The soreness was still there—a deep, delicious ache between my thighs that pulsed with every movement. My musclesfelt wrung out, exhausted in the best possible way. And my skin. . .my skin still tingled with the ghost of Rook’s touch, as if his fingerprints had been permanently pressed into my flesh.
I'm out of heat.
The realization came with a strange mixture of relief and loss. The desperate, consuming need had faded, leaving behind quiet peace.
Less addiction.
More completion.
I looked down at myself and found white satin. A sleeping gown, delicate and beautiful, with thin spaghetti straps that left my shoulders bare. The fabric skimmed my curves and ended just above my knees. It was the kind of thing I never would have bought for myself.
Too feminine.
Too soft.
Too vulnerable.
But he saw me in this ensemble and that made me feel so loved and taken care of.
He dressed me again.
The thought delivered passionate warmth through my chest.
This man who had orchestrated a prison break, who had killed without hesitation, who had claimed me in front of his entire court. . .this same man had slipped a satin gown over my sleeping body with the tenderness of a lover tucking in his bride.
The contradictions don't bother me anymore.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed, and my bare feet sank into plush carpet. Nina Simone's voice continued to wind through the air, coming from somewhere deeper in the house, beckoning me forward.
But first, the window.
I needed to know where I was.
The balcony tiles were warm beneath my feet, heated by the sun that blazed overhead in a sky so blue it hurt to look at.
I stepped to the railing and gripped the iron. My eyes scanned the landscape below.
Oh.
Paradise.
That was the only word for it.
White sand stretched in a perfect crescent below me, pristine and untouched, meeting water so clear I could see the shadows of coral formations beneath the surface. The blue shifted in gradients—turquoise near the shore, deepening to sapphire, then to a navy so dark it almost looked purple at the horizon.
Palm trees swayed in the breeze. Their fronds rustled with a sound like whispered secrets. Tropical flowers I couldn't name bloomed in explosions of pink, orange, and red along the path that wound from the beach toward what I now realized was a mansion.
His mansion. Our mansion.
I looked left, then right, searching for any sign of civilization beyond this place.
There was nothing.
No boats on the water.
No buildings in the distance.
No aircraft trails in the cloudless sky.
