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I’d never been so grateful for a dry towel. I wrapped it around myself, fighting off the shivers, and picked up my phone. A text from Eve had come in while I’d been in the shower.
Eve
Hey, gang. Club is closed tonight. Electric company says no power in Saint View until tomorrow. This show cannot go on by candlelight. Enjoy an unexpected night off. Be good. Or at least be careful. Augie, mainly talking to you here.
Augie had replied with the middle-finger-up emoji.
I really couldn’t afford a night off, but Eve was right. There was no point being there with no power. We couldn’t dance without music. Couldn’t keep drinks cold. Eve had been right to close the place.
I shivered involuntarily, and it was a reminder I was still standing naked in my bathroom. I tiptoed down the hall and into my room, checking the time. Ten. It was normally when I was due to start work, but tonight it would be the time I went to bed. I dropped the towel, realizing with no one else home, I didn’t need pajamas. Cold, I climbed beneath my sheets and pulled the comforter over my head.
It didn’t take long for sleep to take me. It never did. I was always sleep deprived, and sleeping at night when the room was dark and as quiet as my place ever got, was so much easier than during the day when the complex was busy and noisy and bright sunshine streamed through the window coverings that were too cheap to really block anything out.
I fell asleep feeling oddly luxurious for a woman in a run-down apartment with one hundred and fifty thread count sheets. But at least I knew I could sleep all night, without Amelia waking me up, or half listening for my grandmother to go strolling about and burn the house down.
Instead, I woke to someone pushing my thighs apart.
Instinct took over, and I thrashed, kicking out at the dark man shape looming over me.
He caught my leg easily, like he’d been expecting it, and pinned it to the mattress. “Want to use your safe word?”
The terror flew out of me at recognizing the deep timbre of his voice.
“Say it now if you do.”
I didn’t utter a word.
His breathing quickened, and he finished what he started, opening my legs wide, so he could fit between them.
My body buzzed with anticipation, arousal pooling at my core. “How did you get in?”
He paused in his studying of me. “Your bathroom window. You need to keep that locked, Lyric. What if someone else had come in? What if they’re in here right now, just waiting for their chance to pounce?”
I dragged him down on top of me. “Then I think they’re about to get more than they bargained for.”
He leaned down and kissed me, his lips hot and sure against mine. I opened for him, meeting his tongue, exploring and tasting him, completely turned on by the fact he was fully clothed and I was completely naked. I raised my hips, encouraging him to take me the way he’d obviously intended before I’d woken up.
“Needy,” he whispered in my ear.
“Yes,” I murmured back.
He pinned my wrists to the bed. “Wait.”
I could have groaned in frustration. I already just wanted him. The anticipation was too great. But I did as I was told, lying patiently beneath him while he kissed my mouth.
Every lick and sweep of his tongue only made me want him more. When he dipped to the sensitive planes of my neck, it was all I could do not to writhe beneath him, completely desperate for more.
“I want you naked,” I whispered to him. “I want to see you.”
He lifted his head from worshipping my skin and pulled his long-sleeved shirt over his head. I gaped at him. Zeph didn’t just have the one or two tattoos I’d seen sneaking out from beneath his clothes. Even the quick glimpse I’d had of him with his shirt off hadn’t been long enough to truly take in the extent of his artwork.
The intricate designs swirled all over his chest and arms. I traced them lightly, my fingertips barely touching his skin. “I wish I could see these properly.”
“They aren’t that interesting.”
“But they are to me. Everything about you is interesting to me.” I scratched my nails up his back, stopping when I got to a bandaged section. “What’s this?”
“New ink.”
