Chapter 10
BLAIR
Iwake up gasping. My body is still pulsing and my thighs involuntarily clench tightly together as a slow, rolling aftershock ripples through me like the ocean outside the window. The room is dark and everything feels damp…my skin, the sheets and the lace between my legs.
I’m soaked. Completely, embarrassingly drenched. My tank top is twisted up under my arms, and my nipples feel so sensitive that even the cool air makes me shiver. My heart is hammering so hard I can feel it in my throat.
It wasn’t a dream.
I know it the second full consciousness slams into me. That orgasm…it was so sharp and blinding and not something my sleeping mind invented. Someone gave it to me. He gave it to me.
And I know because I saw him. Just as he turned and walked out the door, I saw him.
The masked man.
The realization hits me with a combination of panic and heat as I bolt upright and swing my legs over the side of the bed.
My feet hit the cold floor and I nearly moan again because my clit is still swollen and throbbing with every movement.
I press my thighs together in a desperate bid to try to stop the ache, but it only makes it worse.
He was here, and he not only touched me, he made me come while I was asleep.
The thought should terrify me, but instead I’m filled with a dizzying mix of horror and hunger.
I jump out of bed, my legs shaky, and stumble toward the door.
It’s still cracked open the way I left it in an invitation I didn’t fully admit to myself until now.
I yank it wide and run barefoot down the dark hallway with my heart in my mouth.
“Hello?” I call, my voice cracking, too loud in the silent house. “Are you still here?”
Nothing answers except the low, endless roar of the waves.
I take the stairs two at a time, gripping the banister so I don’t fall, and I don’t know what I’m expecting to see, but the living room is empty. I spin around, scanning the shadows, the kitchen doorway, the hall that leads to the back exit. Empty.
The front door is still locked from the inside, and I wonder if he must have let himself out the sliding glass door onto the deck. I run to it and press my palms and forehead to the cold glass, searching the dark beach for any sign of movement. Nothing. Just rocks and the endless black water.
He vanished again, just like he always does.
I stand there breathing hard with my chest heaving until the chill seeps into my bare skin and I start to shake.
My panties are clinging uncomfortably, soaked through, and I can smell the sharp and unmistakable scent of my arousal. Shame floods me, hot and sudden.
I came for a stranger. A masked intruder who sneaks into my room at night and touches me while I’m unconscious. I should be calling the police. I should be packing my bag and driving away right now. Instead, I’m standing here throbbing, desperately wanting more.
I know I sleep deeply. I know I have hypersomnia and lucid dreaming, so none of this should really surprise me. What does surprise me, is how much I want it. How much I need it.
I turn back into the living room, wrapping my arms around myself, and that’s when I see it: a small white rectangle on the coffee table, placed exactly in the center where the moonlight hits it. A note.
My stomach flips.
I walk over slowly, as if it might bite me, and pick it up. It’s thick paper, stationery I haven’t seen before, the kind with the faint embossed anchor at the top. His handwriting is neat and slanted just enough to feel controlled.
If you want more, sleep naked tomorrow night.
That’s all it says. No signature. No explanation. Just a command.
I read it three times, four, my pulse racing faster with every pass. If I want more…sleep naked. So he can see all of me. Touch all of me. Do whatever he wants while I’m helpless.
My knees feel weak. I sink onto the couch, note clutched in my fingers, and stare at it until the words blur. I’ve been lonely for so long it’s become a second skin.
After my father told me he had arranged my marriage to one of his oldest business associates—a man nearly forty years my senior who looked at me like I was a valuable piece of property to be acquired—I had to disappear.
I told myself I needed space, quiet, time to figure out who I was without my father’s plans suffocating me.
But the truth is uglier: I wanted to be a nobody for a while.
Invisible and unclaimed, because being wanted had only ever meant being used, controlled, or sold off to the highest bidder in my father’s world.
And now someone is watching me. Wanting me. Touching me in the dark.
It’s so messed up and dangerous and probably illegal on both sides…he’s stalking me, I’m trespassing. But the note in my hand feels like the first time in months anyone has seen me. Really seen me.
Not the polished, preppy Blair who smiles for curated photos. Not the good daughter or the girl who always has to have it together. Just me…flawed, lonely and so desperate for touch I’m willing to let a masked stranger finger me in my sleep.
I hate how much I like it and how wet the thought makes me all over again.
I press my thighs together on the couch, biting my lip to stifle the whimper that wants to escape. The note trembles in my hand. Tomorrow night…naked, no barriers, and no pretending.
Part of me screams that this is insane. That I should leave right now, drive through the night, check into a motel, and start over somewhere neutral.
Somewhere not connected to my father and his hidden secrets.
But the bigger part—the aching, hollow part that’s been starving for attention—is already deciding.
I’m sick of being lonely. Of being traded like currency. I’m sick of waking up every morning with no one’s arms around me, no one’s voice in my ear, no one who cares enough to stay.
Even if it’s twisted, even if it’s wrong, this man comes back. Night after night. He watches me. He touches me. He wants me enough to risk everything just to be near me while I sleep.
And I want to be wanted that badly.
I stand up slowly on unsteady legs and walk back upstairs with the note pressed to my chest like a secret.
In the bedroom, I crawl back into the tangled sheets that still smell like sex and dreams. My skin is hypersensitive; every brush of the cotton is electric.
I lie on my back the way I was when he found me, thighs parted and arms loose at my sides.
I touch myself once, just a light pass over my clit, and gasp at how ready I still am. How sensitive. But I stop. I don’t want to come again, not without him.
Tomorrow night I’ll do as he asked. I’ll be naked, with the door open wider. I’ll attempt to sleep, but I’ll be awake inside, waiting, with my heart racing and every nerve on fire.
And when he comes, I’ll stay in bed and let him do whatever he wants. Because I’m tired of being alone. And for the first time in forever, I feel chosen. Even if the one choosing me is a shadow in a mask.
I fall asleep with the note under my pillow, his words burning behind my eyes.
If you want more, sleep naked tomorrow night.