dominating me.
Something made a sound outside my windows, and I startled. Sitting there, frozen, I waited. What had it been? It sounded like...
There it was again! It sounded like someone had just pried the intruder mesh off my windows. Holy shit, someone was breaking into my room!
Frantic, I scrambled out of bed and hunted for a weapon. Stupid me, I’d left my beautiful new gun at Beck’s house so the next best thing was a heavy, carved wooden lamp.
I yanked the shade off it, tossing it aside, then brandishing the base like a bat as I waited for my intruder to enter the room.
Seconds later, the window clicked open, and a huge, dark shape slipped through and pushed the gauze curtains aside.
I didn’t hesitate for a second. With a wild battle cry, I swung my lamp and smashed it into the intruder’s head. Or, I tried to. He was taller than I’d expected, and I mostly hit shoulder.
Good thing I did too.
“What the fuck, Butterfly?” Beck roared, clutching his shoulder and stumbling back a few steps. “What the hell did you just hit me with? Is that alamp?”
Gaping in horror, I dropped my weapon and clapped my hands over my mouth. “Oh my god, Sebastian.” Laughter started to bubble up and I did my best to swallow it down. “I’m so sorry, I thought you were coming to murder me! Wait, what the fuck are you doing climbing through my damn window like a creeper? I’m on the second floor! How did you even get up here? Why didn’t you use the damn door, you psychopath?”
Beck just scowled at me and stalked across the room to flick myotherlamp on and inspect his injuries. “I think you cut me,” he muttered, pulling his shirt off to get a better look at his upper arm. Dear God. Drool.
“Beck!” I snapped, desperately trying to keep my hungry eyes off his tatted up muscles. “Answer me!”
He huffed and actually rolled his eyes. He broke into my room like a fucking cat burglar but he wasrolling his eyesat me? “If you had checked your phone, you would have known I was coming,” he informed me with a sarcastic lilt. “Besides the fact that we just spent all damn day teaching you to defend yourself and you still decided to attack with alamp?”
I sighed and rubbed my eyes as I flopped back down on my bed and cuddled a pillow. “Why are you here, Sebastian?” I askedagain. “I think I made it pretty clear I didn’t want to see you tonight.”
“Yeah, well I wanted to see you.” He shrugged, sitting on the side of my bed and peering at me with way too much insight and understanding. “How were you sleeping, Butterfly?” he challenged me, propping his leg up and leaning over me as I lay back down to cuddle my pillow defensively. “No bad dreams?”
I scowled at him. “You know full well I wasn’t sleeping,” I whispered in a hoarse voice. Fear and desperation threatened to overwhelm me again, and I clenched my jaw to force them away.
Beck just gave me a knowing look, then stood up and stripped his jeans and boots off.
“Uh,” I stuttered, not even trying to stop from staring. “What are you doing?”
He kicked his clothes aside, then climbed over me and wriggled under the blankets. “What? I’m not sleeping in jeans, Butterfly. Now shut up, you actually have to attend school tomorrow.” His strong arms gathered me up, and I released my pillow as he tucked me into his warm embrace.
Yeah, I was still pissed at him and annoyed as fuck that he turned up uninvited ... but I was so glad he was here. My whole body seemed to sigh as the tension dropped away and the steady beat of Beck’s heart lulled me to sleep.
