Page 66 of Deviant Reign (Knight's Ridge Empire 6)

EMMIE

Slipping back into my bedroom, I look around the room.

Everything is exactly as I left it. As it should be, seeing as I double-checked the window was shut when I first got back from Mickey’s.

My afternoon was much less eventful than my morning, and I’ve still not decided if that’s a good thing or not.

It dragged. And I can’t help wondering if that’s because I looked up every fucking time someone entered, hoping it was Theo.

It wasn’t.

He was at school, then football training, and then… I don’t know, probably out killing someone or something utterly fucked up.

My heart pounds and my temperature spikes as I move across the room wearing an oversized Reapers shirt. I long for Theo’s shirt that I was forced to leave behind in his flat when I escaped. This is the closest I’ve got to that. It’s not as soft, and it doesn’t smell like him—not that it actually did, because it had been through the wash enough to eradicate that. It was all in my head, but it was good enough for me.

My eyes lock on the darkness outside the window.

Is he out there?

Is he waiting?

My pulse thrums through my body and my skin tingles in anticipation.

I’ve spent all afternoon and evening trying to decide what to do about tonight.

Part of me wanted to ask Dad if I could go and have a sleepover with Calli and completely abandon him, should he actually turn up.

Surely he won’t… will he?

I’ve not had my window open since we came home.

I hated sleeping being shut in those first few nights in the Cotswolds, but I had little choice. I was terrified he’d find me and come and throttle me in the dead of night. But thankfully, it got easier.

I ordered a fan for when I got home so now I might not have fresh air—as fresh as London air gets—but at least my room stays cool.

But there’s nothing to say he hasn’t been out there every night.

No, he’s been home in his room when he’s been messaging me. In his bed like he said, like the photos showed.

But even as I tell myself that, doubt creeps through me and my temperature soars at the thought of him watching me get off through a crack in the curtains, calling out his name as I come.

A smile twitches at my lips as I make my way over to the bed and throw the covers back.

This is wrong. So fucking wrong.

But hell if I’m backing out of this challenge.

Desire still tingles just beneath my skin from our fight earlier, and my clit pounds a steady rhythm with its need for some action.

Grabbing my phone, I find a message that came through an hour ago while I was downstairs hanging out with Piper.

His Lordship: Don’t keep me waiting…

I suck in a sharp breath, my spine straightening with thoughts of being watched. Of him actually waiting.

If this were anyone else I was messaging, I’d say it was a joke. But this is Theo. The same guy who spent fuck knows how long sitting at the end of my bed and watching me sleep without my knowledge. I’d be naïve to think he wasn’t deadly serious about this right now.

Emmie: I don’t follow orders from dickheads.