5. Aria #5
“This doesn’t mean anything,” I say, reaching for my clothes with shaking hands. My voice sounds hollow even to my own ears. “This was a mistake.”
“Agreed.” His voice is flat as he zips his pants, not looking at me. “It won’t happen again.”
Why do I feel like that’s a lie?
He stands, straightening his shirt. There’s a coldness in his eyes now, a distance that wasn’t there even during sex. Now that the moment is over, he’s retreating back behind his walls.
“Goodnight, Aria.” His voice is carefully controlled again, all the emotion locked away behind that impenetrable mask.
He leaves without another word, closing the door softly behind him.
I lie there on the rug surrounded by fallen books, my body still thrumming with aftershocks.
The smell of him on my skin and the taste of him on my lips envelopes me.
I wait for regret and shame. I wait for something other than this terrible, aching emptiness. But nothing comes.
Instead, I pull my knees to my chest and let myself cry.
Not because I regret it—I do, but that’s not why I’m crying. I’m crying because for those few minutes, I felt something other than suffocating rage and inadequacy and grief.
I felt alive, even if it was through anger and pain and hate.
I’m crying because I wanted it.
Because I still want him, even though he’s exactly what I was running from.
Nothing has changed. We just used each other’s bodies to inflict pain instead of pleasure.
I’m trapped. Not just in this house, but in this situation, in my own feelings, in a web of my own making.
I don’t know long I sit there on the floor of the library. It’s long enough that the fire burns down to embers and my tears dry on my cheeks, leaving tracks of salt.
Finally, I force myself to stand.
My legs are shaky, and there’s an ache between them that feels like proof of what we just did. What I wanted to happen, even though I shouldn’t have.
I straighten my clothes and try to smooth my hair. I look like exactly what I am—a woman who just had desperate, angry sex on the floor of a library.
The evidence is everywhere.
The scattered books.
The rug bunched up from our bodies.
My swollen lips and disheveled appearance.
I pick up the books mechanically and reshelf them without paying attention to order or author.
My hands are still trembling. I can still feel his grip on my hips, still taste him on my tongue, still hear the sound of my name when he came.
This doesn’t mean anything.
The lie echoes in my head, hollow and unconvincing.
When the library looks mostly normal again, or at least normal enough that no one will immediately know what happened here, I slip out into the hallway.
It’s late. The house is quiet. Most of the staff have gone home or retired to their quarters.
I make it halfway to the stairs before I see a guard standing near the front entrance, clearly on guard duty for the night.
He looks at me, and I see his eyes take in my appearance.
The mussed hair.
The slightly swollen lips.
His expression doesn’t change, but something flickers in his eyes. Understanding, maybe. Or judgment. I can’t tell which.
“Goodnight, Mrs. Sokolov,” he says in his heavily accented English.
I freeze. “I’m not—I’m not Mrs. Sokolov.”
“My apologies.” He inclines his head slightly. “Goodnight, Miss Delano.”
But the damage is done. The name hangs in the air between us. Mrs. Sokolov. Like I belong here. Like I’m Maksim’s wife instead of his prisoner.
I hurry past him and up the stairs, my face burning.
When I reach my suite, the door is unlocked. Maksim must have left it that way when he stormed out earlier.
I slip inside and close it behind me, leaning against the wood for a moment while I try to collect myself.
Daniel’s door is closed, and I can hear his soft, even breathing from here.
He’s asleep. Safe.
Unaware of what his parents just did to each other downstairs.
I go to my own bedroom and strip off my clothes, stuffing them in the back of the closet like I can hide what happened if I just hide the evidence.
Then I stand in the shower and let the hot water beat down on me until my skin is red and the smell of him is finally washed away.
But I can’t wash away the memory. I can’t erase the feeling of his hands on my body, his mouth on mine, his voice rough with anger and need.
This was supposed to make things better. It was supposed to release some of the tension that’s been building between us for weeks.
Instead, it’s made everything infinitely worse.
Because now I know that the attraction is still there. The chemistry that drew us together eight years ago hasn’t faded. If anything, it’s stronger now.
I don’t know what that means for us going forward.
I don’t know how to face him tomorrow and pretend nothing happened. How can I watch him with Daniel and not remember what it felt like to have his body inside mine?
I climb into bed and stare at the ceiling, knowing sleep won’t come.
One month in this house, and I’ve already broken every promise I made to myself.
I’ve let him see my weakness. I’ve let him touch me. I’ve let him inside my body if not my secrets.
And the worst part—the part that makes me want to scream—is that I’d do it again.