26. Kai
Kai
Ipark the bike two streets over from Julia’s house.
have already replayed the fitting-room mirror enough times to know there is no chance in hell I am sleeping tonight.
The image followed me all the way home from the North Loop and remained there while I showered, ate something I barely tasted and spent an embarrassing amount of time pretending I wasn’t checking the clock.
Julia standing in black lace with both hands against the glass had done enough damage on its own, but the part that keeps returning is the expression on her face when she realized I had come.
She hadn’t looked frightened. Startled, yes.
Flushed enough that I could see the color even beneath those unforgiving lights.
But underneath all of that had been something else, something that had tightened low in my stomach before I even touched her.
She had expected me. Maybe not consciously, and probably not enough that she would ever admit it aloud, but somewhere beneath the nerves she had known there was a chance I would appear once she followed my instructions.
Then she had gone home wearing what I bought for her because I told her I wanted to see it again.
I turn off the bike and sit for a moment beneath the quiet hum of the cooling engine, staring toward the end of the street while the night settles around me.
This is getting dangerously easy. Not what I’m doing to her, because there is still nothing easy about walking into Julia’s life wearing a face she cannot identify, but the route itself has become familiar enough that my body no longer needs instructions.
Tonight, I don’t go to the trees, she knows I’m coming.That changes everything.
I pull the balaclava from my jacket pocket before I leave the bike and fit it over my head, adjusting the opening around my eyes until my peripheral vision clears.
The thing still feels ridiculous sometimes, particularly when I remember that I am a thirty-seven-year-old physician sneaking through a Minneapolis neighborhood dressed like somebody about to commit a felony, but the alternative is letting Julia see enough of my face to connect Ghost to the man who sits across from her every Thursday. That particular disaster can wait.
Her house appears a few minutes later, the downstairs lights mostly off except for the soft glow from the hallway. A stronger pool of light spills from the upper floor. Bedroom. Bathroom, probably. My pulse changes before I even reach the porch.
The front door looks closed. When I try the handle, it turns.
Unlocked. A smile pulls at my mouth beneath the mask.
Of course she didn’t leave it standing open this time.
The first invitation had needed something obvious enough that neither of us could pretend I misunderstood.
Tonight she already knows the rule, and apparently an unlocked door is the answer she decided to give me.
I push it inward carefully and step inside.
The familiar scent of her house reaches me first, something faintly citrus from whatever she cleaned the kitchen with, the vanilla candle she burns often enough that the smell has probably settled permanently into the wood, and Julia beneath both in a way I couldn’t have identified until I had slept with my face buried near her hair.
The memory is enough to make me pause. Last time I stood here, I had no idea whether she would let me upstairs.
Tonight she is wearing something I chose for her without actually choosing it at all.
I close the door without locking it, then wait long enough to make sure the sound doesn’t bring her downstairs.
Nothing. The kitchen is empty, though there is a glass of water near the sink and her purse sits on one of the stools at the island.
A pair of heels has been kicked beneath the edge of the console table, probably abandoned the second she got home, which is so predictably Julia that my mouth almost curves again.
I take the stairs slowly, keeping my weight near the edge of each tread where the old wood complains less.
A band of warm light grows stronger as I reach the upper hallway, spilling from her bathroom through the open bedroom door and painting a soft rectangle across the floor.
Her bedroom itself is dim. Not completely dark, but close enough that most of it exists in shadow while the bathroom light reaches only part of the bed and the wall beside it.
I step inside. Julia isn’t there. Water runs briefly in the bathroom, followed by the soft metallic sound of something being set beside the sink.
I move farther into the room and close my hand around the bedroom light switch before remembering she has left it off already.
Good. The bathroom is another matter. Too bright.
If she walks out facing me, the light behind her will illuminate more than I am willing to give, even with the balaclava firmly in place.
I move to the chair beside her bed, the one she usually dumps clothes on, and sit down in the deeper dark.
The water shuts off. Fabric rustles. Then Julia steps through the bathroom doorway.
The sound she makes when she sees me is somewhere between a gasp and a whisper-scream, one hand flying to her chest while her whole body jerks backward toward the doorframe. I bite back a laugh. Her eyes widened immediately.
“You scared the shit out of me.”
The accusation comes in a fierce whisper, though the hand still pressed to her chest and the betrayed look on her face make it very difficult to take seriously.
“Turn off the light.” I say low, under my usual tone.
She just blinks for a moment but does as she’s told.
Darkness closes over most of the room at once, leaving only the weak amber glow climbing the stairs from below.
It is enough for me to see Julia as a shape, enough to catch the shine of her eyes and the paler lines of skin against black lace, but not enough to give her anything useful beneath the mask.
My eyes adjust quickly and then I see her properly.
Fuck.
The fitting room had been bright enough to show every detail, but there had also been fluorescent lighting, mirrors, a saleswoman less than thirty feet away and an entire store surrounding us.
I had been too busy burying myself inside her in that tiny fitting room to appreciate what Julia had chosen.
Here, there is nothing between me and the sight of her.
The bra is black lace, delicate enough that her skin shows through sections of it, the cups structured just enough to lift without hiding much.
Her nipples press faintly against the pattern.
The matching thong sits high over her hips, thin straps disappearing against skin that catches what little light remains from downstairs, the small triangle of lace between her thighs already looking like a problem I am going to ruin.
She has taken her hair down. That somehow makes it worse.
Auburn waves fall around her shoulders while she stands barefoot near the bathroom entrance, watching me watch her with a mixture of nerves and unmistakable satisfaction.
I don’t say anything for several seconds because any attempt to alter my voice right now is going to fail. Her mouth starts curving. She knows. She absolutely knows what she is doing to me.
I clear my throat quietly and push my voice lower before I trust it. “Turn around.”
Her brows rise. The faintest hint of amusement appears on her face, but she does it.
Slowly. My gaze follows every inch of the movement.
The back is somehow even more indecent, nothing but lace and narrow straps against the curve of her ass, and the memory of having my hands there in the fitting room returns hard enough that I have to shift in the chair.
Julia looks over one shoulder. I don’t need to see her expression clearly to know she caught it.
“Beautiful,” I tell her.
The word comes out rougher than intended which changes her posture almost imperceptibly. Less teasing, more affected. She turns back toward me.
“Really?” There is something unexpectedly vulnerable beneath the question, enough that every filthy thing I had been considering saying disappears before it reaches my mouth.
I stay in the chair. I don’t touch her yet.
“Really.”
She releases a breath. For a moment neither of us moves.
Then I ask the question I need answered before anything else happens. “You okay?”
Julia’s gaze stays on mine. “I’m fine.”
The phrase would normally make me want to challenge her on reflex, but Ghost doesn’t have that conversation with her and the way she says it tonight carries no hesitation.
She looks nervous because she is wearing almost nothing in front of a man whose face she has never seen, but there is no fear tucked behind it.
I nod once. Her eyes follow the movement.
I let my gaze travel over her again, over the lace, the bare thighs, the way she is standing in her own bedroom waiting for me like she has already decided how far this is going.
Then I say it. “Get on your knees, Little Ember.”
Her breath catches. The reaction goes straight through me, hot and immediate, settling low in my stomach and lower still.
I shift my hips, voice rough from anticipation. “Crawl to me.”