Ten
Katriana
Sleep refuses to come.
I've been lying in this impossibly soft bed for what feels like hours, staring at the ceiling while my mind runs circles around itself like a dog chasing its own tail. Someone left silk pajamas folded at the foot of the bed, a matching set in pale blue that feels like water against my skin. They fit perfectly, which means Drake had someone buy them specifically for me, and I don't know what to do with that information.
I'll have to tell him tomorrow that I need to go back to my apartment for the rest of my clothes. The thought of wearing the same blouse and slacks to work that I wore today makes my skin crawl, but it's not like I had time to pack a bag before my life got upended by a man with a warm touch and a contract that might as well be written in blood.
The mattress dips and cradles my body in ways my old bed never did. Too soft. Too accommodating. The sheets smell like expensive detergent, something clean and faintly floral that probably costs more per bottle than I used to spend on groceries in a week. Everything about this room is wrong in the way thatluxury feels wrong when you've spent years convincing yourself you don't deserve it.
I spent too long in my dingy apartment with its scratchy sheets and cheap soap. Too long falling asleep to the sound of my neighbor's bass-heavy music bleeding through thin walls and cop sirens wailing in the distance like wolves calling to each other across concrete canyons. Here, the silence presses against my eardrums like cotton, thick and suffocating in its perfection.
I don't know how to relax in a place like this.
I roll onto my belly and prop my chin on my folded arms, staring out the window at the Chicago skyline. The city glitters in the distance, all those tiny lights representing lives being lived while I lie here in a stranger's penthouse trying to figure out how I got here. The buildings fade into the darkness of the night sky where the lights end, a blur of shadow and stars that makes me feel very small and very alone.
The kiss replays in my mind before I can stop it.
His hands cupping my face with a tenderness that contradicted everything I thought I knew about him. The warmth of his palms against my cheeks, calloused and strong and impossibly gentle. The way he looked at me like I was precious, like I mattered, like I was more than just a contract and a convenient solution to his problems.
The taste of desire and lust on his tongue.
I press my face into the pillow and groan with frustration. My body aches with a need I don't want to acknowledge, heat pooling low in my belly every time I remember the way he pressed me against those bookshelves and ground his hips into mine. I'm aroused despite myself, despite every rational thoughtscreaming that this is a terrible idea, despite the fact that his brother's betrayal still burns like acid in the back of my throat.
I want to leave.
The thought surfaces with sharp clarity, and I turn it over in my mind like a stone in my palm. I want to walk out that door and never look back. I want to pretend this whole nightmare never happened, that I never wrote that wish on a scrap of paper and dropped it into a velvet-lined box. That Drake Moses never crashed into my life with his silver hair and his dangerous smile and his promises of protection.
But there are problems with that plan.
One: the doorman would never let me out. I'm not foolish enough to believe that Drake's security doesn't have orders to keep me contained within these walls. I signed a contract. I belong to him now, at least on paper, and men like Drake don't let their possessions wander off into the night.
And two: Victor's face flashes through my memory, his pale blue eyes and his reptilian smile and the threat that slithered from his lips like poison. Gemma's name on his tongue. The promise of what he would do to her if I didn't comply.
I have nowhere to go. Nowhere that Victor can't find me. Nowhere that doesn't put my family in danger.
This gilded cage is the safest place I've been in years, and I hate that it's true.
I slide off the bed and pad barefoot to the window, pressing my palm against the cool glass and watching my breath fog the surface. The city sprawls below me, indifferent to my turmoil, living its life while mine hangs suspended in uncertainty. I turnand pace back toward the bed, my bare feet silent against the plush carpet, then reverse course and do it again.
Back and forth. Window to bed. Bed to window.
My restless circuit eventually brings me to the door between our rooms.
I stop there, my heart hammering against my ribs as I stare at the dark wood. I hadn't noticed it during the tour, too overwhelmed by the penthouse and its cold beauty to pay attention to the details. But now it looms in my vision like a threshold to another world, and I can't stop thinking about what lies on the other side.
Who lies on the other side.
The door is open a fraction. Just an inch, maybe less, a sliver of darkness that shouldn't mean anything but means more than I should care to dissect. I don't know if he left it that way on purpose or if it simply didn't latch properly when he closed it, but the gap calls to me with an intimacy that makes my skin prickle with awareness.
I should close it. Should push it shut and go back to bed and pretend I never noticed.
Instead, I lean closer.
His room is dark, washed in shades of shadow and silver where moonlight spills through the massive windows. The light from a small nearby lamp catches on the rumpled sheets, on the dark wood of his furniture, on the outline of the man stretched across that massive bed.
Drake lies on his back, the sheets pooled at his waist, his chest bare and gleaming in the pale light. I can see the definition of hismuscles, the silver chest hair scattered across his pectorals, the way his body rises and falls with each breath. He's beautiful in a way that makes my chest ache, all power and control even in sleep.
