She handed me her journal. That alone told me it had to be good. She pressed the notebook into my hand without looking at me, her fingers retreating almost immediately. A bright flush crept across her cheeks.
Oh.
She’d been a naughty girl this week.
I opened the journal, letting the pages fall naturally beneath my thumb.
“Take a seat in my office,” I said smoothly.“I’ll join you shortly.”
I watched her as she shuffled down the hallway, shoulders slightly hunched, the familiar mixture of anticipation and embarrassment written plainly in the way she moved. When she reached the office door, she hesitated for the briefest moment before slipping inside and disappearing from view.
The house fell quiet again.
I lifted the journal and began tracing her handwriting with my finger, following each line carefully, unwilling to miss a single word she’d chosen to give me.
Chapter 7
Stella
Before I sat in my usual place on the couch, I lifted my skirt from behind and lowered myself carefully onto the cool leather. The material sighed softly beneath my weight, the smooth surface sending a faint shiver through me as it met the bare skin of my thighs.
I ran my fingers slowly over the cream upholstery, tracing the neat stitching before my fingertip dipped into the padded button at the centre.
I bit my lip.
The man had style.
Everything about the room reflected him—the polished wood shelves, the low lighting, the faint scent of expensive cologne lingering in the air, clean and warm and unmistakably masculine.
He was dangerously addictive.
I only needed to think of the sharp cut of his jaw to begin drooling. It grew worse by the day. The abstinence. My parents’tight grip on my life. The suffocating feeling of being watched and monitored.
I was sick of feeling like an invalid.
All my focus and energy seemed to gravitate towards Maddox Lexington.
The only person I could speak to without feeling like a freak of nature.
I knew what I did was wrong.
I slowly licked my lips.
The things I wrote in my journal were vile and depraved. I couldn’t tell him all the thoughts that ran through my mind. So I chose to write them down instead, letting the ink carry the things my mouth never could.
The words felt safer to share from there. Away from guilt and shame.
I glanced at my phone.
7:11.
He was still reading.
A slow warmth spread through my chest at the thought of him turning each page, his long fingers brushing across my handwriting.
I stretched my legs out along the couch and rubbed my bare cheeks against the leather. My head tipped back, curls spilling across the armrest as my breathing gradually slowed.
It had been so long since I’d felt anyone’s touch.
