“The steam,” I manage to say, my voice sounding like it’s coming from someone else, someone miles away. “I just… I needed to clear my head.”
Noah stands up, slow and predatory. He crosses the room toward me, his movements precise, his eyes narrow and searching. He stops just inches away, invading my personal space with the entitlement of a man who thinks he’s already won.
He leans in, his nose brushing against my temple, inhaling deeply.
I freeze. My heart is a frantic bird hitting the bars of its cage.Please don’t smell him. Please don’t find the rot beneath the floral soap.
“You smell… different,” Noah murmurs, his hand coming up to trace the line of my jaw. His fingers are dry and cold, nothing like the rough, burning heat of Kai’s palms. “Like salt. And something… wild.”
He’s looking for a reason to break me. I can see it in the twitch of his jaw, the way his thumb presses just a little too hard against my skin, pinning me in place.
“It’s the island, Noah,” I whisper, my eyes fixed on his silk tie because I can’t look him in the eye without him seeing the monster’s reflection in my pupils. “The humidity. It gets into everything.”
“It certainly does,” he says, his grip tightening. He slides his hand down to the collar of my robe, his knuckles brushing the place where my pulse is thrumming like a goddamn siren. “It gets under the skin. It makes people do things they wouldn’t normally do. It makes them forget who they belong to.”
He jerks me closer, his face inches from mine.
“Did you forget, Scarlett? While you were in there behind a locked door? Did you forget whose name is on the contract?”
I shake my head, a small, pathetic movement. “No. I didn’t forget.”
“Good.” He leans down, his mouth hovering over mine, and I have to fight the urge to gag. Every instinct I have is screaming that this is wrong, that this man is a stranger, and the only person who has the right to be this close is currently watching us from the trees.
He kisses me—a hard, possessive claim that tastes like scotch and desperation. I stay still, a statue of silk and secrets, waiting for him to finish.
When he pulls back, his eyes are dark with a frustrated, ugly hunger. He looks down at my neck, his gaze lingering on the spot where Kai bit me, now hidden by the shadow of my hair.
“You’re flushed,” he mutters, his hand sliding down to my waist, pulling me into his hip. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you looked like you’d just been fucked.”
The word is a slap. I flinch, and his eyes flare with a sudden, sharp realisation.
“Noah, stop,” I choke out.
“Why?” He laughs, a jagged, mean sound. “We’re getting married in five days. I can do whatever the fuck I want with you.”
He starts to pull the tie of my robe, his movements frantic and clumsy compared to the lethal grace I just survived. He wants to mark me. He wants to erase the feeling he can’t quite name but knows is there.
And then, the light in the room flickers.
Just once. A quick, sharp dip into darkness before the power hums back to life.
Noah freezes, his head snapping toward the balcony.
The door that was closed is open again. Just a crack. A sliver of the night is bleeding into the room, and the curtains are dancing in a wind that wasn’t there a second ago.
“I closed that,” Noah says, his voice dropping an octave, the jealousy replaced by a sudden, sharp edge of fear.
I look at the door, and for a heartbeat, I see it—a shadow taller than the rest, a silhouette that doesn’t belong to the furniture.
He’s right there. He’s watching Noah touch me. He’s watching the man he hates put hands on the woman he owns.
I feel a strange, sick thrill of terror and triumph.
“Maybe it was the wind,” I whisper, though I know it’s a lie.
Noah lets go of me, stepping toward the balcony, his hand reaching for the heavy glass handle. “Stay here.”
He steps out into the dark, his white shirt a target against the blackness of the jungle. I stand in the middle of the room, my robe hanging open, my heart hammering against my ribs, waiting for the sound of a struggle. Waiting for the scream.
