“Bedroom’s through there,” I say, nodding down the hall. “I’ll meet you there.”
I watch as she turns, her steps measured as she walks out of view.
I exhale hard.
Why the fuck is my adrenaline spiked?
This fucking girl.
My back hits the door. I close my eyes for a moment.
Inhale.
Exhale.
I push off the door.
I shove the sandwich plate into the fridge, the glass shelf clinking louder than it should. My pulse is still punching bone. I slam the door, lean both palms on the cold stainless steel, and count the seconds it takes to breathe like a normal human.
Five. Ten. Doesn’t work.
She’s in my bed. Not naked, not willing—just pissed off, like a challenge left on the pillow. And I’m standing here acting like I don’t know what to do with myself.
I do know.
She needs to be fucked stupid until her lips don’t know how to form the word no.
But I also want to toss her ass out into the rain and forget the way her pupils dilated when I had her pinned against the wall, the taste of her fear, the way her fingers felt inside my skin.
Both options claw at the same scab. I’m bleeding either way.
I push off the fridge, grab the vodka bottle by the neck, and drink straight from it. The burn is good. The burn is honest.
Doesn’t taste like marshmallows.
The hallway is dark except for the strip of light leaking from under the bedroom door.
I hover outside like the ghost I should be, listening.
No sound. No crying. No footsteps. Just the hum of the building and the rain ticking against the glass.
I nudge the door open.
She’s curled on the far edge of the mattress, knees to chest, facing the window. My shirt swallows her, sleeves bunched in her fist.
Pillows are stacked down the middle—barricade of cotton and denial. I almost laugh. Almost.
I step in. The floor creaks; her shoulders twitch but she doesn’t turn. Good. If she looked at me right now, I’d either crawl over the pillows or put my fist through the wall. Haven’t decided which.
I turn off the lights, strip to boxers, drop my clothes on the chair. Gun under the pillow. The mattress dips when I sit. She freezes tighter, breath held.
“Relax,” I mutter. “I’m not crossing the Great Wall of Ayla.”
She exhales, slow and shaky. “Touch me and I’ll kill you.”
“Copy that.” I lie back, arms behind my head, staring at the ceiling. The vodka’s a warm fog in my veins.
Her breathing evens out, but I know she’s not asleep—same way I know the exact number of steps from bed to door, same way I know how to break her neck with one twist.
