The flowers are almost luminous in the dark. I had the florist spend the better part of an hour getting the arrangement right because I needed it to say something specific.
I know you.Not the version you perform for everyone else. The real one. The one you think no one else can see. I see you, Bambi. I always do.
My eyes move from the bouquet back to her, and I can’t help but stare. Her hair fans across her pillow, andher lips are slightly parted. She looks soft like this, unguarded in a way she never is with me. She gives me her anger, her frustration, and even her lust, but the softness she reserves for herself.
Not for long, though.
I reach out and let my fingers hover just above her cheek. A breath away. Close enough to feel the warmth rising off her skin. Close enough that if she stirred, if she turned even slightly in her sleep, my skin would be on hers.
She’s so deeply asleep that I probably could touch her right now and she wouldn’t even feel it. I could taste and explore every inch of that beautiful fucking body of hers, and she’d wake up in the morning none-the-wiser.
But the thing is, when I touch Bambi, Iwanther to feel it. And taking from her won’t feel nearly as good as when she looks me in the eye and gives it to me of her own volition. I want her, yes. But I want her to want me even more, and I won’t settle for anything less.
I drop my hand and take one last look at the flowers on her nightstand, the buttercream arrangement she’ll see as soon as she opens her eyes. Then, I turn around and leave her room the same way I came. Silently, smoothly, and without a single ounce of remorse.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Dahlia
I wake up burning.My legs are tangled in an intricate web of sheets that are way too fucking hot, and my whole body is slick with a thin layer of sweat. I take a breath, and the air I pull in feels sticky and humid, so reminiscent of the hot summer nights I grew up with in the south, that for a split second, I think I might be dreaming. But when I flick my eyes open and find my dark bedroom staring back at me, I know I’m awake.
I flop over and glance at the clock on the wall. 4:30am. It should still be cool out, so why the fuck is it so hot in here? I glance at my patio door and find it completely shut.
What the hell?
I always sleep with it open. Fallon runs cold, so she blasts the heat at night, and the only thing that stops me from roasting in my sleep is that door that should be fucking open.
I frown at it for a second, then grumble and haul myself out of bed. I must’ve forgotten to do it. It’s a stupidmistake, but it honestly tracks because I’ve been making stupid moves all day. Hitching a ride home with my stalker, being one of them.
Still half-asleep, I pad across the room, grab the handle, and jerk it open. Cool air rushes in immediately, and I sigh with relief as it blows across my overheated skin.
I spin back around and trudge forward, as relieved as I am annoyed that my sleep was interrupted.
I’m about to flop back into bed when my eyes catch on something sitting on my nightstand. Flowers. A shit ton of them. Wrapped in a silk ribbon and all in varying shades of soft yellow. My favorite color. My stomach drops through the floor.
What the actual fuck?
I glare at the flowers, completely baffled. They have to be a figment of my imagination. Some hallucination my par-cooked brain thought up and planted there just to punish me for failing to protect it from Fallon’s nightly broiling session.
Yeah,I think to myself,it’s the middle of the night and I’m tired as hell. I must be imagining it.
I let my brain latch onto that thought as I close my eyes and crawl right back into bed.
I’m not a complete idiot. I know exactly what I’m avoiding, but right now I’m tired, and I can stomach the thought of me having delusions and still fall asleep. What I can’t sleep through is the alternative, because it’s scarier in a very different way.
Three hourslater my alarm goes off and I wake up to the bouquet exactly where it was before, looking even more out of place in the daylight.
Fuck.Definitely real. And definitely from Echo.
I glare at the obnoxiously pretty flowers and clench my jaw. Of course they’re perfect. Of course, they’re anything but generic and are exactly the kind of flowers I’d want. And of course they came from one man I should be staying away from.
I reach for my phone and debate on calling Echo to tell him exactly where he can shove the stems he left for me, but then I think about what my stupid heart will do the minute I hear his voice, and I change my mind, deciding to text him instead.
You were in my room last night.
His three dots appear almost immediately.
Good morning to you too, Bambi.
