Page 31 of Art of Sin

14decay

I startle awakein the dark. Unfamiliar bed, unfamiliar room. A spike of panic coils the muscles of my legs. The door creaks, and ambient light reveals a hulking shape in the cavity.

I don’t think, just react. Scrambling off the bed, I search wildly for a weapon. There’s nothing… nothing but a lamp on the nightstand. I grab its smooth neck, yanking the chord from the wall socket.

“It’s okay.” The huge figure steps farther into the room. “I heard you cry out. It was a dream.”

Gideon.

Reality clears the cobwebs of another time and place. Another me.

I sag against the wall, the lamp falling from nerveless fingers. It smashes on the floor, hunks of ceramic showering my feet and a blanket fallen from the bed. The darkness isn’t so dark anymore, my senses sharp from adrenaline, my eyes sucking street light from behind a curtain and from somewhere in the hallway behind Gideon.

“I—I’m sorry.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks softly.

“No.”

“Okay. I’m going to turn on the overhead light so I can clean up the lamp. Cover your eyes.”

I don’t and wince when light floods the room from a fixture above the bed. Gideon, shirtless and in a pair of black boxers, approaches me cautiously. Like I’m rabid. An animal, just as he surmised.

“I’m fine,” I snap. “Why didn’t you wake me up on the couch? Did you even make the coffee?”

He blinks with sleepy-eyed surprise. “You were passed the fuck out. Comatose. I tried waking you up at least five times. You don’t sleep much, do you?”

“Ugh,” I retort, and his lips twitch. “You carried me.”

I’m not sure why I point out the obvious. Maybe because my mouth tastes like curry, my hair is knotted on my shoulders, my clothes are wrinkled horribly, and the bags under my eyes probably have their own zip code.

And he’s mostly naked. Cut and hard like marble, a statue of male perfection from his muscled arms, broad flat chest, and narrow waist. He doesn’t have much hair, a smattering of gold dusting his chest, and a trail of darker—almost auburn—leading south beneath the band of his boxers.

“You should really stop looking at me like that.”

He’s closer now, expression tight and hard. I shuffle back, too discombobulated to care that he caught me ogling him.

“What do you expect?” I retort waspishly. “You’re half-naked and half-hard. Humility doesn’t suit you, Gideon.”

He doesn’t react to me throwing his words back at him, merely grabs a nearby waste bin and crouches to pick up the shards of the lamp.

I sigh. “I’ll reimburse you for that.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

I clear my throat and edge toward the door. “What time is it?”

“Three in the morning.” Glancing over his shoulder, he frowns. “Don’t be an idiot. You’re not driving home tonight.”

“I’m fine—”

“The hell you are.” He shoots to standing like his legs are springs. “You were screaming not five minutes ago.”

I blanch. “No.”

“Yes.” His lips thin. “That’s why you don’t sleep, isn’t it? Flashbacks, I’m assuming?”

“I hate you.”

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