His mouth ghosts over mine again, barely there.
“Sleep.”
I should tell him not to order me around. Should tell him to move. Should tell him I’m not a dog he gets to pat into obedience.
Instead my hand slides out of his hair and lands on his shoulder, loose and heavy. My body sinks deeper into the mattress. Into the heat of him. Into the room.
The last thing I register before sleep starts dragging me under is the way he looks at me after I stop fighting it.
Too still.
Too intent.
Like I just handed him something without meaning to.
Chapter 37
Ayla
The first thing I register is that Maksim isn’t in bed.
The second is that he’s still in the room.
I don’t open my eyes all the way at first. Just enough to catch the shape of morning through the hotel curtains, pale light cutting weak stripes across the floor and the end of the bed. My body feels heavy, loose with leftover vodka and sleep and the deep, boneless exhaustion that always seems to follow him.
Then I turn.
Something pulls low on my side.
A sharp, hot sting, wrong enough to tear me all the way awake.
I suck in a breath and freeze.
For one second, I just lie there, heart starting to pound for reasons my body understands before my mind does. The sheets are twisted around my legs. His shirt has ridden up one side of me in the night. Something on my hip feels tight. Covered. Tender in a way that doesn’t belong to sex.
My hand slides down instinctively.
Smooth.
Plastic.
My stomach drops.
I push up onto one elbow too fast and the room swims into focus around me—the open suitcase by the door, another one beside it, zipped shut. Dark clothes. Packed.
And Maksim.
He’s sitting in the chair by the window like he’s been there a while.
Dressed.
Awake.
Watching me.
Just watching me wake up.
A horrible, sick little chill works down my spine.
