“No,” I protest, shaking my head. “Absolutely not.”
Bea yowls again, flicking her tail.
“Thatis your dinner,” I remind her firmly. “That is thegoodcat food that Justin bought for you. The expensive cat food. And that is what you’re eating.”
She gives the dish on the kitchen floor a disdainful sniff. For a single moment, I think I’ve won, and she’ll at least try it. But then she lets out a low growl and starts pawing at the tile, as if to bury it.
“You’re impossible!” I tell her, throwing my hands up in exasperation. “Why do you want the other stuff, anyway? This one hasreal chickenin it. See?”
I hold up the can and point at the ingredients, like that will prove something. I know she can’t read, but it’s the principle of the matter.
It’s no use. She stares at me, unimpressed, and sits down beside her bowl, tail curling around her paws. I can tell that for her, it’s the principle of the matter, too. She doesn’t want any of the good, healthy food that Justin bought her. She wants the gross stuff.
“Fine!” I snatch her dish from the ground, dump the untouched food in the sink, and reach for a can of the cheap brand.
When Justin picked up supplies for her, he bought an absurd range of canned food, from the most expensive veterinarian-recommended premium stuff all the way down to the cheapest, off-brand sludge.
Apparently, Bea only wants the sludge.
“This stuff smells terrible, by the way,” I mutter, spooning some into a fresh dish. But Bea seems tolikethe smell. She winds around my legs, mewing and rubbing against my ankles, begging loudly until I set the food down in front of her.
It’s impressive just how adorable she is. I watch as she eats her dinner in tiny, happy bites, purring loudly with every mouthful. When she’s finished licking the dish clean, she arches her back in a leisurely stretch, yawns, and then prances over to my favorite armchair, where her two toy bees are already waiting. She jumps up and takes her time circling the space, kneading the fabric and testing the stuffing before she curls up in a ball, hiding her face with her tail and instantly falling asleep.
Adorable.
I fiddle with the belt of my robe, knowing I should go to bed, too.
There’s only one problem, though. My nerves are overstimulated, my body humming with leftover heat from my encounter with Sebastian. I feel hypersensitive, my skin too warm, and my lips still burn from that ghost of a kiss. Just a brush of his mouth against mine, and somehow, it’s all I can feel, all I think about.
You could have him. His hot touches and his ice-cold anger. It could be yours. All four of them could be yours.
I squeeze my eyes shut. No. What I need is a littleme time. A gratuitously smutty book, and some time alone in my bed, before I go to sleep. That’s what I need.
That, and some privacy. Which I’m not entirely convinced I have anymore.
My apartment feels different, somehow. I can’t shake the feeling I’m being watched. Like I’m not actually alone.
Hugging my arms around myself, I frown at my ceiling. Everything looks normal. Exactly the same.
Walking slowly around my apartment, I scan each room for changes, for anything that shouldn’t be there. There’s a smoke detector set into the living room ceiling, and a matching one in the kitchen. I stop beneath one, suddenly suspicious. Did they always look like that? Have they changed at all?
My fingers drum against my skin.
Only one way to be sure. I pull my cellphone out of my robe pocket and call his number before I can overthink it.
Sebastian picks up on the first ring. “I didn’t expect you to fold so soon,” he says, sounding smug.
I take a breath to steady myself, trying to ignore what his voice does to me. “I need you to be completely honest with me.”
“Always,” he answers. But I can hear a hesitation in his voice, and I wonder if he knows what I’m about to ask.
“Are there any cameras in my apartment?” I ask him, frowning up at the smoke detector. It just squats there in the ceiling, silently.
He answers immediately. “One. Outside your front door, pointed down the stairs so I can see if anyone tries to break in. That’s it.”
Still staring at the smoke detector like it might suddenly move, I walk to my door and open it, taking a few steps down the stairs and then craning my head up to look. Sure enough, there it is. A camera, with a flashing red light.
It looks nothing like a smoke detector. It is, identifiably, a camera.
