I want to argue. But the heat of him is seeping into my frozen limbs, and the exhaustion I've been holding at bay is crashing over me in waves, and honestly? My feet really do hurt.
I force myself to hold his powerful gaze. His arms tighten around me, just slightly, and I pretend not to notice.
They took everything from me at that place. My clothes. My dignity. My hope.
No. Not my hope. I'm still here. Still breathing. Still fighting. Still me.
Even if I'm currently being carried like a bride across the threshold by the man who bought me.
The irony is not lost on me.
Stop it. He's still a monster. A different flavor than Uncle Seamus, maybe, but a monster nonetheless.
The elevator groans to a halt at the fourth floor. The doors screech open, and we step out into a space that makes absolutely no damn sense.
I expected a lair or a dungeon. Something dark and cold and fitting for a man they call the Beast.
Instead, warmth wraps around me like a blanket.
We step into his flat and he slowly lowers me to the floor. My feet sink into a thick rug, the fibers warming my frozen soles.
All four walls are made up of exposed brick. But they’ve been cleaned and sealed, the deep red tones glowing under strategically placed lighting. Steel beams stretch overhead, industrial bones that should feel oppressive but somehow don't. Massive windows span the far wall, floor to ceiling, showcasing the Chicago skyline in all its glittering nighttime glory. The floors are polished concrete softened by thick rugs in deep burgundies and charcoal grays.
A kitchen dominates one corner, all professional-grade appliances and butcher block counters worn smooth from actual use. Someone cooks here. Someone who knows what they're doing.
And books. Books are everywhere. They are stuffed into built-in shelves that climb the walls on one side and the other they sit in stacks on side tables. They are piled on the massive leather sofa that faces the windows. Russian titles I can't read mixed with English translations, philosophy and military history and what looks like an entire collection of Dostoevsky.
What kind of mafia enforcer reads Dostoevsky?
My gaze snags on a shelf near the windows and my feet stop moving without permission from my brain.
A typewriter sits under a small spotlight, gleaming like a museum piece. Old. Beautiful. An Underwood, maybe 1920s, the keys worn smooth by decades of fingers pressing stories into existence.
I know the model because I've loved typewriters since I was a little girl. While other kids wanted dolls and tea parties and pretty dresses, I wanted books and paper and the clack of metal keys. My father thought it was cute. He indulged me with vintage machines and leather journals and all the notebooks I could fill. By the time he realized my love of words would one day turn on him, I already had my degrees and a burning need to expose every rotten secret our family had buried.
My uncle understood the threat I posed to the family's criminal tendencies long before my father did. Tonight is proof he was right to be afraid.
I scan the room. Another typewriter sits near the kitchen with a third on a shelf by the hallway. A fourth is mounted on the wall like art.
Five. Six. I count six typewriters positioned throughout the space, each one illuminated like a holy relic.
Okay, I did not see this coming.
My heart stutters, then squeezes, a strange ache blooming in the space between my ribs that has no business being there.
This is not what I expected in the lair of a beast. This is the home of a man who reads and cooks and collects vintage typewriters like they're sacred objects.
Monsters should live in monster places. This feels like a trap. A really confusing, book-filled, surprisingly cozy trap.
"Your room is this way."
Kon's voice snaps me back to reality. I follow him down a hallway, my bare feet silent on the cool concrete, his jacket swaying around my thighs with each step. The fabric brushes against my skin, soft and warm, still carrying his scent, and I catch myself breathing it in again before I can stop myself.
Damn it, Onyx. Seriously?
His head turns slightly. Those black eyes drop to where I'm clutching the lapel near my nose, and heat floods my cheeks fast enough to make me dizzy.
His dark hair has started to fall loose from where he had it tied back, strands framing the sharp line of his jaw, and the look he gives me is pure predator. Hungry. Possessive. The beast beneath the skin surfacing for just a moment before he banks it and looks away.
