Page 73 of Damsel in Disguise

Then she slowly drags her finger across my bare skin, tracing nothing and everything at once, careful not to run it over her lip print on my chest.

A tentative touch. A faint scratch. A teasing glide.

My body reacts anyway, before my mind catches up.

I force myself to focus on the intent behind the sudden touch. I’m surprised I didn’t slap her hand off, but trying to decipher what she’s trying to say without a voice.

Her finger pauses. Then shifts to spell it out—You.

My brows lift, disbelief flickering through the heat. “Me?”

The audacity.

She nods unapologetically but with certainty.

A dismissive scoff leaves me. “You don’t even know what you’re asking for.” She really doesn’t.

She tilts her head again, then slowly nods it as a ‘yes’.

My jaw ticks from her defiance. She’s rejecting the warning before I even finish it. I’m on the edge of snapping.

“Next time, I’ll have my way with you, little kitty,” the promise is edged with an underlying threat.

A soft click slices through the tension, snapping whatever hold Ariella had on me. She reacts instantly.

One second she’s in front of me—close enough that I can still feel the ghost of her touch on my skin, on the next—she’s gone, slipping down behind the kitchen counter with a precision that speaks of practice, not panic.

I let out a quiet breath through my nose, something between irritation and reluctant approval.

She’s far too cunning for her age. I’ll give her that.

“Everything alright downstairs, honey?” Delilah calls from the bedroom, her concerned voice making this inconvenient.

My gaze drifts to the spot where Ariella disappeared and lingers there for a beat.

“Yeah, just some stray cat,” I answer, casually, my eyes never leaving Ariella. “I’ll be right back.”

“Okay,” she agrees without questioning.

There’s something almost mechanical about the way she complies, the way she folds into the role of the perfect housewife so effortlessly—obedient and undemanding. Designed to be everything a man is supposed to want without ever asking for more.

It should be enough for anyone but me.

I force myself to move and head toward the stairs, already preparing for the possibility that Delilah might’ve followed the sound instead of only calling out for me.

The last thing I need is the two of them colliding in person.

I round the corner and find the door locked with her nowhere in sight. I exhale in relief and walk back to the kitchen for one last time.

There’s no trace of Ariella—not a sound, not a shadow, not even the faintest misstep to suggest she was ever here. She took almost all the evidence of herself with her, except the window.

The bowl of chocolate-mint ice cream ironically sits where she left it, slowly melting into itself. Beside it, the window is slid half open, the night air slipping in through the narrow gap, stirring the curtains to give her exit away.

For my eyes only.

25. DEBAUCHERY

ariella