My heart feels tight, but I keep smiling as I hug him to my chest, stroking the gooseflesh scattered over his skin. “If you’re a ghost, please haunt me forever.”
“Maybe you killed me that first night, and that’s what’s actually happening.”
“No. Dead men aren’t this warm,” I tell him and slide my fingers between his thighs.
It’s such a sunny afternoon, yet the breeze keeps us from overheating. Just us, the occasional squawking of seagulls, and the rumble of the waves.
Victor deepens the kiss, just like he did when he straddled me on the couch last night. We were watching a documentary, and he fell asleep against me, tucked under a blanket. Seeing him like that pulled on heart strings I didn’t even know I had. I’ve never had a boyfriend, someone who would live with me. There have been a few people over the years who I fucked more than once, but that was that. I needed to be secretive, I travelled a lot, and no one really kept my attention for long enough.
Until a tiny redhead with crazy eyes broke into my home with the intention of humiliating me.
If I didn’t still have the awareness that Victor is a prisoner in my home, I would have stayed with him on that sofa, peacefully fallen asleep while holding him close. Instead, I did wake him up when I had to go to bed, and that was when he straddled me for a make out session as if I wasn’t about to take him back to his cell.
I wonder if the lines are as blurry for him as they are for me, and what that will mean in the long term. But do I really need to worry about this on a day as perfect as this one?
I stiffen when the sound of a horn echoes off the cliff. I don’t know if I’m the one trembling, or the balcony is shaking, but I urge Victor off my lap and get to my feet, my limbs stiff as I near the glass railing. This is the spot in my home when I’m most vulnerable, even though I made sure it’s impossible to see the balcony from anywhere on land, beyond the house itself, but if this time an assassin comes for me by sea? I might die the moment the bastard spots me from below.
I flinch when a male voice echoes all around me.
“Anybody there? I’m looking for a specific rock formation!”
I glance at Victor, who’s still in his chair and stares at me with huge green eyes.
We slam into reality like it’s an iceberg about to shatter and sink what we’ve created together.
“Don’t show yourself. Don’t say a word,” I snarl at him much more sharply than I would have wished, but what’s done is done.
If the guy down in the boat really is a lost sailor, not just pretending to be one so I look out and he can shoot me in the forehead, this is Victor’s chance to yell for help. Then, I’d have to run and grab my sniper rifle to get rid of the guy. If I didn’t manage, I would have had to go all the way down the secret shaft in the cliff to reach my personal submersible. And even then I’d have a small chance of not succeeding.
In the house, I’m safe, I know where everything is, I have traps, weapons, and places to hide. Leaving is out of the question if I can avoid it.
Victor sits there with hands folded in his lap, brows drawn, but is he about to yell for help?
We’ll find out.
I approach the banister.
Chapter 11
Victor
I’mgluedtomychair, heart in my throat, so I couldn’t speak if I wanted to. The way Sevastyan looked at me just now couldn’t have been more hurtful if he shot my other leg. The sharp tone of his voice reminded me I am neither his guest nor boyfriend. I sleep in a cell, and he is my abductor. It’s very hard to see that on a day-to-day basis when he lavishes me with compliments and overwhelms me with physical affection, but that is the raw truth.
What if that guy in the boat is my only chance to leave before things really get out of hand? I’m Sevastyan’s favorite plaything now, but what happens to me when he gets bored? It’s not like he’d let me go, and we both know it.
If I yelled for help now, he could turn it into a joke and punish me once the man leaves.
If I make the stranger believe me, Sevastyan the retired professional killer, might take him down before the sailboat gets out of shooting range.
If I stay silent, I might be condemning myself to a life in captivity.
I watch the harmonious lines of Sevastyan’s back as he leans over the glass railing to yell something back. My blood pounds so loudly in my ears I can barely hear anything beyond its thud. He is so perfect. Beautiful, yes, but in a world where I was invisible, he sees something in me. Something worthy of putting on canvas. Something that makes me worthy of his time.
If I managed to leave, is there any chance I would ever be seen like this again? Is there another man who’d look at my unimpressive stature and see beauty? Is vanity going to be the death of me?
For once in my life I’ve got someone’s undivided attention. It’s probably messed up that it matters to me so much, the proof of how unimportant I’ve felt all my life, but I don’t want to lose it.
So I stay silent, barely even breathing while Sevastyan gives the stranger directions.
