Page 41 of Safe Word

And then I froze as my eyes combed through the last passage.

I stared at the last paragraph, heat rising to my cheeks as the realisation hit me.

Fuck. I’d just described D’Angelo’s face.

The male character in the story had leaned in to kiss the female, and there it was – his perfectly symmetrical, chiselled features, his intensity, his lips curving into that soft, dangerous smile.

Shit.

I deleted the paragraph in a flurry of keystrokes, my pulse racing for reasons that had nothing to do with the fucking scene. This wasn’t the first time he’d slipped into my writing. Only this time, it felt different. More personal.

Because I was attracted to him. Of course I was – I had fucking eyes.

But he was my boss.

And he wasn’t Ghost.

So I folded the longing into a deep corner of myself, buried it beneath duty. And I moved on.

I rewrote the scene. At ninety-six words per minute, I produced enough text to make it seem like I’d been immersed in this for an hour. That should have been enough to satisfy him, make him think I’d done overtime because I was invested enough.

D’Angelo had been too quiet earlier today. Seated at his own desk, his brow furrowed in concentration, his long fingers had tapped gracefully against the keys. His focus had been magnetic, every pause filled with the kind of intelligence that made watching him work like watching a master sculptor bring marble to life.

He was hypnotic – the brand of danger that made you forget to look away until your heart bled out.

I drank my wine, trying to ignore the knot in my chest. It wasn’t the story that gripped me. It was him. Everything about him that had me wanting to scrape a little at that perfect surface of his.

As the wine bit my tongue, my body slowed the motions, and I stared at my own reflection in the windowpane.

How fucked up was I – taking Ghost and immediately switching to my boss?

‘Shit…’ I shook my head and topped off my glass.

I should start seeing a therapist again.

I turned back to my screen, determined to focus on the story. But even as my fingers continued their rhythm over the keyboard, I could feel him there, lingering in the corner of my mind, a shadow I couldn’t escape.

Soon after, sleep claimed me. Right there on the couch.

Ghost had drained my mind, body and soul, leaving me in a haze of exhaustion that even therapy had never managed to induce. His touch lingered in my thoughts, a soothing balm over the searing wounds of my past. It wasn’t often I fell asleep without medication, but the night’s surrender to the void was proof that Ghost’s presence in my life was already working miracles I couldn’t explain.

Morning arrived far too quickly. I cracked open my eyes, only to wince at the reality staring back at me from the glass door of the wine cabinet. My heavy makeup had smeared during the night, so now I looked like a glamorous raccoon – if I squinted and lied to myself.

Groaning, I stumbled into the bathroom, scrubbing away the remnants of last night as the day already began to settle on my shoulders. The fucking contacts seemed to have gotten stuck to my eyeballs, and I was barely done peeling them off when a sharp ping of my phone pulled me back to reality.

I grabbed it, glancing at the screen.

Cain: Is it crowded in Giuliano’s this morning?

I frowned, rereading the text, my foggy morning brain struggling to process his cryptic message. And then it hit me – I have a day job!

My eyes darted to the clock.

Shit!

Adrenaline spiked through me. I was late. Not just a little late – late! My second day on the job, and I hadn’t even set the fucking alarm!

There would be no coffee for D’Angelo this morning, no seamless façade of competence. I was about to walk into work a hot mess.