“I’ll just say I’m a lot older than you.” He smirked. “You should get some sleep. You’re drunk.”
“Am not.”
“Go to sleep, Kovacs.”
“Is that an order, Grandpa?” I narrowed my lids, swaying as I took another drink in defiance.
“If you want it to be.” His tone was neutral, but I felt the implication race up my thighs. “They have a lot of whips, handcuffs, and rope here.” His gaze burrowed into me then roamed my barely clad form. “If it’s the only way you will listen.”
Yes!
Nooo!
Brexley, I chided myself, pulling my gaze down to the bedspread. You are lonely and drunk. Go to sleep.
Annoyed he thought he could tell me what to do, I almost kept drinking just to vex him but knew I was simply hurting myself. My head already flinched with tomorrow’s headache.
“Then you should too.” Oh yeah, stick it to him, Brex.
“Was planning on it.”
“Fine,” I said, very maturely slamming the bottle on the nightstand. I rolled my hair into a bun and curved onto my side away from him. I could feel his eyes on me. Squeezing my lashes together, I attempted to block him out.
It didn’t work.
Opting for another strategy, I switched off the lamp on the table, plunging the room into obscurity, feeling the need to hide. Lights from outside stretched shadows across the room like ghosts. If I thought the dark would shield me, I was sorely mistaken. His presence in the corner seemed to grow. The night only emphasized the sound from inside and out.
Sleep, Brex. I curled into myself, trying to clear my mind.
I heard him exhale, the chair creaking as he shifted. Minutes passed, and every second the need to look over at him intensified.
I fought. I really did.
Giving in, I glanced over my shoulder. His silhouette sat in the chair, his head tipping to one side, his massive frame not fitting the decrepit, small wingback.
“You’re sleeping there?”
Half hidden in shadows, his head turned to me.
“Figured the princess of Leopold would prefer the bed to herself.”
“Stop calling me that.” I gritted my teeth. “Plus, I’m not so uptight and prudish as you seem to think I am.” My alcohol-influenced tongue spoke before my mind could tell it to shut up.
“Really?” The simple word licked up my spine, twisting my stomach, making me wonder what the hell I was doing. It held so much implication in six letters.
I had “slept” with Caden all the time. We did it a lot as kids, and it never really stopped, especially after I lost my father. He was my anchor. His nearness and warmth kept me from drowning in agony. It ebbed when other girls started taking my spot, but every once in a while, he’d climb in next to me, curling up like we were kids.
If I could handle sleeping next to Caden, who I was in love with, I could certainly deal with someone I felt nothing for.
“Whatever,” I huffed. “If you want to stay in the chair, I’m perfectly fine with taking up the entire bed.” I flopped back down on my side, pulling the blanket over my shoulder. The seconds ticked by. Nothing happened. A stupid feeling of disappointment and embarrassment pricked at me, arousing anger in me. I tucked deeper into the lumpy pillow.
Only at the sharp creak of the chair, followed by the sound of his footsteps, did my eyes snap open, my pulse leaping into my throat. Forcing myself not to peer over my shoulder, acting as if I were either asleep or didn’t care, my muscles locked down.
The mattress dipped, and the frame groaned under our weight as he moved down on the full mattress, his enormous build consuming more than half of it, so close I could no longer breathe. His knee brushed my ass as he settled on his back. In one second, I was sober. Awake. Alive.
Danger, my mind yelled as my nerves purred with the contact. I squeezed my eyes shut, pretending I didn’t feel his presence or his heat smacking against my back like a whip.
He exhaled loudly, the bed shifting again.
Fuck me.
Go to sleep, Brex.
Letting out an exhale, I tried to relax, letting my mind retreat, concentrating on my exhaustion, forcing my mind on Caden again.
Thump. Thump. Thump. The noise hit the wall, and my lids lurched open with alarm and dread.
“Oh shit! Oh shit,” a man’s voice moaned loudly.
“You want that, don’t you?” a woman asked.
No. Please. No.
“Yesssss,” he hollered louder.
“Fuck me harder, bad boy. Spank me…yeah, that’s it.” A