Page 69 of Bribed by the Billionaire Bad Boy

There’s a valid point.

I smile, and I know I shouldn’t. I know the smile is far more mischievous than I should let her seeright before she sleeps in my bed. But I smile anyway, and I dare to whisper, “Have I made you nervous, sugar?”

Calypso

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Not at all.

Darkness swallows the room, and I hold my breath in it while I lie in Lex’s bed, wearing a t-shirt of his as pajamas. It’s like a big warm tent on me, and it smells like him. Wide awake, my mind refuses to stop playing over the events of today. From Lex’s hug this morning, straight through my mother’s conversation, to everything that has happened since Lex took me away and gave me snacks and teased me like everything in the world was completely normal and fine.

It’s scary how safe I feel.

Scarier how distant Lex seems all the way over there on the couch.

Pulling my bottom lip between my teeth, I do my best to direct my mind to the way he looked at me when he called me beautiful. The way his hand slipped through my hair, so gently.

Flashes of my mother’s words, the awful buzz of the ones I didn’t really hear, come to choke away the sensations.

How am I supposed to go home? To face her again? I’ve never left like this before.

I haven’t checked my phone at all. I’m scared to find any messages from her. I don’t know what I’ll say to them, and if I see them, I’ll have to say something.

I know it’s wrong to make her worry. I know I’m being impossibly selfish. I know something is wrong with me. I know whatever thatwrongis, it’s the reason I can’t live up to the expectations she has for me and it’s why I’ll never be able to amount to anything.

It’s what most people sense, even before they know me at all. It’s why I’ve been bullied all my life. It’s something Lex appearsentirely oblivious to.

Curling in on myself, I squeeze my eyes shut and try not to cry again. I’m not sure how many times I’ve cried since Lex turned off the lights. Too many.

The glow of his digital clock reflects angry red numbers across my face.

Well past midnight.

I have half a mind to turn it away from the bed and make the harsh red light be quiet, but I don’t have the energy to reach for it.

I am so tired. Why can’t I sleep?

Swallowing hard, I whisper into the darkness, “Lex?”

A muffled, tired sound comes before a second has passed. “Yes, sugar?”

So. He’s awake too.

I didn’t think beyond seeing if he could hear me, seeing if he was also unable to sleep. Staring past the silhouette of my body beneath the blanket, I find him when his dark form pushes up to look at me over the armrest of the couch. I can’t make out much. A thick, dark curtain covers his massive windows, unlike the ones in the ballroom. The thinnest slivers of moonlight fight around the edges, but they can’t reach him. He’s nothing more than charcoal shapes.

“Can’t sleep?” he whispers.

“No.”

“My fault?”

I wet my lips. “No.” The thoughts of him are the only things getting me even close. Everything else that comes by and shatters the reverie is the problem.

A smooth outline of moving darkness rises in an easy motion, gliding its way to me. He sits on the edge of the bed, and his hand lifts, caressing a line from my forehead down my cheek, pushing aside straying strands of my hair, tickling my ear.

Flashes of how he looked at me when he saw my hair down for the first time come strong, and there’s something too tender in the way he’s come to my side just now, even if I get the horrible feeling he’s smirking. Humor in his voice, he taunts, “Should I sing you a lullaby or are you too old for that?”

I absolutely am not. All the same, I rebut, “You’re baby, not me.”