Chapter 5
Graham
There is a specific kind of torture in watching a natural disaster unfold in slow motion within the sanctity of your own home.
I sat at the kitchen island, a spread of advanced macroeconomics textbooks and game tape analytics open before me. My iPad was propped up, displaying the face-off win percentages for the entire Western Conference. It was data. It was clean. It was logical.
And I couldn’t focus on a single damn number because Faye Allister was "cleaning" the living room.
To call it cleaning was an insult to sanitation workers everywhere.
It was more of a choreographed dance involving a feather duster and a dangerous amount of hip swaying.
She had music playing on her phone—something breathy and pop-heavy that sounded like sugar dissolved in vodka.
She was wearing my shirt again. The grey one.
It slipped off her left shoulder every time she reached up to dust a bookshelf she couldn't actually reach, exposing the creamy expanse of skin I had spent the last three nights dreaming about.
She wasn't cleaning. She was performing.
"You missed a spot," I said, not looking up from my screen.
Faye paused mid-twirl. She lowered the duster and glared at me over the back of the sofa.
"I am dusting with vigilance, Graham. This is a very thorough process."
"You’re just moving dust from one surface to another. You need to use a cloth. And polish."
"I don't do polish. The fumes give me a headache." She hopped over the back of the couch, landing on the cushions with a bounce that made me wince for the integrity of the Italian leather. "Besides, the house is already sterile. I’m just giving it personality."
"Dust isn't personality. It’s dead skin cells."
"You are so gross," she laughed, throwing herself down onto the sofa so her legs dangled over the armrest. She picked up her sketchpad. "Anyway, I’m taking a break. Union rules."
"You’ve been cleaning for seven minutes."
"It was a very intense seven minutes."
I sighed, rubbing my temples. The headache that had been threatening to split my skull all week was throbbing behind my eyes.
It wasn't stress. It wasn't the injury—my shoulder was actually feeling better, the ache dulling to a manageable thrum thanks to Faye’s surprisingly competent taping every morning.
No, the headache was sexual frustration. Pure, unadulterated, blue-balled agony.
It had been four days since the deal. Four days of driving her to campus because her car was gone. Four days of eating dinner together at this island. Four days of her sleeping down the hall, knowing that a single wooden door was the only thing separating me from the chaos I craved.
We had settled into a routine that was terrifyingly domestic.
She made coffee in the morning (too strong, sludge-like).
I drove us to campus. We met for lunch to keep up appearances—she liked the attention, and I liked the way other men gave us a wide berth when they saw my hand on her lower back.
Then we came home. She pretended to clean; I pretended to work.
It was a lie. A beautiful, fragile lie.
"Stop staring at me," she murmured.
I blinked, realizing I hadn't looked at my iPad in a full minute. I was staring at her feet. She was wiggling her toes, her toenails painted a fresh, bright cherry red.
"I'm not staring," I lied. "I'm supervising."
"You're obsessed with me." She flipped a page in her sketchbook, the sound of the thick paper loud in the quiet room. "It’s okay, Governor. I’m an acquired taste, but once you get hooked, the withdrawal is fatal."
"You are delusional."
"And you," she said, pointing her charcoal pencil at me, "are incredibly stiff today. Even for you. Did the stock market crash? Did someone wear white after Labor Day?"
"I have an econ midterm on Monday."
"Boring."
"Necessary. Unlike art history, which is just gossiping about dead people."
She gasped, clutching her chest. "Take that back. Art is the soul of civilization. Economics is just... math with an ego."
I snorted. "Math builds bridges, Faye. Art just looks pretty hanging on the walls of the bridges we build."
"You are a philistine," she declared. She sat up, crossing her legs. She narrowed her eyes at me, studying my face with that intense, laser-focus scrutiny she used when she was analyzing light. "Stay like that."
"Like what?"
"Like a grumpy statue. The light is hitting your jawline perfectly. I want to draw it."
"No."
"Oh, come on! You have a great jawline. It’s very... authoritarian. It screams 'I execute peasants for fun.'"
"I am trying to study supply curves, Faye. I don't have time to be your muse."
"It’ll take ten minutes. Just don't move."
She started scratching the charcoal against the paper.
Scritch. Scritch. Scritch. The sound grated on my nerves, but also...
it soothed me. It was the sound of her focus.
When she painted or drew, the "Brat" disappeared.
The chaotic, loud, defensive girl vanished, replaced by someone serious. Someone competent.
I liked Competent Faye. I respected her.
I went back to my iPad, but I didn't read a word. I just listened to the sound of her drawing me. I felt the weight of her gaze. Every time she looked up, I felt it like a physical touch. She traced the line of my nose, the scar on my brow, the curve of my lip.
"You have a very intense mouth," she mumbled, half to herself.
My grip on the Apple Pencil tightened until my knuckles turned white.
"Faye."
"It’s true. It’s so stern. But the bottom lip is full. It’s a contradiction. It says 'Don't touch me,' but also..." She trailed off.
I looked up slowly. "But also what?"
She met my gaze. Her eyes were dark, dilated. She was chewing on the end of her charcoal stick, leaving a smudge of black on her lower lip.
"But also... 'I bite,'" she finished softly.
The air in the room changed instantly. The playful banter evaporated, replaced by a thick, heavy tension that tasted like ozone.
She knew what she was doing. She was poking the bear. She was bored, and when Faye was bored, she played with fire.
"I do bite," I said, my voice dropping to that gravelly depth that usually made rookies flinch.
She didn't flinch. She smiled. A slow, cat-like curve of her lips.
"Prove it."
She set the sketchbook down on the coffee table and stood up. She walked toward the island. She didn't walk; she prowled. The oversized shirt swayed around her thighs. She was barefoot.
She stopped on the other side of the marble counter, directly across from me.
"You're all talk, Vane," she whispered. "All rules and contracts and menacing glares. But I bet you don't know what to do with something you can't control."
"Go back to the couch, Faye." It was a warning. A final warning.
"Make me."
She reached out and tapped her finger against the back of my hand. The one resting on the textbook.
"You're trembling," she noted, her voice full of wonder.
I was. I was vibrating with the effort of not lunging across the counter and strangling her. Or kissing her. The line between the two was becoming dangerously blurred.
"I am losing my patience," I said.
"Good," she challenged. "Lose it. I want to see what happens."
She walked around the edge of the island. She was in my space now. Inside the perimeter.
She came to a stop next to my stool. She was close enough that I could smell the vanilla lotion she used. Close enough to see the pulse fluttering in her neck.
She reached out and placed her hand on my thigh.
It was a light touch. Tentative. But it burned through my sweatpants like a branding iron. Her fingers flexed, squeezing the muscle of my quad.
"Solid rock," she murmured. "Do you ever relax? Do you ever just... soften?"
That was it. The thread snapped.
I moved faster than she could react.
I spun on the stool, my hands shooting out to grip her waist. I lifted her effortlessly—she weighed nothing, a feather in the wind—and slammed her back against the edge of the counter.
She gasped, her eyes going wide, but she didn't fight. Her hands flew up to grip my shoulders.
I stood between her legs, spreading them apart with my thighs, pressing my body flush against hers. I trapped her there. The marble dug into her lower back; my chest pressed against her breasts.
"You want to see what happens?" I growled, getting right in her face. "You think this is a game, Faye? You think because I let you sleep in my house and wear my clothes that I’m harmless?"
Her breath was coming in short, shallow pants. "I never said you were harmless."
"You called me stiff. You called me boring." I let my hands slide down her waist to her hips, gripping them hard enough to bruise. "You have no idea what I am holding back."
"Show me," she whispered. A dare. A plea.
I didn't kiss her. Not yet.
I buried my face in the crook of her neck. I inhaled deeply, filling my lungs with her scent. It was intoxicating. It was better than the cold. Better than the ice.
I dragged my nose up her jawline, feeling her shiver against me.
"You like this," I murmured against her skin. "You like provoking me. You’re a brat."
"Maybe," she breathed, her head falling back.
"There is no maybe. You act out because you want someone to stop you. You want someone to tell you 'no'."
"No one tells me no," she said, her voice trembling.
"I do."
I bit the sensitive cord of muscle in her neck. Not hard enough to break skin, but hard enough to make her gasp. A sharp, stinging claim.
"Graham!"
"Quiet," I ordered.
She went silent instantly. Her hands tightened in my hair, her fingers tangling in the short strands.
I pulled back to look at her. Her face was flushed. Her lips were parted, swollen. Her eyes were glazed over with lust.
"Lift your shirt," I commanded.
She hesitated for a fraction of a second. Then, she reached down and grabbed the hem of the grey t-shirt. She pulled it up slowly, revealing her stomach, her ribs, the lace of her black panties. She stopped just under her breasts.
She wasn't wearing a bra.