Isabelle
I'm going insane.
That's the only explanation for why I'm lying in this narrow bed in our new safe house at three in the morning, staring at the ceiling and listening to Julian's breathing from the couch in the next room, feeling like I might actually lose my mind if he doesn't touch me soon.
It's been two days since the training session when I kissed him, when I thought I'd get him to give in, and it hasn't happened again. Two days of watching him look at me like he wants to devour me, only to turn away the moment I get too close.
I know he wants me. During training yesterday, when he was showing me how to break a chokehold, I felt his cock harden against my back. Felt his breathing change, his grip on my arms tighten just slightly before he pulled away and put three feet of distance between us.
He wants me. But he won't take me, and it's driving me absolutely fucking crazy. No matter what I do, the near-feral man who fucked me into oblivion in Ibiza has developed a sturdy rope of self-control when it comes to me, one that I can fray but never quite break.
I throw off the thin sheet and sit up, running my hands through my hair. The room is too hot, too small, too suffocating. I'm wearing a long t-shirt and nothing else, and even that feels like too much fabric against my overheated skin.
I've tried everything. Wearing less clothing around him.
Touching him more. Making comments that border on explicit.
Nothing works. He deflects every attempt with that infuriating control, maintaining his boundaries like they're carved in stone.
It's only gotten worse since I kissed him, as if him getting that close to giving in just reinforced everything he's using to block me out instead of weakening it.
I even tried the towel trick again this morning.
I walked right past him, where he was sitting at the small table with his laptop, close enough that water from my hair dripped onto his shoulder.
He didn't even look up. Just kept typing, his jaw tight, his knuckles white where he gripped the edge of the table.
"Isabelle," he'd said, his voice strained. "Get dressed."
"Why?" I'd stopped right beside him, close enough to feel the heat radiating from his body. "Does it bother you?"
"Yes."
"Good."
His hand had shot out and pushed me forward at the small of my back. "This isn't a game."
"Then stop playing it." I'd leaned down, bringing my face close to his. "Stop pretending you don't want me. Stop acting like you're made of stone when I can see exactly how much you—"
"Get. Dressed." He'd turned back to his laptop, dismissing me completely. I'd wanted to scream. Wanted to grab his face and force him to look at me. But I'd gone back into the bathroom and gotten dressed, feeling the rejection like a physical ache in my chest.
That was twelve hours ago, and I still feel it.
I stand up and move to the window, pulling back the thin curtain to look out at the dark street below.
The small rental house we've been in since the night before last is in a quiet neighborhood on the outskirts of some Croatian town whose name I can't remember.
Everything looks peaceful, like there aren't people hunting us, like we're not running for our lives, like the world isn't falling apart around us.
The constant danger makes everything feel more intense.
Every day, Julian seems to find another threat getting too close.
He spends hours on his laptop and phone, tracking leads and coordinating with contacts whose names I don't know.
The stress is wearing on both of us—I can see it in the tight set of his shoulders and the dark circles under his eyes.
And the fear and the adrenaline and the knowledge that we could die at any moment make the wanting worse. If I could die anytime, I want to live. I want as much pleasure as I can soak up between now and then.
And truthfully… I just want Julian. I don't let myself think about that for too long, because it's a dangerous line of thinking to go down.
I can't get attached to this man, who has proved himself to be someone very different from whoever he was masquerading as when we partied in Ibiza.
He's cold and capable and detached, a bastion of self-control and kind of an asshole sometimes. But also…
He's protective. When we're in public, his body is always positioned between me and potential threats.
When we're alone, he makes sure I eat, makes sure I sleep, checks on me even when he's pretending not to care.
And he's intelligent. He makes decisions with frightening efficiency.
He speaks at least four languages that I know of and can navigate any city like he's lived there his whole life.
And he's gentle. Despite being dangerous, despite the violence I've seen him capable of, he's never once hurt me.
He's never grabbed me roughly, except that one time in bed, never made me feel unsafe.
When he touches me during training, his hands are careful, like he's afraid of breaking me, even though he encourages me not to hold back when I attack, saying I need to get the feel for it.
The men I've been with in the past have always either been sycophants who want what my name and inheritance can offer them, or men who treat me like I'm made of crystal because they're terrified of what my father will do if they screw up even the slightest bit.
But Julian doesn't care about my name, and he's not afraid of my father.
Anything he does for me—whether it's bringing me food that he thinks I'll like in whatever city we're in, or making sure I drink enough water, or even the self-defense training that's meant to ensure I don't always need him to survive, is because he wants to.
Because he sees something in me that's worth spending time on. Worth giving something of himself to, even if no one else has ever seen beyond the outer shell of Isabelle Montague.
I want to know more. I want to understand who he is, what life he lives, and what kind of business he does that's given him these skills and knowledge of such dangerous people.
I feel like it must be something very different from what my father does.
But he's made it very clear I won't get anything about that out of him.
I slip out into the hall to go to the bathroom, and when I come back out, I see that the balcony door is open. I can see Julian's silhouette against the night sky.
I should go back to bed and leave him alone with whatever thoughts are keeping him awake at three in the morning.
But instead, following the pull of impulse instead of logic, as I've been wont to do since I booked that flight to Ibiza, I move to the small kitchen area and open the cabinet where I saw him store a bottle of wine earlier.
It's a cheap local red, but it'll do. I grab two glasses and head for the balcony.
Julian doesn't turn when I step outside, but his shoulders tense slightly. He's leaning against the railing, wearing jeans and a t-shirt. He's staring out at the dark street below like he's searching for threats in every shadow.
"Couldn't sleep?" I ask, setting the glasses down on the small table and pouring wine into both.
"Never can." His voice is rough, and he sounds tired. "You should be resting."
"So should you." I pick up both glasses and move to stand beside him, holding one out. "Here."
He looks at the glass, then at me, and for a moment I think he's going to refuse. Then he takes it, his fingers brushing against mine in a touch that sends electricity up my arm. "Thank you," he says quietly.
We stand in silence for a moment, both of us drinking and staring out at the night. The wine is surprisingly good.
"How bad is it?" I ask finally. "How close are they?"
Julian takes another drink before answering. "Close enough that we need to move again tomorrow. There's chatter about someone matching your description in this area."
A thick disappointment settles in my gut, stronger than the flicker of fear that passes through me. I just wanted to rest for a little while, but who knows when that will happen? Not anytime soon, it seems… if I survive long enough to ever know peace again.
That flicker of fear grows. "So we keep running."
"Yes." He turns to look at me, and in the dim light from the street below, his eyes are dark and intense. "I'm working on it, Isabelle. I promise you, I'm going to find a way to stop this."
"I believe you." And I do. I don't know why, but I trust him completely.
This man who's keeping secrets, who won't tell me the whole truth about who he is or why he's helping me—I trust him with my life.
It's another of those impulses, this one mixed with an instinctive feeling that I can.
Maybe it's stupid… I know plenty of people who would say it's stupid, but it's what I feel. And all I want right now is to feel.
Maybe I'm insane. Maybe the danger has broken something in my brain. But standing here with him in the darkness, I feel safer than I've ever felt.
Whenever I'm with him, I feel safe.
I refill both of our glasses, and then, on impulse, swivel back to him. "Tell me something about yourself."
"Isabelle—"
"Please." I pout a little at him. "I'm going crazy not knowing anything about you except that you're a businessman with dangerous connections and you're protecting me and you won't tell me why. Something, Julian."
He's quiet for a long moment, his jaw working like he's fighting some internal battle. Then he sighs and takes another drink. "What do you want to know?"
I shrug, taking a sip of my wine. "Start with something small."
He leans back against the railing, his eyes fixed on the wine in his glass. "I grew up in New Jersey. My mother was a teacher, and my father was... absent. I don't remember much about him."
I blink at him. "Your accent sounds… sort of Spanish."