Page 14 of Soul to Possess (The Artmaker Trilogy #1)

I woke up to the sun burning through my eyelids.

For a minute—half a second maybe—I forgot where I was.

Then it all came rushing back like a freight train slamming into my chest. The cold.

The strange man. The knock. The heat of his eyes when he looked at me like I was some kind of puzzle he wanted to pull apart with his teeth.

And this sure as hell wasn’t Marvin’s ranch.

I sat up slowly, rubbing the sleep from my face.

A knot twisted in my stomach as last night replayed in slow motion—the wrong name, the wrong man, the wrong everything.

A stranger had opened that door. Not the man from the ad.

Not the man I’d imagined spending time with.

No. This one had eyes like a trap and a voice that curled like smoke under my skin.

And now I had to pee. I cracked open the door, praying to any god who might still be paying attention that he was still asleep.

He wasn’t. The scent hit me first—warm, thick, and sweet.

Maple, maybe. Or cinnamon. Something homemade and dangerous.

The kind of smell that made your brain forget everything else except the need to follow it.

I crept down the hall like a raccoon raiding a trash can, every creak of the old wood floor an accusation.

I made it to the bathroom, took care of business, then—like an idiot—didn’t go back to my room.

Curiosity was a bitch. His door was wide open.

That surprised me. I hesitated in the doorway, peeking in like a thief casing a jewelry store.

Everything inside was dark and masculine—wood tones and leather, brass fixtures that gleamed like they’d been polished recently.

His bed was covered in something that looked like an animal pelt.

Real fur. Not decorative. Not subtle. The kind of bedspread that said don’t touch anything unless you’re ready to bleed .

And then I saw the wall. At first, I thought it was some kind of rustic decor—a weird nod to cowboy masculinity or whatever.

But the longer I looked, the weirder it got.

A paddle. Thick leather straps. Rope. A cane.

Handcuffs. Something purple I couldn’t quite identify.

I’d read about things like this. Late at night.

Kindle brightness turned all the way down.

Stories that walked a tightrope between fantasy and fear.

But this wasn’t fiction. It was real. He was real.

Maybe he was a cop, I thought, absurdly.

Or a park ranger? Something with authority.

Something that might explain the cuffs. But it didn’t explain the rope.

Or the look in his eyes when he first opened the door last night.

I took another step in before my common sense could strangle me.

The bedside table. Just one drawer. I shouldn’t have opened it.

I did. Notebook. Pen. Wallet. I reached for the wallet with shaking fingers, some part of me desperate to put a name to the danger I’d stumbled into. Then the sound hit me—clear and sharp.

A throat clearing. I jerked back like I’d been slapped, my heart trying to crawl up my throat.

My foot caught the edge of the rug, and I went down hard, landing on my ass with a grunt.

My gaze crawled upward—floor, socks, denim, torso—until it met his eyes.

Green.. Glinting. Amused. Caught. I was so utterly, terrifyingly caught.

He grinned down at me, wolfish and amused. “Up to mischief, were you, little girl?”

My mouth opened but no words came out. “Um… uh… um…”

“Surely, you realize you have no way out of this, yes?” he murmured. “Caught you red-handed, young lady.”

“I wasn’t doing anything,” I snapped, too quickly, too defensively.

His laughter—rich and sharp—bounced around the room like it had teeth. “Oh? That’s what you were doing? Nothing at all?”

“Exactly. Nothing.” I scrambled to my feet, hoping my indignation could hide the tremble in my legs. I tried to shove past him, but his hand closed around my arm. Not painfully. Just enough to stop me. My breath caught.

I glared up at him, heat rushing to my face. “Let me fucking go. Now.”

His smile didn’t falter. “Nah, I don’t think I will,” he said, voice smooth as sin. “I took the time to cook you something real nice for breakfast. Meanwhile, you were up here snooping through my private things like a nosy little brat.”

I swallowed hard. The air between us shifted, thickened.

“Guess I’ll have to keep that door locked up nice and tight from now on,” he went on. “Since you can’t seem to respect a man’s privacy. Come along. I didn’t cook breakfast for it to sit down there and get cold.”

I froze. “Too bad,” I muttered under my breath. “I didn’t ask you to cook anything for me. And I’m not going anywhere with you.”

His expression darkened. Not angry, just… colder. Controlled.

“You’ll speak loud enough for me to hear you,” he said, his grip still firm on my arm. “And actually, you are going somewhere. You’re in my house. You’re going to my kitchen. You’re going to sit down and eat the breakfast I made for you. ”

He leaned in slightly, just enough to let the weight of his voice settle against my spine. “Frankly, it seems to me like you’re going a lot of places with me.”

“That wasn’t a question,” I muttered, jerking my arm back.

“Go eat.” His tone dropped. Steel wrapped in velvet. Not angry. Just final.

And I—God help me—I went. Not because I wanted to.

Because I didn’t know what would happen if I didn’t.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, a voice screamed at me to run, to climb out the nearest window, to break something if I had to.

But another voice—quieter, more dangerous—reminded me that I had been in his room. I had crossed a line.

Maybe I deserved this. Maybe I should stop acting like such an ungrateful little bitch.

He had taken me in, hadn’t he? He hadn’t locked me up or tied me down.

Yet. And here I was, playing detective like I had any idea what the hell I was doing.

So I did what I was taught to do. I smiled.

Or something close to it. My lips were dry, cracked from the wind last night, and the stretch hurt.

But I did it anyway, just to show him I wasn’t afraid. Or maybe to hide that I was.

He gave a small nod. “Go on then. I gotta lock up my bedroom.”

The shame burned hotter than the coffee I suddenly craved.

He hadn’t been kidding about locking the door.

Of course he hadn’t. He didn’t strike me as the joking type.

I drifted toward the kitchen, slow and heavy like I was walking through a dream I couldn’t wake from.

The smell hit me again the closer I got—sweet and warm and stupidly nostalgic.

Pancakes. Real ones. Sausage. Eggs. A thick cloud of maple syrup curled in the air, and my stomach growled in betrayal.

My mouth watered the second I stepped into the kitchen.

God—it smelled divine. Like real food. Not gas station snacks or boxed noodles.

But home. When was the last time I’d been this close to a proper meal?

Years, probably. Longer, if I was honest with myself.

I paused at the table, eyeing the two place settings—one laid out with a proper plate, folded napkin, and a glass of orange juice still beading with condensation.

The other was messier. A stainless-steel plate with a folded newspaper beside it, like he hadn’t even considered sitting across from me.

So I took the nice one. The guest’s spot.

It had to be mine. I sat down, slow, still uncertain, then reached for the tongs.

The pancakes were thick and golden, the sausage still steaming.

I piled a little of everything onto my plate, drizzled syrup over it all, and took the first bite. Sweet. Soft. Almost too much to bear.

I closed my eyes as the flavor hit, and for one surreal second, I could’ve wept.

Something about it cracked through the tension in my chest like sunlight through ice.

I didn’t hear him come in. But I felt it.

That same strange buzz along my skin I’d felt last night—like my body sensed something my mind hadn’t caught up to yet.

I didn’t turn. I just knew he was there. Watching.

He moved quietly, sat across from me in the other chair like he had every right to, and when I finally looked up, his eyes were already on my plate—half empty.

“Taste okay?” he asked, casual, like we were two normal people having breakfast together and not… whatever the hell this was. My face heated. I’d inhaled it like a starving woman. Not exactly the image of grace. He smiled and winked at me. That damn wink again.

It landed somewhere between charming and unsettling, like everything else about him.

“It’s really good,” I said, reaching for another bite. “It’s been a while since I had a decent home-cooked meal.”

He nodded slowly. “Don’t cook?”

“Not much sense in cooking for just myself.”

“Right,” he said. “What about Marvin? You planning on cooking for him? ”

I froze for half a second.

“Um… sure,” I said, carefully. “I would. For my husband, yeah. That’s part of it, I guess.”

“Part of the job? ” he asked, eyebrows raised as he began loading his own plate.

My stomach tensed. “I didn’t mean it like that. I’m just saying—being a wife comes with expectations. You know?”

“Hm,” he murmured. “See, I know your mail-order husband’s name. But I don’t know yours. That seems a little backwards, doesn’t it—seeing as he’s not here, and you are?”

He poured syrup over his pancakes like this was a perfectly normal conversation.

“Oh. Right. It’s—Genevieve. My friends call me Gennie,” I added, catching myself.

He tilted his head. “Nice to meet you, Gennie.”

“You’re not my friend.”

That came out sharper than I intended. But I didn’t take it back.

He just smiled, slow and knowing. “No? You’re in my home. At my discretion. That makes me your friend. At least… temporarily.”