“Can you hold me, please?”
Her voice was small and uncertain, so different from the bold, reckless woman who had been testing every corner of the room earlier. I didn’t hesitate. My arms closed around her immediately, drawing her against my chest. She snuggled into me with a soft sigh, her body settling as though she had finally found a place where it was safe to rest.
“Always,” I promised quietly.
Her day had begun at five in the morning, just to escape her parents’house without suspicion. Earlier than I had planned, but this needed to be her choice. Every step had to feel like something she was walking into willingly.
“Why don’t you move in with me? It’s a big old house,” I murmured casually, as if the thought had just crossed my mind.
Her head lifted sharply from my chest. The movement pulled her hair across my arm, and I could see the dark circles beneath her eyes when she looked at me.
“Can’t you get disbarred or something like that?” she asked sceptically, one eyebrow arching.
A smile tugged at my mouth.
“Who knows that I’m your therapist?” I asked.
Her lips parted as the thought landed. I watched the moment the pieces started to connect.
“You’ve never been to my office,” I continued, rubbing my jaw thoughtfully,“and your parents have never paid me.”
Her eyes widened.
“Which means you owe me.”
She shook her head at that, but the stubbornness didn’t last long. Her eyelids were already drooping, the exhaustion finally catching up to her.
“Go to sleep,” I said softly.“You can make it up to me later.”
She grumbled something under her breath that I couldn’t quite make out, but her hand slid up to rest at the back of my neck. I pulled her closer, tightening my hold slightly.
It wasn’t only sex she’d been deprived of.
It was touch.
Simple things. Holding someone. Being held.
The irony of it all wasn’t lost on me. Society loved its moral outrage, loved shaming women into silence. And in doing so it created something far worse—a desperate hunger to be loved, to be wanted, to be seen. More often than not that hunger pushed women straight into the arms of men who were more than happy to exploit it.
Not my Stella.
I pressed a kiss to her cheek and watched the small smile that appeared even in her half-asleep state. After a moment I reached over and dimmed the lights, letting the room sink into a soft, quiet darkness.
I’d wake her as soon as she’d had a little rest.
Chapter 13
Stella
Something woke me, and the moment I shifted, everything came rushing back.
Even after the bath, certain muscles ached, and the lingering memory of being ridden so hard made me throb deep in my belly.
“Stella, are you awake, my sweet?” Maddox whispered, pressing a kiss against my cheek.
My eyes snapped open.
I blinked into the pitch-black room.
