Chapter 6
Faye
I was trying to paint rage.
It should have been easy. I had twenty-one years of repressed anger stored in my bone marrow, waiting to be tapped like a maple tree.
I had the anger of a daughter whose father viewed her as a tax write-off.
I had the anger of a student whose tuition was being held hostage.
I had the anger of a woman living in a glass cage on top of a mountain.
But every time I put the brush to the canvas, the red turned into something else.
It softened. It blurred. The jagged, violent strokes I intended kept curving into something… sensual. The crimson wasn't the color of fury; it was the color of a bruised lip. The black wasn't the void; it was the color of a t-shirt stretched tight over broad shoulders.
I groaned, throwing the brush into the jar of turpentine. It hit the glass with a sharp clink, splashing murky grey water onto the concrete floor of the studio.
"Useless," I hissed at the canvas.
I stepped back, wiping my hands on my smock. The painting was a mess. It was chaos. It was a visual representation of the inside of my head for the last forty-eight hours.
Lift your shirt.
The command echoed in my ears, as clear and authoritative as if he were standing right behind me.
I shivered, a phantom sensation running down my spine. I could still feel his hands. The rough calluses. The shocking, devastating heat of his palm against my stomach. The way he had taken me apart on his kitchen island with the clinical precision of a surgeon and the hunger of a starving wolf.
And then he had stopped.
That was the part that was driving me insane. He had brought me to the edge of the universe, shattered me into a million pieces, and then… put me back together and sent me to bed.
It was a power move. It was the ultimate flex of control. He proved he could wreck me without even unzipping his pants. He proved that he had the discipline to stop when I was begging him not to.
I hated him for it.
And God help me, I wanted him to do it again.
"You look like you’re trying to murder that easel with your mind."
I jumped, spinning around.
Cleo was standing in the doorway of the studio, holding two cardboard cups of coffee. She was wearing her 'I am a serious law student' blazer, but her eyes were narrowed behind her glasses, sharp and assessing.
"I am," I said, snatching the coffee she offered. "It’s resisting arrest."
"Rough weekend?" Cleo asked, leaning against a worktable. She took a sip of her latte, her gaze never leaving my face.
"Standard," I lied, blowing on the steam. "Cleaning. Cooking. Dodging the landlord."
"Uh-huh." Cleo tilted her head. "Is that why you’re glowing?"
I choked on my sip. "I am not glowing. I’m sweating. It’s hot in here."
"It’s sixty degrees in here, Faye. You’re glowing. You have that look."
"What look?"
"The 'I just had a religious experience' look. Or the 'I just had really good sex' look. Usually, they overlap."
I felt the heat rush up my neck. I turned back to the canvas, pretending to scrutinize a brushstroke.
"Don't be gross. I told you, Graham Vane is a robot. He doesn't have sex. He probably just downloads updates while he sleeps."
"Right. The robot." Cleo walked closer, inspecting my painting. "This is new."
"It’s garbage."
"It’s… intense," she corrected. "Very visceral. Lot of red. Lot of friction." She looked at me, her eyebrows raised. "Sure nothing happened?"
I gripped the paintbrush until my knuckles turned white. I couldn't tell her. I wanted to. I wanted to spill everything—the way he called me 'Good Girl,' the way he held me after, the terrifying intimacy of the tape on his shoulder.
But it felt… private.
It felt like a secret that belonged only to the high altitude of the penthouse. If I brought it down here, to the fluorescent lights and the gossip of campus, it would become cheap. It would become just another hookup story about the rich girl and the hockey star.
And whatever was happening between Graham and me, it wasn't cheap. It was expensive. It was costing me my sanity.
"Nothing happened," I said firmly. "He's just… he's intense to live with. He watches everything I do. It’s exhausting."
"Well, try to look less exhausted and more alive," Cleo said, checking her watch. "We have the Sociology of Sport lecture in twenty minutes. And rumor has it the entire hockey team is required to attend today for extra credit because half of them are failing."
My stomach dropped.
"He’ll be there?"
"He’s the Captain. Of course he’ll be there. Why? You scared of the big bad wolf?"
"No," I said, grabbing my bag and shoving my paints away. "I just hate seeing him in public. He wears this mask. It’s annoying."
"Masks are useful," Cleo said, opening the door. "Keeps the world from seeing the crazy."
If only she knew, I thought, following her out into the bright, blinding reality of Monday morning. The crazy is the only part I’m interested in.
The lecture hall was a cavern. Five hundred seats, tiered like a Roman coliseum, smelling of damp wool coats and stale coffee.
Cleo and I took our usual seats in the middle row, stage left. Safe. Anonymous.
Or at least, we tried to be.
The air in the room shifted before I even saw them. The ambient chatter dropped a decibel. Heads turned.
The Sentinels had arrived.
They moved as a pack, a wall of broad shoulders and varsity jackets.
They took up space. They sucked the oxygen out of the room.
Rys was there, laughing loud and obnoxious, high-fiving someone in the front row.
Miller was there, looking sullen and keeping his head down—I wondered if Graham had threatened him again.
And then, there was Graham.
He wasn't wearing his jersey. He was wearing a black turtleneck and a grey wool coat that fit him perfectly. He looked like a CEO who had gotten lost on his way to a board meeting.
He walked with that distinct, predatory grace, his expression bored, his grey eyes scanning the room like a security camera.
He didn't look at his teammates. He didn't look at the professor.
He looked straight at me.
It was immediate. A lock-on. Across fifty feet of crowded lecture hall, our eyes met, and the rest of the world dissolved into static.
My heart hammered a frantic rhythm against my ribs. I felt flushed, hot all over, as if his gaze was a physical touch. I remembered his hand on my stomach. I remembered his mouth on my neck.
He didn't smile. He didn't wave. He just… acknowledged. A slight tilt of his chin. A narrowing of his eyes.
I see you, the look said. And I know what you look like when you come apart.
I looked away first. I had to. The intensity was too much. I stared down at my notebook, my pen hovering over the paper, my hand trembling slightly.
"Okay," Cleo whispered beside me. "I take it back."
"Take what back?" I hissed, not looking up.
"That you guys are just roommates. He just looked at you like he was deciding whether to eat you or mount you right here on the desk."
"You are projecting."
"I am observant. And he is terrifying. Seriously, Faye, be careful. That man is a walking red flag."
"He’s fine," I muttered. "He’s just… particular."
The lecture began. Professor Halloway started droning on about the tribalism of modern athletics. I didn't hear a word. I was hyper-aware of the presence five rows behind me. I could feel him there. It was like sitting near a fireplace; even if you didn't look at it, you felt the heat.
Forty-five minutes of torture later, class ended.
I packed my bag in record time. "I need to go. I have to… stop by the library."
"You hate the library," Cleo pointed out.
"I love the library. Books. Silence. Goodbye."
I bolted. I needed air. I needed to escape the gravitational pull of the Sentinels before I did something stupid, like turn around and ask him if his shoulder was hurting.
I pushed through the double doors into the hallway, taking a deep breath of the cooler air.
"Running away, Princess?"
The voice was low, resonant, and right behind my ear.
I froze. I closed my eyes for a second, steeling myself, then turned around.
Graham was standing there. He had separated from the pack. He was leaning against the wall, hands in his coat pockets, looking down at me with that unreadable expression.
"I don't run," I said, clutching my bag strap. "I walk with purpose."
"You were sprinting."
"I have a lot to do. Unlike you, I don't have a syllabus that consists of 'Hit Puck, Don't Die'."
His lip twitched. "Cute. But you forgot your scarf."
He pulled his hand out of his pocket. He was holding my cashmere scarf. I must have dropped it in the rush.
I reached for it. "Thanks."
He didn't let go when I grabbed the end.
We stood there in the busy hallway, students streaming past us like a river around a stone. We were connected by twelve inches of soft, grey wool.
"How is the shoulder?" I asked quietly.
"Manageable."
"Did you ice it this morning?"
"Yes."
"Did you take the anti-inflammatory?"
"Yes, Nurse Ratched. I followed the protocol."
He tugged on the scarf, pulling me a step closer. The humor faded from his eyes, replaced by something darker.
"You left early this morning," he said.
"I had to paint."
"You avoided breakfast."
"I wasn't hungry."
"Liar," he murmured. "You're hiding."
"I am not hiding!" I whispered furiously, looking around to make sure no one was listening. "I am… processing."
"Processing what?"
"Saturday. The kitchen. Everything." I looked up at him, pleading with my eyes for him to understand. "Graham, we crossed a line. A big, thick, electric fence of a line."
"And?"
"And it can't happen again. The contract—"
"The contract," he interrupted smoothly, "says you serve my needs. It doesn't specify which needs."
My mouth fell open. "You arrogant—"
"I’m kidding," he said, though his eyes didn't look like he was kidding at all. "Relax, Faye. I’m not going to ravish you in the hallway. I have standards."
He let go of the scarf. I stumbled back slightly, missing the tension.