Chapter 8
Loch Ness has turned on the lights.
Loch Ness has located the walkie talkie.
Loch Ness has opened the window.
Loch Ness is not pleased.
Loch Ness is flashing a laser pointer into my room from across the garden.
It knows.
I can’t stop laughing.
I can’t.
It hurts.
Heeelp.
I started awake to my alarm at the asscrack of dawn the next morning with a kink in my neck, another budding migraine, and an insatiable craving to put my fist through the nearest wall.
I was sore, famished, and utterly exhausted.
It’d taken me six hours to clean Dominic’s kitchen and another seven to vacuum and mop the whole first floor, organize the massive shopping haul I’d had delivered, make a list of everything else the house still needed, and whip together another inedible dish for dinner.
I’d finally finished at eleven thirty and was so drained by the time I got home that I’d collapsed onto my bed and fallen asleep without eating or getting changed. And the absolute last thing I wanted to do now was roll out of it.
Still, I pushed myself upright with a whiny grunt and staggered into the shower.
The hot water helped. Barely, but it helped. As did the ibuprofen and banana I all but deep-throated on my way out the door to catch the early bus.
The house was blissfully silent when I got there, and I let out a sigh of relief when my initial scan of the first floor didn’t reveal any signs of another spite-fueled disaster.
One day down, twenty-nine more to go.
I could do this. If I stuck to my plan, allowed him to believe I was too clueless and incompetent to be a threat, his defenses would eventually start to lower. Then I could really mess with him.
I just had to bide my time and be patient, which wouldn’t be a problem. If there was one thing I’d grown extremely practiced at over the last eight years, it was waiting.
I sauntered into the kitchen, put on a pot of coffee, and opened the binder so I could review my task list for the day. There was a note tucked inside.
Your uniform is in the coatroom.
Plus a little thank-you gift. For the dye.
I beelined for the coatroom, too curious to hold off. I didn’t care what the uniform looked like, how many neon sequins it had, or how much it jingled, just as long as it didn’t physically hinder my ability to get my work done.
Or so I thought.
There was a full five-second delay from when my eyes landed on the tall, maroon block of metal sitting in the middle of the coatroom to when my brain managed to comprehend what it was—a locker.
My molars clamped together, black tar churning in the pit of my stomach. I stepped into the room, reached for the silver lock.
Eight. One. Zero. Eight.
Click.
It was empty, save for a navy blue hoodie folded neatly on the middle shelf and the small, hauntingly beautiful bouquet lying on top of it: dead roses, thorned, and wrapped generously in poison ivy.
My vision snapped red.
I slammed the locker shut.
I didn’t like losing control of my emotions.
It made me sloppy. Clouded my judgment. Made me miss important details and substantially increased the chances I’d do something worth regretting.
But that wasn’t the case here, the blinding anger thrashing through my veins assured me as I tossed the dirt-covered garden shears to the side. This time would be different, it insisted as I texted my concierge, asking them to give Amber access to my apartment.
He deserved it.
Almost two hours later, the scorching bite of my bitterness and anger still hadn’t ebbed.
I burned the eggs before slapping them onto a plate, garnishing them with a fistful of my garden salad, three tablespoons of salt, and a touch of honey.
The coffee was lukewarm and poured into the mug I’d been using all morning.
And I made sure to round out the meal with a special little treat, eager to satisfy my beloved master’s sweet tooth.
It took four tries to find his bedroom.
It was the only door that was locked. I placed the tray on the floor, took out a diamond earring, and aligned the gold post with the small pinhole in the middle of the handle.
I pushed.
The emergency release triggered with a telling click.
I calmly put the earring back on. Rolled up the massive sleeves of my new uniform. And entered what might have been the only decently furnished room in the entire house. There was a four-poster bed, two nightstands, a desk riddled with electronics, and a large sectional facing a mounted TV.
Still, something about their layout was uncaring enough to scream “temporary.”
The soft, steady sound of Dominic’s breathing made my eyes roll to the back of my head. It was past 9:00 a.m. on a workday; all of his curtains were wide open, sunlight was blaring into the room, and an entire flock of birds was chirping just outside his arched windows.
I crept closer, my socks sliding quietly over the marble tiles. He was splayed out on his bare chest, his lower half covered by pristine white sheets, his expression smooth, calm, and utterly peaceful.
Too peaceful, if you asked me.
I plucked the special little treat Amber had very helpfully picked up for me this morning off the breakfast tray and placed it on his pillow, right in front of his nose.
Then I slammed the tray down on the bedside table.
Dominic’s eyes flew open, and he bolted upright, slightly panicked and wholly disoriented.
“Morning, sunshine,” I cooed with a sweet smile. “Guess who went above and beyond their assigned duties to bring you breakfast in bed.”
He blinked. First, at me. Then, at the tray.
And, finally, at his pillow.
Three. Two. Annnnd…
“JESUSFUCKWHATTHEFUCK!”
He flailed backward with the clumsy grace of a newborn gazelle, his hand smacking loudly against the headboard as he attempted to untangle from the sheets and scamper off the bed. A lamp was knocked over. His fork clattered to the floor.
And by the time he’d finally managed to free himself from the twisted snares of Egyptian cotton and tumble onto his feet, he was huffing, puffing, red in the face… and fully naked.
His biceps were bulging, abs flexed underneath the ragged sawing of his broad, perfectly defined chest. And standing at full attention, grazing the flat of his stomach, was Dominic Crawford’s sublimely crafted, slightly curved dick.
My gaze snapped back up to his face, determined to stay there as an unsettling tingle swept down my torso and thickened my blood to sludge.
Good god. Adonis would look like a naked mole rat next to this man. It was very, very, very inconvenient.
Dom, who was too busy scanning the bed with wide, terror-stricken eyes to notice my sudden lack of breathing, shoved a hand through his hair. “Where the fuck did it go! Do you see it?”
I swallowed, a dense fog settling over my thoughts as the temperature in the room continued to climb. My tongue felt bulky and stiff in my mouth, and it took a few seconds before I could coax it into functioning again.
“What are you talking about?” I stepped closer to the bed, itching to rip the sweatshirt off, dive headfirst into an ice bath, and stay there until my body became permanently incapable of doing the things it was doing right now. “Oh, this little thing?”
Dominic stumbled back a step, watching with palpable horror as I reached into the sheets, picked up the large, brown cockroach, examined it, then casually popped it into my mouth.
The rich taste of dark chocolate exploded over my tongue, the hard toffee interior breaking with a loud, satisfying crunch. Dominic’s eyes flared. The color slowly drained from his face.
I couldn’t tell whether he was going to hurl, have an aneurysm, or pass out. I didn’t want to get my hopes up, but chances were good we’d see a bit of all three.
I sucked on the tips of my fingers with a satisfied “mmm, juicy,” then swallowed.
His face started to tint an ashy green.
I smirked. If there was one thing in the world he hated even more than me, it was these disgusting little critters. I’d ripped a page out of his nightmares and forced him to live it.
With a breezy wave of my hand, I gestured toward the tray.
The coffee had spilled over, pooling underneath the inedible mulch I’d tossed together.
“Thought you’d appreciate having breakfast in bed this morning.
Rosie used to do it for us all the time, and we loved it.
” Then I let my eyes flick down his body with half-lidded disinterest. “I didn’t think the house was that cold. I’ll lower the AC.”
He snapped out of the trance, looked down, and finally registered his lack of clothing. His jaw worked, and he snatched up the pillow at his feet to hold in front of his protuberance.
“What was it?” he asked, voice sharp with annoyance. “Chocolate?”
“Exoskeleton with an extra-juicy protein filling. Want one? They’re a little hard to catch, but that’s what I’m here for.”
“You’re disgusting.”
“Glad you still think so. I was starting to wonder, given your choice in my assigned uniform.” I crossed my arms, giving him a condescending once-over. “I didn’t realize you were so desperate to see me wearing your name.”
His lips remained sealed as his tongue swiped over his upper teeth. The swarm of butterflies fluttering in my chest grew tenfold when his liquid gaze slipped down, tracing over the dark blue hoodie that had easily swallowed three-quarters of my body.
His attention lingered on the scrunched Captain label printed down one rolled-up sleeve before flicking to the small alarm clock perched on his nightstand.
He was trying to do the math—figure out how I’d managed to retrieve the hoodie from the locker, wash it enough times to negate the itching effects of the poison ivy, dry it, make breakfast, and break into his room before he’d even had a chance to wake up.
He thought it would be a home run. That I’d take one look at the bouquet and nope the fuck out of our deal.
That’s the thing about growing up with someone. You become privy to things like each other’s biggest, most irrational fears.