CHAPTER TWO
IF YOU EVER WONDERED how, you avoid ending up on a True-Crime documentary, don’t ask me.
I woke to the taste of regret coating my tongue, and my skull throbbing in time with some distant bass line still echoing in my memory. Each pulse behind my eyes was a kick drum, each swallow a dry scrape of cotton against raw throat.
The light filtering through the blackout shutters wasn't bright, but it was enough to make my vision swim, the world tilting on its axis as I tried to piece together where the hell, I was.
The first thing I noticed was the bed.
It was soft in a way mine had never been and I had a top tier mattress. This felt like sinking into a cloud that had swallowed me whole. The sheets were cool, buttery smooth, and smelled faintly of something expensive I couldn't place.
Blackout shutters lined the floor-to-ceiling windows, but even half-closed they couldn't hide the sprawl of the city glittering at dawn, skyscrapers stretching into a watercolor sky.
This damn sure wasn't my apartment.
My place was nice, sure. Two bedrooms, clean lines, a balcony I could just about squeeze two chairs onto if I angled them right.
I could have gone all out luxury and instead chose quaint and chic.
This place screamed I've got money. The polished wood floors, the high ceiling, the oversized rug underfoot, even the lamp beside me.
I pushed up on my elbows, head throbbed harder, and glanced around for something familiar. My purse was slumped in a chair across the room, my shoes abandoned like I'd just shed pieces of myself on the way in. There wasn't a single clue as to whose bed this was until I breathed in.
Ah, shit.
Drunk or sober I wouldn't forget this scent. I pushed myself upright, head throbbing, and only then realized what I was wearing. A man’s T-shirt soft enough to ruin me for every piece of cotton I'd ever owned. So, definitely not mine.
I didn't panic. My body felt exactly as it had when I'd collapsed into bed—heavy, exhausted, but intact.
There was no telltale ache between my thighs, no lingering soreness that would've signaled his presence there.
If he'd been inside me, my muscles would have remembered the stretch, my skin would have carried the imprint of his grip.
Unfortunately, I had not gotten lucky. God, it had been so long since I got dick.
I could practically feel the dust bunnies gathering, a whole ecosystem of neglect thriving in the dark warmth between my thighs.
A spider could've spun a full tapestry down there by now, complete with trapped flies and signed artwork in the corner.
A groan tore from me, muffled by the heels of my hands pressed hard against my eyes. The footsteps that pulled me from my spiral were measured, confident—a sound that belonged in this polished, silent space. I jerked my head up just as he filled the doorway.
His crisp white dress shirt was rolled to the elbows, revealing forearms corded with muscle and a map of black ink.
The tattoos weren't just designs; they were fragments of a story—untranslatable script weaving between veins, symbols that seemed to shift as his muscles flexed.
His slacks were tailored so perfectly they might as well have been painted on, hinting at the power in his thighs.
He carried a heavy wooden tray laden with a plate of golden toast, a bowl of deep red berries, a tall glass of water beaded with condensation like morning dew, and two small white pills that promised salvation from the jackhammer in my skull.
"Good morning," he said, his voice a low rumble. Then, softer, an accent I hadn't caught last night curling around the edges like smoke. "Buongiorno, bella."
I blinked, trying to process him. He was too much—too tall, to put together, and far too vividly real for my dehydrated haze. He crossed the room with an easy grace, setting the tray on the nightstand without a single clatter before straightening to look down at me.
"You want to know how you ended up here," he stated. It wasn't a question. His eyes held mine and I had the unnerving sense he'd already started to catalog every version of me. The drunk mess from last night, the hungover wreck now, and maybe even the woman I pretended to be when sober.
I opened my mouth, dry and useless.
"I was going to have a car take you home," he continued without waiting.
"That was the plan, but your friend—Latoya, is it?
—she wouldn't have it." The faintest twitch of amusement touched his lips.
"She and your other friend started shouting about stranger danger loud enough to turn heads at the valet stand. "
I groaned, dragging a pillow over my face to block out the humiliation. "God. Please tell me you're lying."
He didn't answer. The silence stretched, thick and telling.
"You then demanded I be the one to take you," he continued after a moment, a low, amused rumble in his voice.
"Didn't give me much of a choice. You were already half-asleep in the back of my car before I'd even pulled from the curb.
I suppose I should be flattered the stranger danger didn't seem to apply to me. "
He tilted his head, and his gaze swept over me—a slow assessment that made heat prickle up the back of my neck.
"You never gave me your address. So, I made an executive decision."
I peeked at him over the pillow, my voice muffled by down feathers. "To kidnap me to your penthouse?"
"I have no need to kidnap a woman," he countered, his voice dropping even lower, smooth and unbothered.
He didn’t move from where he stood, but his presence seemed to fill the space between us. "I don’t take advantage, and for the record, I like my women awake, sober, and aware so they remember every minute of our time together."
"Is that a double entendre?" I waved a hand weakly, wincing at the dull ache that traveled up my arm. "It's too early for this...I think."
"It's nine-thirty," he stated, as if that settled everything. He gestured toward the tray. "I figured you could eat, shower, pull yourself together. Then we'll decide what to do from there."
I squinted at him through the thrumming behind my eyes. "What?"
"You heard me."
"I never said I'd spend the day with you," I managed, my voice still rough with sleep and last night's rum. "I don't even know who you are."
"I'm your number seven, Ethan. You're Julia, who I let sleep in my bed while I took the sofa. Think of it as repaying me.”
“That is not—wait. Latoya,” I blurted, the name a sudden flare in my hazy mind.
“My friend. She was in those red-bottom heels, has dark skin and long dark brown hair. Five-foot-nine pure legs and enough attitude to level a city block. She had on a little black dress. You know who I mean, right. Where is she?”
Latoya was my anchor. My loudest cheerleader, my fiercest protector. She was the kind of friend who’d physically wedge herself between me and trouble, even if trouble looked like it bench-pressed sedans for fun. Drunk or sober, she never let me drift too far.
Ethan leaned against a dresser so polished it looked liquid; arms folded over his chest. The wood was a deep, almost black mahogany, carved with subtle art deco lines. “Drooling into a five-hundred-thread-count pillow in the guest room,” he answered, his tone dry as desert air.
A laugh bubbled up in my throat, and I pressed my lips tight to keep it in. Poor Toya. She’d probably wake with one lash hanging by a thread, glitter smudged under her eyes, blinking up at some vaulted ceiling wondering what fresh reality this was.
“The other one left with her future husband not long after we got here,” he added, a slight shrug lifting one shoulder. “Turns out I know him. Small world.”
Small world indeed. I glanced down at the t-shirt pooling at my thighs. "You could've taken us to a hotel."
"First I was a kidnapper—" he tilted his head, "—and now I look like a man who abandons drunk women at hotel front desks at two in the morning?"
I laughed at that. "Fair point, but why would you even want to spend the day with me?"
He considered me for a moment. "Why wouldn't I? You're beautiful—genuinely, not just in the way that's easy to say. You're funny. Even half-slurring your words last night, I could tell there was something behind your eyes worth knowing."
The complement landed somewhere it shouldn't have. "Oh... thanks?"
What the fuck is wrong with me? Heat crawled up the back of my neck and I felt it reach my face before I could do a single thing about it. I am Julia Kovalenko. I do not get flustered or dick shy over a man.
A low chuckle. "Eat. Take the medicine." He nodded toward the far door. "Spare toothbrush is in the bathroom through there. Towels are on the rack."
He had me at toothbrush. I pushed the covers back and swung my legs over the side of the bed. The floor was cool floor under my bare feet, smooth and grounding.
"Fuck," I muttered.
Ethan's brows shot up. "Interesting language."
"Not really," I mumbled, pressing the heels of my hands into my eye sockets.
"I don't mind a few fucks every now and again. Some occasions call for it. Other occasions call for a lot of fucks. However, let me at least take you out and spoil you first."
I almost told him to shut up out of reflex, the way I did with Toya when she got going, but then I really looked at him. His smile wasn't restrained this time. It was wide and unguarded, pulling at something in his whole face, and it carved deep dimples into both cheeks. How had I missed those?
Stay focused, sis. Focus.
The bathroom door was only a few steps away.
Beyond it, a shower, a toothbrush, and the chance to feel like a person again.
My stomach cramped at the smell still drifting from the tray, something warm with butter—though my throat still tasted like rum and a series of decisions I wasn't ready to examine.
When I glanced back at Ethan, he was still watching me.
His expression gave away nothing—jaw set, arms still folded, mouth a flat, unreadable line—but his eyes had shifted. Softened, barely.