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He’s gone again and tears press at my eyes, hot, burning, and they spill down my cheeks. I don’t even know why. But they won’t stop, and I start to sob. My body racks with them.
It feels like forever before he gets back. He slowly unties me, the concentration back, and I stop crying. My gaze is fixated on his blur of a face through my tear-filled eyes.
When the last rope is off, his concentration melts and the tears start again. He wraps me in the blanket, feeds me rum, and strokes my hair. The tears start and stop and start again.
I turn my head into him and rub my cheek on his bare chest.
“I’m so embarrassed,” I say, managing to push the words out.
But he just rocks me. “That was fucking intense. The crying’s just a physiological reaction. I’m here. I have some water, too, if you want it. But just breathe and cry and be.”
I want to tell him how good it was, but I don’t want to. It’s like I’m greedy with that, like I need to keep that to myself. I don’t know why, because he knows. I know he knows. But my mind’s fractured, floating, and I’m weaving all over the place. Random waves of pleasure wash over me, as do little hiccups of tears.
When I stop crying and finally settle, he just holds me. All I want is to sleep. No, I just want to stay like this, with him, floating on clouds, forever.
But forever’s a fallacy.
When he finally picks me up and carries me to bed, he tucks me in. But he doesn’t stay.
I reach out and take his hand.
“Scarlett?”
“Stay,” I say, my words slurring as the world blurs, and sheer exhaustion starts to overtake. “Please… Sir.”
TWENTY-FIVE
malone
I’m not sure why I stay.
She’s already asleep; she was passing out as she said the words.
I hold her. I’m on top of the covers, she’s beneath them, so sweet and peaceful in sleep. I’d love to fucking say it was because she stroked my ego with the "Sir,” and this is a kind of aftercare.
I guess maybe it is, holding her like this, making her feel safe and protected.
But that’s not why I’m doing it.
Shit, I’ve slept in the same bed with women. Had relationships, I guess, if that’s what you want to call them. I don’t, but women do. I call it a mutual exchange of needs and desires until it’s over and done with.
With my fucking career, there isn’t time or space for someone else. I’m not like Orion. If I’m being honest, it doesn’t shock me he found someone. Mercer… maybe that was a little more surprising, but when I see him and Ivy, it’s so obvious they belong together. And someone like him, he likes everything meticulous. To him, the relationship is that.
To me, relationships are too confining, controlling, too neat at the edges even when they get messy inside. But this isn’t that. This isn’t anything like a relationship. For starters, this is full of so many lies I don’t know where to begin to unpack, even if I wanted to.
And for fuck’s sake, Scarlett’s father’s my focus, my goal. After I get the list for the client and the Knights, this—whatever the fuck this is—is done.
What the hell am I even doing, thinking any of this? I should be working out where to make my next move instead of indulging in the delights of Scarlett Hanlon.
But she’s soft and warm, and I don’t want to move.
I like holding her.
I could fall asleep with her in my arms. Easily.
Dangerously so.
I’m fucking holding her because she asked, and I like it. Her words twisted in me, around me, dragged me into her world. She wanted and I gave.
