Chapter 19
NINETEEN
She woke to an empty bed.
Groggy and only half-aware of where she was and how she’d gotten there, Francesca groped the sheets for her phone. She normally kept it plugged in and tucked beneath her pillow so she didn’t accidentally sleep through her alarm, but it was nowhere to be found.
That was her first clue that her life had gone terribly, catastrophically awry. The second was of course the size of the bed.
Francesca flung her arms out and wiggled her fingers but still couldn’t touch the sides. That was certainly unusual. The bed in her studio was a twin shoved up against a wall. She typically woke up with her face pressed into the corner and her legs twisted around a pillow.
And it certainly didn’t smell like oak moss, sandalwood, and musk.
Francesca’s eyes popped open. She sat up with an awful little gurgle of surprise, the soft sheets clutched to her naked chest like she’d just rolled out of some cheesy romcom. The events of the previous night came back to her not in snatches but in a moment of perfect, agonizing clarity.
I’m in Luis’s penthouse.
She let out a slow, calming breath her old therapist would’ve been proud of. Shoulders hunching a little, she looked around like the man himself might jump out of the closet at any moment.
But he wasn’t in the bedroom. There was no sound coming from the bathroom, either — and from her limited experience, men tended to be extraordinarily loud pissers and shower-takers. So he wasn't there.
“Right,” she muttered, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. “Everything’s worse when you’re naked. Get dressed, then go from there.”
Urgency pumped through her, though it was painfully lacking in direction. She didn’t know what she needed to do, only that it had to be done.
I didn’t bring any clothes? Of course not. When would that have happened?
The grand plan had seen her flouncing back to her apartment after the Games finished. It never occurred to her that she should pack a bag. Not like she would’ve had the chance to grab it if she had, anyway.
Cringing away from the possibility of putting her blood stained and brain-splattered dress back on, Francesca tip-toed into the bathroom to pull out one of the fluffy robes she knew he kept hanging on the back of the door.
It was much too large, but that was actually preferable. Even after all that they’d done, she didn’t feel entirely comfortable waltzing out into his home in next to nothing.
After doing the normal bathroom routine — and discovering a cache of new toothbrushes under the sink — she felt marginally more equipped to face the world. Double-knotting the tie around her waist, she padded to the door. She pressed her ear to it and held her breath.
There weren’t any sounds out there, either.
Not sure if that made things more or less nerve-wracking, Francesca slowly turned the knob to pry open the door.
The penthouse was dark and quiet. The shades were still down, which meant that it wasn’t dark yet.
She couldn’t tell what time it was at all, actually, but she figured it had to be close to dusk if Luis was out and about.
He was still in the penthouse, though. She knew that much. She could feel his energy in the air.
Francesca padded down the hall, her gaze swinging left and right as she searched for him. Finally, when she stepped into the living room, the sounds of cabinets opening reached her.
Wondering what on Earth could compel him into the kitchen, Francesca crept along as quietly as she could until she reached the doorway.
He stood with his broad back to her, dressed in his usual dark button-down and jeans.
His hair was slicked back and appeared freshly washed.
Bags stamped with the logo from an upscale grocery store lined the counter.
He plucked what looked like a bag of flour out of one and delicately deposited it on a shelf far too high up for her to reach.
Baffled, she asked, “What are you doing?”
Luis turned his head to look over his shoulder. His grin was relaxed, like he wasn’t surprised at all to see her standing there in his bathrobe. “Good evening, kitten. You’re up early.”
She leaned over a little to squint at the time on the cooker. “It’s four in the afternoon,” she replied.
“That’s early for us.”
“For vampires, you mean,” she corrected.
Dipping his hand back into the bag, he sing-songed, “For us. Your sleep schedule will switch to mine soon.”
Ignoring the implication of that, she crossed the kitchen to hop up onto the island. Crossing her ankles, she informed him, “I have a mostly nocturnal life already, actually. The hours for one of my jobs is from five to eleven.”
Luis placed a can of something on the shelf before he turned to give her a confused look. “What? But you clean houses during the day.”
“I start at eleven in the morning, usually,” she explained, nails tapping on the counter top. “I take a break for dinner and then go to my other job.”
He crossed his arms. Scowling, he demanded, “So you work twelve hour days?”
“Such is the life of the poor.”
“You’re not poor anymore,” he reminded her. “You have the money from the Games.”
She shrugged. “I can quit one of my jobs — for a while.”
Looking deeply vexed, he rubbed his creased forehead. “That was why you said goodbye like that. You were quitting.”
“Yup.” She made sure to really pop her P on that one.
Luis opened his mouth in a way that made her think he was about to give her a piece of his mind, but nothing came out.
Instead, he clenched his jaw, closed his eyes, and spread his hands out in front of him like he could physically wipe the thought from his mind.
“Doesn’t matter,” he muttered. “You’re here now.
And you can go ahead and quit your other job, too. ”
“No, I can’t,” she argued, quirking a brow.
“I got a lot of money from the Games, sure, but it’s not infinite.
And most of it is going to my parents. What’s left goes to— well, it’s not for me.
Besides, it’s not like I plan on making the mistake of doing the Games again.
I’m not getting money like that a second time, so I need to be safe. Save. Invest. Smart people things.”
Closing the distance between them, Luis braced his hands on the counter by her hips.
He pressed close, until there was only a handful of inches between their faces, and whispered, “I’m sorry, did you miss the part of the contract that says you get an allowance of one thousand dollars a day? Being here is your job.”
Needing something for her hands to do, Francesca fiddled with his unbuttoned collar. “Did you miss the part where that ends in thirty days?”
“Fine,” he replied, rubbing his lips over the rise of her cheekbone. The bristles of his beard tickled her skin. “Should we triple it, then?”
She tugged sharply on his collar. “Did you forget where trying to buy me off got you last time, Casanova? I have some pride, you know.”
“I’m well aware,” he growled.
Luis cupped her cheeks and tilted her head back. He looked down at her with those midnight blue eyes and that straight nose and those wicked lips and his ridiculous white streaks in his hair and beard and she just…
“What gives you the right to be that handsome?” she grunted, scowling.
His white teeth flashed in a wicked grin and the lines around his eyes crinkled in the way she loved. “I hope you know that I intend to use my looks to the fullest advantage.”
For the first time since she admitted to herself that she had feelings for him, Francesca allowed herself to touch those charming lines. His smile fell with her gentle caress, and something in his face turned boyish and searching.
“These are my favorite,” she whispered.
His eyes moved back and forth, looking for something in her own expression. For once, she didn’t bother hiding anything. What was the point? He knew how she felt. It didn’t change the facts of their arrangement or their compatibility. There was no harm in honesty now.
Luis tilted his head into her hand. His eyes fluttered closed, allowing her to skim the tips of her fingers over the long fans of his silky eyelashes.
“I have to leave,” he rumbled, voice full of regret.
“Oh.” Her fingers curled into her palm. Dropping her hand to the cold stone of the kitchen island, she asked, “Where are you going?”
Luis opened his eyes. “My cousin wants me to report to him first thing. I have a feeling he’s gonna whoop my ass for yesterday.”
“But you got his money back, right?”
“Sure, but I also made a pretty big mess of things. The situation with Malachi deserves its own briefing.” He shrugged. “It’ll be fine. I make Felix way too much money for him to kill me. Also, his bride likes me, so he’s stuck with me.”
It hardly seemed fair to be disappointed, but nothing about this was as she’d pictured it.
In her mind, whoever won her contract wouldn’t want to spend any time with her at all outside of blood donation.
It’d never occurred to her that she might want to spend her night with them, or be sad when they left to do whatever it was they normally did.
To a degree, she’d almost seen herself as a food delivery service. She’d come when called, drop off a Tupperware of the good red juice, and leave. No biggie.
But the thought of having that arrangement with Luis made her shrink a little, like her muscles and bones wanted to get as far from it as her mind did.
Trying not to sound pathetic, she asked, “When will you be back?”
Luis ran his hands down to her shoulders. Digging his thumbs into the taut muscle, he gave her a deeply satisfied smile. “You gonna miss me, kitten?”
“If you give me massages, yes,” she answered, letting her head loll to one side.
His smile turned into a thoughtful frown as he found a mean little knot in her trapezius. “I don’t know when I’ll be back, but it’ll probably be around midnight. Depends on how long Felix yells at me.”
She nodded weakly. Pulling her lower lip between her teeth, she tried not to wince as he did his best to eradicate the knot.
“Twelve hour days,” he muttered darkly. “I bet you sleep on a shit mattress, too. When was the last time you had a break, Frankie?”
“I don’t know,” she mumbled. “Six months? I don’t take days off. Time gets weird.”
“For fuck’s sake.” Easing off the knot, he grabbed her chin and gave her head a tiny shake.
When she opened her eyes, he sternly commanded, “Rule number two: When you’re in our home, you rest. I don’t want to see you pick up a rag, organize a drawer, or lift one pretty finger to do anything other than relax. Do you understand me?”
Blinking a little sluggishly at him, she answered, “Sure.”
“Mm, no. That’s not how you answer.” He raised his dark eyebrows. “When I give you an order, you say yes, sir. That way I know you heard me, and I can punish you if you break the rule.”
A tingle rushed down from the tips of her ears to the ends of her toes. Mouth drying, she rasped, “Yes, sir.”
A flash of fang was all she saw before he swooped down on her for a hard kiss. “That’s a good girl,” he whispered, nipping her gently.
Her hands met nothing but air when she reached for him. He’d stepped back almost as quickly as he came down on her.
Smoothing his fingers through his hair, he muttered, “I’ve got to get the fuck out of here or I’ll never leave.”
Francesca rolled her lips between her teeth. There was a feeling of unspeakable power in seeing a man like Luis Amauri flushed and bothered from something as simple as two words and a kiss.
Patting his pockets, he told her, “I got you food. Dahlia sent me a list of things arrants eat, so hopefully it should be good. If you need anything else, I’ve left a credit card on the coffee table. Buy whatever you want.”
“Food?”
Walking toward the doorway, he waved a hand over his shoulder. “Food. Diamonds. A TV. Whatever. My money’s your money.”
Our home. My money’s your money. Us.
Francesca sent her warped reflection in the chrome refrigerate across from her a confused grimace. “We’re not married, you know!” she called out.
From somewhere in the hallway, Luis hollered back, “We’ll see.”