it was all a misunderstanding?
Says the guy who just got his brain sucked out through his dick.
I stand up abruptly and button my pants. “Good night, Daphne. You’ve earned your seven patents.” And then I turn and go, not looking back once. Because I’m not sure I could bear seeing the hurt on her face.
Fourteen
Present Day
Logan
I sit in my study and try to focus on the academic journal I’m reading about nerve regeneration research but I’ve read the same fucking line at least ten times.
I slap the paper down on the floor beside my chair and stand, pacing in front of the fire. Having her under my roof again… I run my hands through my hair and imagine her up in her bed.
Her lithe little body curled up around her pillow. I remember the endless nights I watched her sleep after she caught cold from running headlong into the labyrinth.
Even then she was trying to escape you.
I laugh humorlessly and walk to the liquor cabinet, pour a couple fingers of whiskey, and down it. The fire bites at my throat but I’m already pouring another.
But I thought I could train her, make her mine. I thought it meant something that she reached for me in her feverish dreams...but she was playing me even then. Planning her next escape from the second the first failed.
Did she think she could manipulate the patents out of me? Because I was so foolish to fall for her feminine wiles. That because I’m a disfigured recluse I would be easy to fool while she and that bastard Archer laughed themselves home to the bank?
And maybe now she’s playing me all over again. I thought I knew her, but I’ve been substituting the memory of the girl that was for the woman that is now, and they aren’t the same. Still, how many years did I long to have her in my arms? Of finally having the girl of my dreams?
And earlier, her angel lips around my cock, those paradoxically innocent fuck-me eyes… Sex with her is always more than just a master and sub. It’s never so simple. That girl has so many hooks twisted up in my insides. A lifetime’s worth.
But then I imagine her flashing him the same eyes. The betrayal burns so much deeper than her father’s ever could. Just picturing her and Archer together, her laughing, curved into his body, her arms around his neck has me hurling the second glass of whiskey at the wall instead of drinking it.
Why am I still torturing myself like this? Why did I let her back into this house? Is it just because if she’s here it means she’s not there with him? That’s what I told myself. That I’ll never let them be together. That I’ll ruin them both.
But then there was the way she’s melted under my touch since she’s been back. That wasn’t acting. If sex is the only way to wring a genuine moment out of her…
Maybe I can’t trust anything when it comes to her, though. All I know is I can’t let her keep throwing me off balance like that. It’s time to take back control, for my own fucking sanity.
My pacing suddenly leads me towards the door. I grab my mask and pull it on. And then I’m out of the office and stomping up the stairs.
To her room.
I don’t bother being quiet as I slam the door open. Her yelp tells me she doesn’t miss my lack of subtlety.
I don’t turn on the lights as I head straight towards the bed. A small bit of light streams in from the window, just enough to make out the luscious shape of her body as she sits up in bed.
“Logan?” she asks, her voice thick with sleep and confusion. “What are y—”
“Silence,” I bark.
I rip back the covers and her arms immediately move to cover herself. All she’s wearing is a tiny camisole and panties. She’s fucking gorgeous. A goddess. I grab her wrists and pin them over her head. Her chest heaves, perfect breasts round and nipples pebbling, and her eyes catch the light from the window, sparkling in the dark. Bewitching me all over again.
Which just fucking infuriates me. My teeth clench and I let go of her wrists only long enough to whip off my belt.
“Wait, Logan, I don’t know if I can, not so soon after—”
“I said silence!” I hiss. I drop over her, getting right in her face. “Do you want to leave