I try not to blush as I recall the way the fire makes his face look like something carved out of shadow and sin. Or the way I allow him to kiss me after he walks me to my room when we’re done.
“What kind of business?” I press, knowing she won’t answer but unable to stop myself from asking.
As expected, Susan just gives me a look that says I’ve overstepped. “The kind that pays for the food you’re eating,” she replies evenly. “Now finish up. I have work to do.”
Right. Must not waste time. I have to get back to… nothing.
“Is he coming back today?” The question slips out before I can stop it.
Susan’s eyes flick to mine, and for a second, I wonder if she hears what I don’t say. Iwantto see him.
“Back?” she questions, somehow making me sound wrong for assuming he’s been gone. Susan smiles and throws her arms out wide. “You may not know how big this house is, Alina. But just because you haven’t seen him doesn’t mean he isn’t here.”
Okay, she got me there. I have no way of knowing how big or how small his home is since I haven’t exactly been exploring every room. But it doesn’t matter whether he’s in the house or not. What I’m really asking is whether he’ll just suddenly show up.
The one thing I know is that he’s the kind of man I need to prepare myself for beforehand. Even though there’s no way to prepare for the devil, I’m doing my best.
I’m already wondering what he’ll ask tonight.
“Have you started the books yet?”
Susan’s question rips me out of my thoughts just as I swallow the last bite of food. I make a vague sound while I finish chewing. “Yep.”
“Which one did you pick?”
I tell her the title but not anything else. Luckily, she doesn’t press or ask what I think about reading a book with the same setting as my life.
Once we’re done and she’s reluctantly allowed me to help her clean up, I return to my room and pick up the book. The afternoons blur like this now. Reading. Waiting. Listening for footsteps that aren’t Susan’s.
This time I make myself comfortable on the bed with Onyx, eager to dive back into the fictional dukedom in an undefined historical period. A poor family with mounting debts. A ruthless duke with a reputation for collecting what he’s owed.
My fingers tighten on the book’s worn spine. The parallel is too obvious to ignore—a woman traded to settle a debt she didn’t create. I should put it down and find something else to occupy my mind. Instead, I turn page after page.
The Duke in the story is nothing like Raffaele in appearance—he’s blond where Raffaele is dark, short where Raffaele is tall. But the way he moves through his world with absolute certainty—the way others bend to his will—hits uncomfortably close to home.
As the story progresses, the Duke’s initial coldness toward his acquisition begins to thaw. He touches her with increasing tenderness, though always maintaining control. The descriptions become more explicit, more intimate.
‘You belong to me now,’ he whispered against the shell of her ear, his hands claiming the curves of her body with possessive heat. ‘Every inch of you is mine to command, mine to pleasure.’
Heat rises to my face as I read, spreading down my neck and across my chest.
I’ve never gotten wet from words on a page. Never felt my nipples harden just because of ink and paper. But my body doesn’t care that this is fiction. It reacts anyway—heat pooling low, slick and undeniable, my thighs pressing together on instinct.
I snap the book shut, setting it hastily on the nightstand as if it’s burned me. Maybe it has. I’ve never read anything like this before.
The few romance novels I borrowed from the library as a teenager were tame, all longing glances and chaste kisses, the bedroom door firmly closed before anything truly intimate occurred.
I don’t think it’s possible to live in this day and age without knowing how sex works. Just because I’ve never done it doesn’t mean my body is ignorant.
Even though I know I shouldn’t, I open the book and continue reading.
It’s not until the sky outside my window turns black and the house settles into its usual silence that I realize something else has become routine. I don’t picture a blond duke anymore.
I picture green eyes, a rough voice, and a hand sliding beneath… oh God. My breath stutters. This isn’t just arousal. It’s recognition.
And that terrifies me.
Chapter 15
