Page 91 of Depraved Devotion

But I don’t.

Because he’s still touching me. Still holding me like he doesn’t want to let go.

“I don’t know how to do this,” I whisper.

Ghost hums, his grip tightening. “You think I do? That it’s ever been this way for me?”

A psychopath and a psychologist…

Neither of us know what to do. Or how to stop it.

Whatever this madness is.

CHAPTER 40

GENEVA

I wake up disoriented and confused, lying naked and tangled in the sheets. The memory of Ghost’s hands on my skin rushes through me, and I sit up, my pulse racing.

Was it a dream? A hallucination? Or did it actually happen?

I press my hand to my chest, trying to steady my erratic heartbeat as the room comes into focus. The pale light of dawn filters through the curtains, soft and mild, the opposite of the storm raging inside me. My skin feels warm, hypersensitive, as if his touch lingers even now.

It had to be a dream, I tell myself, though the conviction isn’t there. Because it felt so vivid, soreal.His hands gripping my hips, the way his lips moved against mine… each detail is etched into my mind with a startling clarity.

I glance at the sheets, twisted and rumpled with use. Meanwhile, the comforter lies disregarded on the floor as if it was a hindrance. I drag my fingers over the curve of my hip, over the trace of a bruise, and a shiver runs through me.

The memory—or the illusion—floods back with force, Ghost’s voice low and rough in my ear, saying things that make my breath hitch even now. I shake my head, trying to clear it. The logical part of me knows the truth. He wasn’t here. He couldn’t have been. And yet, the pull of him is so strong, so consuming, that the boundary between reality and desire is almost nonexistent.

I scan the room, searching for any indication that he was actually here. That he’d come for me, touched me, been with me in a way that wasn’t just a fantasy born of my selfish desires. But there’s nothing. No clothes discarded. No sign of the man who’s ruined my life.

Except for a single magnolia resting on the pillow beside me.

My breathing halts as I stare at it, my chest tightening with a wave of emotions so twisted I can’t unravel them. Fear. Desire. Confusion.

And something I don’t want to name.

My fingers tremble as I reach for the flower, the smooth petals cool against my skin. The soft fragrance wraps around me, heady and intimate, like a whisper of the night before.

The magnolia is real.

Ghost was here.

The memory surges forward, vivid and inescapable. His hands on my skin, his body against mine, the way he claimed every inch of me with a mix of raw intensity and startling tenderness. The way he looked at me, like I wasn’t just someone to him, buteverything.

My cheeks flush, my pulse quickening as the reality sets in. I close my eyes, clutching the flower tighter as the weight of what we did presses against my chest. And my heart.

This isn’t just a crossing of boundaries; it’s a complete obliteration of them. Every rule, every line I told myself I’d never cross, gone in an instant.

But the fear isn’t as sharp as I expected. It’s there, simmering beneath the surface, but it’s overshadowed by something else. Desire. For intimacy. For connection.

Forhim.

It’s a yearning I can’t ignore. The memory of his lips on my skin, his cock thrusting deep, the way he unraveled me completely… it all lingers, refusing to let me go.

The magnolia is his message. A silent confirmation of what we shared. A reminder that he’s never far. That I can never be apart from him.

I gently set the flower down on the nightstand, my fingers lingering on the stem. My mind spins with questions, but the answers don’t matter right now. What matters is that it happened. Thathehappened.