leaned forward to try to peek around his very large body to see inside the room—hoping to see a bathroom, not a bare floor with chains on the walls, racks of torture instruments, and a drain—and was relieved to find instead a large, well-furnished room that looked more like a library than anything else.
“That’s your bathroom?”
When she dared a look up at him, he was smiling. Just a slight quirk of the corners of his lips, but she knew the hint of a smile when she saw one.
“No, that’s my study. My bedroom is behind it, and it has an attached bathroom.”
She clutched the towels more tightly to her chest. “Your, um, bedroom?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Yes. I promise not to ravish you on the way to the bathroom, however,” he drawled, and she could feel the heat of embarrassment shoot through her veins and sparkle along her nerve endings.
Of course, he didn’t want to ravish her. Men who looked like gods come to life didn’t frolic about with women who looked like her. Also, since when had she even thought the word frolic?
He was throwing her completely off balance. Ravish her.
If only.
Damn.
“It never occurred to me that you would,” she snapped.
“Liar. I can hear your heart beating. Don’t you realize that? It speeds up and slows down depending on your emotional state, which isn’t really necessary, since everything you feel shows on your face, little human.”
“Now, you’re just trying to insult me.” She slipped past him and stepped into the room, which felt like one of the bravest things she’d ever done in her life.
Get clean, get a look at Mr. Evans, and get out.
Get clean, get a look at Mr. Evans, and get out.
Get clean, get a look at Mr. Evans…
Holy cow, this is his study?
It was enormous. Books on shelves lined every wall, and the ceilings had to be eighteen feet off the floor, just like in the ballroom. She gasped and turned in a complete circle. “This is the most beautiful room I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s like Beast’s library that he gifted to Belle. This is all yours?”
“If I say yes, does that make me the beast in your analogy?”
“More like the belle, O Gorgeous One,” she muttered, but clearly he heard it, because that lazy, sexy, far-too-seductive smile widened. On the other hand, if she distracted him with flattery, maybe it would be easier to find a way out.
“So. You can leave now,” she said, not having much hope.
Sure enough, he shut the door behind himself and leaned back against it, making her heart thud inside her chest.
She was trapped. In a room.
With a vampire.
And, even if he’d been only human, he was much bigger than her, which meant that she was unlikely to escape unless he allowed her to do so. The anger that rushed through her at the thought—the memory of hands on her ass in classrooms, of “accidental” brushes against her breasts by men “just reaching for the instruments,” and the daily indignities and verbal assaults that came with simply being a woman in the world—that anger burned through the terror. She’d leave his room whenever she damned well felt like it, whether he allowed her to or not.
Ryan wasn’t much for waiting for a man to allow her to do anything.
“You like it?” He watched her, waiting for her answer, but she’d gone so far past their actual conversation in her mind that she had to cast back in her memory before she could answer him.
“Oh. The room. Yes, it’s…it’s really lovely,” she admitted.
And it was. The room had clearly been originally designed to be a library with a private study for the man of the house, and somehow, she knew it fit Bane to perfection. It was all rich, mahogany shelves holding hundreds or even thousands of books, leather chairs, and a cherry-wood desk, not designed to be the centerpiece of the room but just a place to work, from what she could see. There were papers and files on it, and a sleek, silver computer, which made her laugh out loud.
“Something’s funny?” His voice was low and husky and deep, and it curled around her senses like the soft brush of cashmere on bare skin.
“No, I just—it struck me as incongruous for a vampire to have a computer. It feels like you should have scrolls and a quill with an ink stand, you know?” She laughed at her own foolishness.
He studied her, the expression on his