11. Chapter Eleven
Chapter Eleven
Erica
I wake up slowly, like I’m surfacing through heavy water.
For a few seconds, I don’t know where I am. The sheets are too smooth. The mattress is too wide. There’s a pressure on my waist that’s not uncomfortable. The air smells different than my room usually does.
Then my body slowly makes itself known.
Sore. Tender. A deep ache between my thighs that makes my breath catch. My arms and legs are both sore. My mouth is dry.
I blink at the ceiling, heart starting to race.
Why am I…?
The memory doesn’t come all at once. It’s like my brain refuses to hand me the whole thing in one piece. It gives me flashes instead—the auction, the bids, the tall man walking in. A voice in my ear, hands and lips on my skin. A thick, hard cock moving inside me…
A low, familiar voice saying my name.
Sir.
My stomach rolls.
Oh God.
I try to sit up and immediately regret it. The movement pulls at everything that hurts, and my face tightens with the sharp, hot sting.
I clamp my jaw shut so I don’t make a sound.
Something shifts behind me.
And that’s when I become aware of something warm and heavy pressed along my back. The heat. The hard, unmistakably naked shape of a man spooned against me like I’m his.
A muscled arm is thrown over my waist, heavy and possessive, even in sleep.
I freeze.
My breath stops.
My skin prickles, every nerve suddenly awake.
There’s a body behind mine. A big one. Solid. Too solid to be a dream. The kind of body that looks good in and out of those expensive suits.
For one horrifying second, my mind tries to pretend it’s someone else.
Then it’s forced to admit the truth.
Nico Conti.
My boss.
The man whose name people barely dare whisper.
Still young for the reputation he’s built. Only twenty-six and feared across Atlantic City.
The man who looked at me across his desk and asked if I could handle pressure.
The man who—
My throat closes.
I stare at the curtained window in front of me, my vision going slightly blurry, because if I turn my head, I’ll see him. I’ll confirm it. I’ll make it real in a way my brain can’t handle right now.
I swallow. It hurts.
My heart is pounding so hard I can feel it in my ears.
What did I do?
My face burns even though I’m alone in my head. Even though he’s asleep.
I squeeze my eyes shut, but it doesn’t help. The memories keep pushing in anyway—his voice, my body reacting like it didn’t belong to me, the humiliating fact that I didn’t fight the way I thought I would. The humiliating fact that my body did things my mind is trying to deny.
The fact that I liked it. A lot. And want more.
I want to rewind time. I want to climb out of my own skin. I want to undo last night so badly my chest aches with it.
How could I do this to myself?
And with him.
Of all people.
I feel sick.
My gaze drops to the sheets, to the edge of a robe tossed over the chair, to the faint blue tint in the glass on the nightstand that reminds me of the bath. My stomach lurches again.
I need to get out of this room.
The room where—
No. Don’t.
I force myself to take a breath through my nose. In. Out. Slowly.
I try to focus on logistics because emotions are dangerous right now. If I let myself feel too much, I’ll start shaking. I’ll start crying. I’ll start falling apart, and I can’t fall apart when a man like Nico Conti is behind me.
What happens now?
What happens at work?
My stomach twists harder.
Work.
The office. The desk. The routine. Him in a suit, calm, cold, and controlled. Me with a coffee in my hand, asking if he needs anything else.
How am I supposed to walk into that building after this?
How am I supposed to look him in the eyes?
He’ll fire me.
The thought flashes so fast it steals my breath.
He’s going to fire me.
Because what kind of man keeps an assistant who did… whatever I did last night?
Who keeps an employee who let herself—
No. Stop.
I clamp down on the spiral, but it keeps clawing upward.
I need this job. Despite everything, it’s a great job. Nico manages some nightclubs and bars for the Conti family, and as his assistant, I get paid really well to keep his life organized. I’ve only been there a few weeks. I’ve just barely finished my probation period.
He’ll fire me, and maybe that’s for the best. Maybe I can take the money, disappear, never see him again.
The money.
My stomach dips.
Seventy thousand.
It still doesn’t sound real. It sounds like a number someone made up. But it’s real enough to pay for Dad’s surgery. Real enough to buy time. Real enough to keep him alive long enough for him to have a shot.
And that thought slices clean through everything else.
Dad.
Oh no.
Oh God, no.
My chest tightens so hard it hurts. I try to twist my torso, but Nico’s arm tightens slightly, like his body reacts even in sleep, like it senses me moving away.
My breath catches again.
I don’t have time for this.
I left Dad alone all night. I had to, but I asked Maddy to check on him. She lives close enough, and she promised she would. I have to assume she did.
But a promise isn’t the same as being there.
My dad is sick. He gets tired. He forgets things. He pretends he doesn’t, but I see it. I see the way his hands tremble when he reaches for his water. I see the way his face tightens when he stands up too fast.
What if something happened?
What if he fell?
What if he needed me?
The panic rises so fast my throat closes again.
I need to go home.
I need to get out of here.
Now.
My eyes sting, but I refuse to cry. Crying is weakness, and weakness in this particular room feels dangerous, even if Nico is asleep. Even if he did… take care of me after.
It was nice in a weird way.
The thought makes my face burn all over again, because it drags a whole other set of memories behind it—food, water, warmth, his hands moving along my skin as he washed me, as he applied lotion to my body and massaged my sore muscles.
My face burns even more when I remember the way he brought me an ice pack in the middle of the night and made me place it between my legs. Then on my ass.
Where he spanked me.
I stifle a groan. It just keeps getting worse.
My stomach rolls again, and I press my fingertips to the sheet like I can ground myself through the fabric.
What would Dad think?
If he knew.
If he ever found out where the money came from.
I can already hear his voice—quiet, genuinely disappointed in a way that would crush me.
He’d blame himself.
He’d think he forced me into it, even if I never told him the details. He’d look at me like he didn’t know me anymore, and I wouldn’t survive that.
I can’t tell him.
I can never tell him.
The shame would kill me.
It was bad enough that I stood on that stage and let strangers bid on me like I was a thing. It was bad enough that I walked naively into a situation I knew nothing about.
But last night… last night wasn’t normal.
No.
It wasn’t natural.
Something got into me. Something that didn’t belong there.
That’s the only explanation my brain will accept, because the alternative is that it was me.
That I wanted it.
That I liked parts of it.
That I—
I squeeze my eyes shut hard enough to hurt.
No.
I can’t think about that.
I can’t.
I inhale slowly, forcing myself to focus on the present, on what I need to do next.
Get up.
Get dressed.
Find my phone.
Call Maddy.
Take the damn money.
Go home.
Figure out how to face the rest of my life.
Behind me, Nico makes a low sound in this throat.
A grunt, rough and sleepy, as if the noise comes from somewhere deep in his chest.
Then warm breath puffs against the back of my neck, and I go still, every muscle locking.
His voice follows, muffled with sleep and irritation, right against my skin.
“Think quieter, will you,” he grumbles.
Heat blooms across my cheeks, fast and humiliating, and I stare at the curtain like it’s going to rescue me.
His arm stays wrapped around my waist, and the worst part is that my body registers it in two places at once—panic in my chest and a traitorous, warm curl low in my stomach that makes me feel even sicker.
“I—” My voice comes out as a rasp.
“You’re projecting your panic, Erica,” he says.
I clear my throat and try again, quieter.
“I’m sorry.” The apology is automatic; the same one I say at work when I accidentally bump his desk or ask a question twice.
It feels wrong here. Everything feels wrong here.
I swallow and force myself to add, “I need to go.” The words shake anyway, even when I try to make them sound like a simple fact.
Behind me, he shifts, the mattress dipping. His hand slides more securely around me. “You’re not going anywhere yet. Look at me,” he says, still rough with sleep, but there’s already that familiar control under it—the tone that doesn’t ask but demands.
My throat tightens. I hesitate one heartbeat too long, then turn my head just enough to see him.
He’s awake. One eye open, dark hair a mess against the pillow, his face unsoftened by sleep the way I’d expect.
Even like this, he looks carved from stone—sharp lines, heavy lids, a surprisingly lush mouth that rarely smiles.
His gaze tracks over my face, then down, then back up again, and I feel exposed even under the sheets.
“You’re spiraling,” he says simply. His thumb strokes once, slow, over my stomach. “Stop.”
I flinch, more at the softness of the touch than the command. “My dad,” I blurt, because it’s the only thing that matters enough to cut through this. “I need to check on my dad. I have to call Maddy. I—”
My breath catches, and I blink hard, trying to hold myself together. “I can’t be here. Not right now.” My voice cracks on the last word, and I hate it.
I hate that he can hear it. I hate that he’ll know exactly how close I am to falling apart.
His eyes narrow, but not in anger this time—something sharper, assessing. “Your phone,” he says, and it’s not a question. “Where is it?”
“They took it,” I say quietly, cheeks burning at how stupid I was last night. Did I really think I was going to be safe? That these people would care what happened to me?
They took my phone and locked me in a room to wait for a man to come and do whatever he wanted to me.
Nico’s arm tightens once, not to trap me—more like a reflex—then he releases me and pushes up on an elbow. The temperature in the space behind me drops, the warmth replaced by cool air.
I miss the warmth.
Focus, Erica.
“Right,” he says, then reaches for the nightstand.
He obviously knew they would take it away. Just how familiar with this whole process is he?
He said last night that he didn’t pay for women… but how do I know that isn’t a lie?
I feel an irrational stab of jealousy. He wouldn’t need to. Women line up for a man like him—good looks, money, power. And, apparently, amazing in bed. He has it all.
He hands me his phone. “Call,” he says, and my stomach clenches at the way his voice flattens. He doesn’t sound sleepy anymore. He sounds like Nico Conti.
My breath punches out of me. Relief hits so hard my eyes sting instantly. “You—” My voice breaks on the word, and I hate that too. I take the phone from his hand with shaking fingers, my thumb hovering over the screen like I’m afraid it’ll disappear. “Thanks.”
Then, he shifts back and rolls away from me, giving me space in the bed. He stands—comfortable buck-ass naked, apparently—and walks to the bathroom. I try not to watch his ass and the shifting muscles in his back. The door closes behind him, and I start dialing Maddy’s number.
It takes me a second because who even remembers phone numbers anymore, but soon enough, it’s ringing.
“Hello?” she answers, confused, groggy.
“Maddy,” I whisper. “It’s me. How’s my dad? Please tell me you checked on him.”
“Of course I did,” she says. “I promised, didn’t I? He’s fine. He was sleeping the last time I checked in. He didn’t even know I was there.”
A sound slips out of me that’s half sob, half laugh, and I press my free hand to my mouth to keep it quiet, because Nico is in the next room, and I refuse to fall apart in front of him. Again.
Except it’s already happening.
“Thank you, Maddy. I owe you one,” I say.
“Yeah, you do,” she says, the grogginess leaving her voice. “And an explanation. What the hell happened last night? Where are you?”
My throat tightens around a hundred answers I can’t say out loud. My eyes sting harder, and I stare at the rumpled sheet next to me, remembering who lay next to me all night. “I’m… I’m fine,” I lie, and it comes out too thin to be convincing. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you.”
“Erica.” Maddy says my name seriously. “You sound like you’re about to throw up. Are you at the hospital? Are you—” She cuts herself off, then her voice drops. “Are you safe?”
I swallow, and it hurts, and I hate that it hurts. “I’m safe,” I say quickly, forcing some confidence into it for her sake. “I’m not alone. I’ll be home soon. I just needed to hear you say he’s okay. That’s all. I’ll explain later, I promise.”
My fingers tighten around Nico’s phone until my knuckles ache. “I just can’t—” My voice wobbles. “I can’t talk about it right now.”
The sound of water in the bathroom shuts off abruptly, then the door opens.
My whole body reacts before even seeing him.
I lift my head a fraction and catch movement in the mirror across the room: Nico stepping out, still naked.
His gaze flicks to me and then away like he’s giving me privacy. My pulse trips over itself.
“Maddy,” I whisper, urgency pushing through the last of my control. “I have to go. I’m serious—I will call you later today, okay? I promise. Just… keep an eye on him if you can. Text me if anything changes.”
I don’t wait for her to argue. “Thank you. I love you.” Then I end the call before she can pull another truth out of me.