can’t be anything else, at least where Nathan’s concerned.
This fairy tale feels real, and maybe I can pretend to be this princess just a little longer.
I will forgo air to share yours.
It is the very definition of suffocating, smothering, drowning. It’s a four-alarm clinger. But still, when Nathan offered his own confession in return for mine, I willingly held my breath and jumped off the cliff with my arms spread wide, hoping for the best.
As the darkness rushes up to me, eagerly taking me into its fold, I am rewarded, and Nathan takes me in. I snuggle into his arms, drifting back off peacefully.
Minutes or hours later, I’m awakened by another type of need.
Though I am comfortable in Nathan’s arms, his cock pressed against my ass like my big spoon, nature calls.
Delicately, I sneak from under the weight of his arm, slide to the edge of the bed, and get up, praying with every move that he doesn’t stir.
I pause at the doorway, my bladder fighting with my desire to just look at him, relaxed and almost boy-like in his sleep with his hair mussed and his lips slightly parted, innocent.
Eventually, I lose the battle, and I quietly close the door to the attached bathroom behind me.
I take care of business, use a bit of soap from the counter on my face to sweep away the last bits of last night’s makeup, and twirl my hair up into a messy knot on top of my head. It’s not nearly enough, but the wild look in my eyes takes the focus from the mess of the rest of me anyway.
I offer the foolish girl in the mirror a smile when I see the red marks along the skin of my neck and collarbones, bumpy irritation from Nathan’s scruff and tiny bruises from his kisses.
“Girl,” I whisper to my reflection, “you look thoroughly and very pleasurably freshly fucked.”
My first blush of embarrassment morphs into pleased satisfaction as I brush my fingers over the marks, still grinning. A sign of his possession, of his loss of control over himself, of his utter control of me.
A manic giggle escapes, and I shove my fist at my mouth to hush myself from laughing too hard.
I grab a robe from a hook behind the door, a flash of jealousy at who might’ve worn it last soothed when I smell Nathan all over it, the sheer size reassuring me of the ownership a moment later. It’s his, and that makes me wrap up in its largeness even deeper, taking the musky notes of him into my pores.
The deep breaths bring another scent to my nose, and all girlish fantasy is left behind in my absolute sudden desperation for coffee. I’m an addict and I’m well aware, but I’m not giving it up.
Death or coffee . . . I choose death.
I quietly slip through the bedroom and out the door, wandering down the hallway toward the delicious aroma. I pass a room with an open door, more office than guest room, and almost as if she can sense my obscene lack of interest in her mission, Claire resonates in my head.
Go look in there and see what you can find.
Drugs, gems, black market, Anna.
I glance up and down the hallway, seeing no one and nothing to stop me. As if telling me he’s okay with it, Nathan even snores from behind the bedroom door. It’s an absolute freebie of an opportunity.
But something stops my hand from even leaving my side to reach toward the doorknob.
Instead, I continue toward the coffee, knowing full-well that my choice speaks loud volumes as to where my head is at with this whole mission.
Claire is going to kill me, but this is my life we’re talking about.
And even if it’s dangerous, I want the fairy tale. After all, what good fairy tale doesn’t have a little bit of danger in it? Hansel and Gretel had the witch, Jack had a giant, Snow White had bewitched apples, and Little Red Riding Hood had to deal with a wolf with very large . . . things.
But they all got their happy endings, and I want that too.
I want it so bad I can taste it, just like the coffee pulling me further down the hall, down the stairs, and into the kitchen.
I hadn’t considered that someone had likely made the coffee. I guess I figured Nathan just had a fancy coffee pot that started on a timer.
But no. Instead, there’s someone in the kitchen, and