Chapter 18 – EMMA
EMMA
Iwake slowly, futilely trying to cling to the edges of sleep. For a long moment, I don’t even open my eyes, just lie there, suspended in that hazy space between dreaming and waking, as my body hums with a contentment I’ve never felt before.
Then the memories hit me.
Bodhi’s hands on my skin. His mouth between my thighs. The way he growled my name like it was being ripped from somewhere deep inside him. The strength in his arms as he carried me to this bed, and the tenderness in his touch as he tucked me in.
My eyes fly open.
“Bodhi?”
But I already know he’s not there. The image of him standing in the doorway, giving me one last lingering look before he shut himself out, is burned into my memory forever.
The room is still dark, and the blinds are still drawn, but thin slivers of pale grey light seep in around the edges, telling me it’s early morning. Dawn, maybe. I’ve slept for hours.
I sit up slowly, the silk sheets sliding against my bare skin, and I realize I’m still half-dressed. My blouse is gone, buttons scattered somewhere on the floor. My bra, too. But my skirt is still bunched around my waist, and my legs are bare, my underwear...
I flush, remembering. In Bodhi’s pocket. He kept them.
Did last night really happen?
My body answers before my mind can catch up.
I’m sore in the best possible way; my inner thighs tender, my core still pulsing with aftershocks that shouldn’t be possible this many hours later.
When I shift on the mattress, pressing my legs together, a jolt of pleasure shoots through me, sharp enough to make me gasp.
I’m still aching for him. Still wet. Still wanting.
It was real. All of it. Every single heavenly second.
I fall back against the pillows and stare at the ceiling, my heart racing.
It was more than real. It was... something else.
The way he moved. How he lifted me as if I weighed nothing, how easily he pinned my hands above my head with one of his. The sound that rumbled through his chest, more animal than human, vibrating against my skin.
And his eyes.
I saw them change. Right before he kissed me, right before he gave in to whatever was building between us, his eyes flared gold.
Not a trick of the light. Not my imagination.
Bright, burning amber in the almost pitch-black of my room, like something ancient looking out at me from behind his human face.
It should scare me.
It doesn’t.
Instead, lying here in the dark, I feel something I haven’t felt since I was taken from my apartment.
Safe. Protected. Like nothing in this house can touch me as long as he’s nearby.
And even now, even though I can’t see him, can’t hear him, I swear, I can feel him. There’s a warmth in my chest, a presence at the edge of my awareness, like a thread connecting us across distance.
It makes no sense. We barely know each other. We’ve barely spoken beyond threats, warnings, and stolen moments of heat. But when I close my eyes and reach for that feeling, it’s there. Steady. Constant. Real.
I press my palm to my sternum, feeling my own heartbeat, and try to make sense of what’s happening to me.
This isn’t normal. None of this is normal. The way I responded to him, the way my body came alive under his touch, like it’s been waiting for him my whole life.
My desire peaks again as I remember how I bared my throat to him without thinking, some instinct I don’t understand rising up and demanding I submit.
The urge to do it again rises up inside me, so I stretch my neck to one side and run my palm over the thin skin there.
I trusted him. Completely and without question. Even when the trickster was extracting promises from me with his clever fingers and his tongue, knowing I would have agreed to anything just to come.
Maybe I should be furious about that. He manipulated me, plain and simple. Withheld my pleasure until I gave him what he wanted. Made me promise to fight, and to stay alive, to have faith in him.
But I’m not angry. In fact, I can’t stop smiling because underneath the pleasure, underneath the desperation, I saw something in his eyes that I can’t forget.
Fear. Real, raw fear. Not for himself. For me.
He said he’s going to get me out of here. I’m not sure why, but I believe it with every fibre of my being, stupid as it might be.
The realist in me tries to push back. Tries to remind me that he’s a criminal, he works for Kozlov, and there’s still a possibility he’s playing me.
Maybe I threw myself at him, and any warm-blooded man would have taken advantage.
Maybe he wasn’t being noble. He was just smart enough to stop before he signed his own death warrant by taking my virginity.
But that logic falls apart when I think about what he didn’t do.
He didn’t come. Didn’t ask me to touch him, to put my mouth on him, or to give him anything in return. When I reached for him, he said last night was about me.
What kind of man does that?
I don’t know what Bodhi is, but he’s not like any man I’ve ever met.
And I know, with a certainty that settles deep in my core, that what happened between us was meant to be.
Closing my eyes, I search for that thread, that warmth in my chest. He’s not close, I can tell that much. Not in the hallway, not anywhere nearby. But he’s there. Distant but steady, like a heartbeat I can feel even when I can’t hear it.
Alive. Safe. Thinking of me, perhaps.
The certainty of it settles something in my chest. I don’t know how I know, but I do.
I push back the covers and pad to the bathroom, catching sight of myself in the mirror as I pass. I look different. Flushed, even hours later. There’s a softness to my expression I don’t recognize, and my lips are still swollen from his kisses.
This is what he saw. This is who he wanted.
The shower is hot, and I take my time, letting the water sluice over skin that still remembers his touch. Every nerve ending feels heightened, awake in a way it’s never been before. When I run the soap over my breasts, my stomach, between my thighs, I shiver, but not from cold.
By the time I step out and wrap myself in a towel, I’m smiling.
He thinks he can drive me wild and then disappear? Leave me alone in this big bed while he goes off to do whatever Kozlov needs?
His loss.
I pull on the thin silk robe hanging on the back of the door and drift back into the bedroom, settling against the pillows.
The bed is still rumpled, the sheets tangled where I thrashed through dreams of him.
A book sits on the nightstand that wasn’t there before.
Dog-eared, well-worn. I don’t know when he left it or how he knew I’d need a distraction.
But I do. It just won’t be the one he’s planned for me.
Biting my lip, I question whether I really have the nerve to do this. He’s probably busy. Definitely not watching. But the thought of him checking later, seeing what he missed...
I look toward the headboard and let my robe slip off one shoulder.
“I hope you’re watching.”