Page 640 of Flirting with Darkness

I am… my body feels heavy, my eyes heavier still. His hand is on my shoulder as he slips the sheets up my body, cool fabric teasing and fluttering over my goose-prickled skin. I don’t want to sleep, but it’s snatching at me, and fast. His fingers linger on my skin, down my neck, across my collarbones.

“Sleep,” he murmurs. And I do.

For a time, anyway.

Something wakes me, like the sound of my name being called somewhere in the distance. Too far away to be properly heard. My eyes crack open. The room isn’t dark, though, and I’m not sure what time it is. How long did I sleep for? I glance over to my side, and a helpful clock tells me it’s creeping toward dawn. My mouth is dry, and my limbs are still shaking. I don’t know when I passed out but…

The red lights pulse across my eyes and I sit up, slowly. Next to me, Hadrion is asleep. In the dim glow from the club’s windows, he looks younger, softer, more delicate somehow. His hair falls over his closed eyes, and his chest rises and falls slowly with the even rhythm of his breaths.

I slide from the bed, dragging a blanket off the end of it to wrap around my body. Was that really it? My whole body feels like it’s glowing from the inside out, like warm orange embers in the ashes after a fire. I pad across the wooden floor, just the whisper of my skin touching the smooth surface to make noise in this quiet place.

I press up against the window, looking down. How are they still partying? It’s nearly four in the morning. And still, there are so many people down there in the depths of the cherry red light, dancing. Their limbs flail up into the air, vining to music I can’t even hear.

Is this what uptown is?

I glance back at where Hadrion sleeps, and my stomach twists.

What am I doing here, and what have I gotten myself into?

6

KATYDID

Ifell asleep sitting slumped against the one-way glass. I only know this because Hadrion roused me when he lifted me up to put me back to bed. The memory is foggy, but there. I wake the next morning and it sticks out, a single flicker of color in the grayed-out haze.

The bed is empty. I’m alone, right in the middle of it. It’s dark in Hadrion’s bedroom (if that’s what this room is), curtains pulled shut over the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook his club. And that silence, it crowds in on me, chasing away the din of last night and reminding me that I’m in a strange part of the city, in a strange man’s bed, and I’ve done something very… very dangerous with him.

My mother would kill me. I had sex without even asking about protection. Actually, I had sex, bottom line. My heart is thudding its way up into my throat, my pulse point on fire. My nerves have me scrambling out of bed and looking for something, anything to wear. There appear to be two sets of doors in this room, other than the one I know leads to downstairs and the main living area. One of them has to be a closest, because the space is barren except for the bed and twin bedside tables. No clothing, no possessions, no mess, nothing to indicate that anyone lives here even in a manner akin to a hotel. That thought pinches at me as I go to the first door and open it. Bright white light floods my vision and I wince, as a lavish monochrome bathroom with a giant skylight nearly blinds me. I close the door instantly and go to the next, rewarded for my diligence with another walk-in closet, bigger than the one downstairs but with very few clothes hanging in it. Suits, obviously belonging to Hadrion, folded white t-shirts and jeans on a shelf, and a leather jacket. His jacket, the one he rescued me in.

Rescued me, or kidnapped me?

Why does that thought come racing to me? I came willingly with him.

Didn’t I?

If I really think about it, really break it down, he actually gave me very little info with which to make my decision. Other than the fact that my family had apparently sold me out, and my only real option was to blindly trust him.

I shake my head, physically quietening the ‘helpful’ little voice in the back of my head. Logic is so much easier in the daylight after a good night’s sleep and a good night’s… fucking? Was that what it was last night? My face burns.

I can’t even think the word. The memories are too intense. I never imagined my first time would be as wild as that, let alone with a stranger.

Seizing one of his shirts that looks like it might be long enough to cover all of me, I yank it over my head and creep toward the door that leads to downstairs. It opens silently at my touch, and I pause to listen.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” A strange man’s voice ricochets up the hall, reverberating between the narrow walls. “Bringing her back here?”

My skin prickles, the hair on the back of my neck standing up, and bite my teeth together to ensure the shiver that passes through my body remains silent. Who the hell is this guy?

Hadrion answers before I can move, or even think.

“I have it all under control,” he says, “so stop your nagging. She’s sweet. You’ll like her. C’mon, don’t make that face —”

“You always act like your choices don’t matter, like there’s never any consequences. But there are — and not just for you. She’s here. So deal with her.”

“I did last night,” Hadrion replies, and his voice is thick and rich with amusement, with all-conquering pride. My cheeks burn hotter at the memory of that smirk all over my body.

“Hade, seriously, what the ever-loving fuck — you fucked her?”

“Until she passed out,” he answers, dragging the last word out more than long enough to be exasperating, and that’s it. My jaw locks, my shoulders set square, and a coil of fury rises up in my stomach, like a serpent. My body moves before I can reason with it and I’m racing down the stairs, my feet thudding like a garage band drumkit as the echoes ricochet all around the loft apartment.

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