“But you can talk about other women? Saying you’ve never… before…” I squeeze my eyes shut, pressing my fingers againstmy temples. This isn’t important. I shouldn’t even care about who else he’s fucked and how. It certainly shouldn’t make me feelgoodthat he just admitted we shared something for the first time, that he’s never been inside a woman bare before, never given her his…
What the fuck is wrong with me?Why do I suddenly feel special over something so insane. Cherished?
I’m losing my mind.
“I’m not sleeping with you,” I hiss. “Where is the guest room?”
“I will not allow?”
"Where is it?" I nearly scream the question, my sanity feeling as if it’s hanging on by a thread. "If I can’t leave, then I need my own room. I need space. I need?—"
Ilya’s jaw tightens, and I think I see a flash of disappointment in his eyes. Hurt, even, which is something I wouldn’t have thought him capable of.
I don’t care.
Good. Let him be hurt. Let him feel a fraction of what I'm feeling.
He draws in a slow breath. “Follow me,” he says finally, and leads me down the hall. I follow, keeping distance between us. He leads me to another door and opens it to reveal another bedroom—smaller than the master but still luxurious. There’s a king-size bed, more expensive furniture, another wall of windows.
"There's a bathroom through there," he says, pointing. "Everything you need should be in the closet and drawers. The things I purchased for you are all in here. If you need anything else?—"
"I won't." I cross my arms protectively as I move past him into the room, my teeth clenched. He stands in the doorway,looking at me. I can feel him wanting to say something, wanting to reach for me.
"Goodnight, Mara," he says finally.
I don't respond. I just stand there, hugging myself, waiting for him to leave.
He does, stepping back into the hallway. But he doesn't close the door. He just stands there, looking at me with an expression I can't read and don't want to understand.
I cross the room and close the door myself, almost slamming it in his face. My hand finds the lock and turns it, the click loud in the quiet apartment.
I’m locking him out. Locking out what just happened. Putting a physical barrier between us even though I know it's meaningless, childish, even. If he wanted to get in, he could. The lock is just a symbol, a gesture, a way of sayingI don't want you here.
It’s his home, but if he won’t let me leave, then I want a place he can’t get to me.
I strip off my clothing, leaving it in a pile as I go to the bathroom to clean up for the second time tonight. This time I get into the huge shower, letting the irritatingly perfect water pressure crash down on me as I scrub myself over and over in an attempt to get him off of me. I wash his cum from between my thighs, and I stifle a moan as my fingers bump against my oversensitive clit.
It was so good. So fucking good. I’ve never had sex like that before, and I probably never will again. And I can’t even claim he forced me.
I had a choice. In that moment, when I grabbed him and kissed him, I had a choice. I could have walked away, demanded the guest room, locked myself in here and refused to engage.
But I didn't. I chose to kiss him. Chose to have sex with him. And now I have to live with that choice.
I stand there under the hot spray, trying to understand how everything has come apart so quickly, trying to reconcile the woman I thought I was with the woman who just killed someone and then slept with her stalker.
My life as I knew it is over. I'm in Ilya Sorokov's apartment, under his protection, bound to him by obsession and violence and my own terrible choices.
I can't take any of it back.
The black rose is still in my apartment, wilted now. I should have thrown it away when I had the chance.
But I didn't. Just like I didn't walk away from him tonight. Just like I didn't make any of the choices I should have made.
And now I'm here, in a locked room in my stalker's penthouse, trying to figure out how to survive a nightmare that’s as pleasurable as it is terrifying.
18
ILYA
