Except he's not sleeping.
The realization hits me like a wave of heat when I hear it. Low. Rhythmic. The unmistakable sound of his hand moving under the sheet, stroking himself with a deliberate pace that makes my mouth go dry.
A rumble of pleasure escapes his throat, and my heart rate spikes so hard I can feel my pulse throbbing in my neck.
He's touching himself.
I should close the door. I know I should. This is private, intimate, a moment I have no right to witness. But my hand freezes on the wood and my feet refuse to move and I stand there like a voyeur, watching the moonlight play across his skin while he chases his pleasure in the darkness.
His breathing grows ragged, each exhale carrying a roughness that makes heat flood between my thighs. A groan escapes him, deep and primal, the sound of a man lost in sensation. His hips roll upward, pressing into his own grip, and I watch the sheets shift with each movement.
And then my name leaves his lips.
"Katriana."
Moaned like a prayer. Like I am his salvation. Like I am the image burning behind his closed eyes while he works himself toward release.
The sound of my name in that voice, rough with desire and need, sends liquid heat rushing through my body. I press my thighs together against the ache that pulses there, wet and wanting in ways I haven't felt in years. Maybe ever. My hand flattens against the door frame, steadying myself as my knees threaten to buckle.
I freeze, mesmerized by the sight of his rippling muscles, the movement beneath the sheet, the outline of his thickness in his grip. His harsh groans grow louder.
I want to go to him. I want to strip in front of him, slip over the top of his lap and slowly sink down over his thickness and take him all the way inside me. I want to feel the burn of him taking my virginity. I want to feel. I don't care if it hurts. The pain won't last. The pleasure from his enormous size will.
The urge rises in me like a tide, fierce and overwhelming. I want to push this door open and cross that moonlit room and climb into his bed. I want to replace his hand with mine, with my mouth, with my body. I want to hear him moan my name again while he's buried inside me.
But I can't.
I'm not ready. I don't trust him. I don't trust myself.
I shut my eyes and swallow thickly. My heart thuds so loud I can barely hear over the rush of blood in my ears.
One kiss and I'm already unraveling. One night in his penthouse and I'm pressed against a door like a desperate woman, watching him pleasure himself to thoughts of me. If I go to him now, I'll lose whatever leverage I have. Whatever control I have over my life at this moment. I'll become just another woman who fell for a Moses man's pretty words and dangerous smile.
I won't survive that again.
Adrenaline prickles from my toes to my fingertips.
I close the door silently, my fingers trembling as I ease it shut with a soft click that sounds deafening in the silence of my room. I stand there for a long moment, my forehead pressed against the wood, my breath coming in shallow gasps that I can't seem to control.
His groan echoes in my memory. The way he said my name. The hunger in that single word.
I retreat to my bed on unsteady legs and climb beneath sheets that feel too soft and smell too clean and do nothing to quiet the fire burning beneath my skin. I lie on my back and stare at the ceiling and try to think of anything except the man on the other side of that door.
It doesn't work.
Every time I close my eyes, I see him. Moonlight on bare skin. The sheets pooled at his waist. The rhythm of his hand and the roughness of his breath and the way my name sounded like worship on his lips.
I press my thighs together and feel the slick evidence of my arousal. My hand drifts toward my belly, fingers itching to slide lower, to give myself the release my body screams for. But I stop before I reach the waistband of these silk pajamas, some stubborn pride refusing to let me fall that far.
If I touch myself tonight, it will be to thoughts of him. And I'm not ready to admit that I want him that badly.
I lie awake until dawn bleeds across the Chicago skyline, body on fire, his groans of pleasure echoing in my head.
He wants me.
I want him.
But wanting and having are two different things, and I learned a long time ago that the distance between them can swallow you whole if you're not careful.
