Ugh.
I guzzled a glass of water, then headed back upstairs. Hunger satiated, tiredness had finally made my eyelids heavy, and I thought I might actually be able to sleep.
I glanced at the locked door on my way through the first hall but forced myself to put it aside. I had three months to dig deeper into the Hawks.
If I dared.
I’d passed the first closed door in the second hall when a voice stopped me in my tracks.
“You good?”
I followed the sound of it and realized it was coming from the room next to mine.
And this time, the door was half-open.
I backtracked a couple of steps and pushed the door open further.
Jagger was sprawled out against a blocky wood headboard, his inked chest bare over black sweatpants, an open laptop next to him on the bed.
My gaze locked onto his muscled pecs like my eyes had a mind of their own, and my pussy clenched at the sight of his defined biceps.
“Yeah, I was just hungry.” I was almost surprised my voice sounded so normal when raw hunger was coursing through my veins like a flash flood.
His gaze was hungry, his blue eyes as dark as the deepest part of the ocean.
“I’m hungry too.” He licked his lips. “So come here, little mouse.”
28
CASSIE
I hesitated,then stepped into the room. I supposed if someone had asked, I would have said it was because I had no choice. Because I belonged to the Hawks now, and my part of the bargain was to follow their orders.
But deep down, I knew it wasn’t true. I wanted to get closer to Jagger, like a moth drifting helplessly toward a raging inferno.
The room’s walls were such a dark shade of blue they looked almost black, soft light glowing from both bedside lamps. There was a TV opposite the bed and two bookshelves lined with books and movies, an abstract green-and-blue rug covering the wood floors.
“Afraid I’m going to bite?” he asked.
“Would it matter?”
He lifted his eyebrows in question.
“It’s not like I can say no.” I heard the fear in my voice and hoped he didn’t hear it too.
Hoped he couldn’t tell that it was mingled with excitement.
“Come closer,” he said.
I walked to the edge of the bed, my heart beating so hard it felt like it was slamming against the walls of my chest.
He took my hand and pulled me next to him on the mattress, and if you’d told me two weeks earlier that I could get wet just from the touch of a man’s hand I would have called you crazy.
But I was wet now, the rough skin of his palm creating an erotic friction that made me want to climb him like a ladder.
I was perched on the edge of the mattress, his body only inches from mine, the scent of the outdoors and worn leather drifting through my consciousness, like a memory I was having for the first time.
“There are only two rules to your time here.” He stroked the top of my hand with his thumb. “The first is that youcansay no.”
