Page 79
Screaming filled my head, accompanied by the overwhelming scent of smoke. It wrapped around my lungs, suffocating me until my eyes flew open in bed.
Sweat slipped down my temples, my body heaving from residual panic. Isolation. Loneliness. A world I wasn’t welcome in—cast aside as if I didn’t matter. My father made me feel that way, and now Amelia did, too.
My hand came up to my chest.
As I blinked at the ceiling and slowed my breathing from the lingering nightmare, that smoke filled my lungs again. My pulse skipped, and the familiar sensation of being watched pricked my skin. I warily skimmed the room, my eyes shooting to the foot of the bed. Breath seized in my throat at the sight of a red cherry burning bright in the midst of darkness.
My stomach knotted.
Manic was seated, cloaked in shadow as he watched me. How long has he been in my room?
I hadn’t seen him since he’d fucked me with his fingers earlier. All I wanted was for him to be buried inside me, but I refused to admit it and snapped instead. But now, seeing him at the foot of my bed, a bolt of nerves shot straight through my chest.
“Why are you watching me?” I breathed, entirely too spooked.
I tugged my quilt higher and glanced at the clock reading 3am, a sense of familiarity washing over me. My admirer used to wake me with the buzzing of his texts around this time, and the feeling felt similar to now. Too similar.
A series of events in the penthouse flooded my mind all at once. The peonies. The iced-coffees. The cameras. Soft rock whispering from his record player. The books.
It wasn’t possible… was it?
Anyone could like those things. It seemed like too much of a coincidence, and yet, the similarities practically slapped me in the face as I stared at him in near blinding darkness.
Could he see the shock—the question—on my face?
My stomach sank and curdled, my heart erratically pounding at the thought of him being my stalker. Doubt and confusion clung to me. If anything, I was reading too much into it, but…
It kind of made sense.
“Are the cameras not good enough for you?” I bit out when he didn’t respond.
Smoke exhaled past his lips, a small cloud around his mouth before he silently put the cigarette out in a nearby ashtray. His head never turned away, and I realized that he was studying me.
“It’s three in the morning. I do not have the energy to fight with you.” I groaned and shoved that odd feeling down, diving deeper into my comforter. A yawn breathed past my lips, and I closed my eyes. “I’m tired, so unless you’re crawling into bed to sleep, get out.”
The slight rustling of clothes told me he’d risen to leave, but then the mattress dipped beside me and my eyes flew the fuck open again. He settled beneath the comforter and gave himself a pillow.
“What are you doing?”
“Going to sleep,” he said finally.
“Do you not understand sarcasm?” I blurted, and he fucking smirked. That damn smirk. All it did was warm my insides with an annoying amount of infatuation. “Get out of my room.”
“You offered.”
He plopped down and folded his arms behind his head as I blankly stared at him. The comforter curved over his hips, just below his navel. Slivers of moonlight cast pale streaks along his bare, muscled chest, every dip and valley of his abs.
“Lay down,” he demanded.
As he closed his eyes, a thought unfurled at the edges of my mind, and I held back a grin. Instead of scooting to the edge of the bed, I inched closer and snuggled right up to his side. I was only doing it to fuck with him, I told myself, not because I wanted to feel his body against mine.
The moment my cheek rested on the dip of his shoulder, his entire body stiffened. I wondered if his lungs were working, because he had stilled as if he didn’t dare breathe.
“What are you doing?” he asked tightly.
“Laying down like you said,” I answered smugly. “If you didn’t want to cuddle, you should have gone back to your room.”
He grumbled but didn’t move an inch.
