Page 26

Angelique

I wake up slowly, blinking as the morning light softly bleeds in through the drawn curtains. For the first time in what feels like months, maybe even years, my body feels relaxed and rested. No cold sweat or phantom hands crawling under my skin.

I stretch slightly and then freeze when I look around and realize this isn’t my room. The sheets are different, and the bed is much firmer than mine. But it’s when the familiar smell of cedarwood and musk floats through the air, that my stomach drops.

I turn slowly, careful not to shift too much, and find Reign asleep behind me. His white-blond hair is a mess across the pillow, his features soft and unguarded as his chest slowly rises and falls. I catch myself staring at the veins on his forearm, his partially open lips, and the line of his jaw.

Why the hell am I in his room, and in his bed?

I peek under the sheets and feel my soul leave my body because I’m only wearing a T-shirt and underwear, my legs bare .

Did I—oh God, did I sleepwalk into his room like some deranged, emotionally unstable creep?

“Oh my God,” I mouth, silently cringing as I peel the covers from my body, trying to be as quiet as humanly possible.

I move inch by inch, careful not to wake him, hoping I can disappear back to my room and reclaim whatever scraps of dignity I have left before Reign even notices I was here, but the second I swing a leg over the edge of the bed his arm snakes around my waist and yanks me back against his solid, warm chest.

I go completely still, listening to his steady breathing.

I can’t tell if he’s still sleeping, but I swallow and try again anyway, moving even slower this time as I gently pry his arm from my waist. But the second I shift, he wraps me up again, pulling me flush against him.

And that’s when I feel the unmistakable press of him, thick and insistent against me as his hips cradle my ass, impossible to ignore.

It sends heat rushing to all the wrong places.

Or maybe the right ones. I don’t know anymore.

He doesn’t say a word, but there’s nothing accidental about the way his fingers tighten around my middle.

We’ve done this before. That summer when we crossed almost every line and pretended it wouldn’t mean anything.

But it did, and now it’s happening again.

“You’re awake, aren’t you?” I whisper, my voice breathy.

My heart’s thundering like it’s trying to escape my ribs, heat crawling up my neck and blooming across my cheeks. I’m flushed, wound tight, and way too aware of how good this feels, even though it shouldn’t be happening.

A lazy, amused chuckle vibrates through his chest, sleepy and dangerous in the way it makes my stomach flutter. He buries his face in my hair and inhales deeply, and I swear every nerve ending in my body ignites.

“Were you trying to take advantage of little ol’ me while I was asleep, Angel?” Reign mumbles.

My cheeks erupt with heat. “Absolutely not!” I hiss. “I was trying to leave but you’re the one who wouldn’t let me go.”

He pulls back just enough for me to turn and look at him over my shoulder, and when I do, he’s smirking.

“Right,” he says, dragging out the word.

He buries his face in my hair again, pulling me even closer. I bite down on a gasp, my thighs pressing together instinctively. Every inch of my body feels overheated and traitorous.

“Did you know you snore?” he mumbles after a few silent minutes.

My jaw drops. “I do not . ”

Reign chuckles. “You do.”

“You’re such a liar,” I mutter.

He laughs and rolls onto his back, tugging me so that I roll with him, landing half on his chest. I should move. I should definitely move. But instead, I let my head settle there, and I listen to the steady beat of his heart under my ear.

His fingers stroke my back lazily, and I bask in the feeling of having someone touch me without it causing memories I wish I could forget to resurface, without my body flinching on its own.

I missed this. I missed him .

He reaches for my wrist and gently lifts it up, holding it between us so that my cuts are on full display. My stomach sinks and I instinctively try to pull away, but he holds on tighter .

“Does it make you feel good when you cut?” he asks, his thumb stroking one of my scars.

My throat tightens as I consider how to answer him. I don’t want to lie, not to him, so I choose not to say anything at all.

He turns his head, eyes finding mine again. “The knife,” he says, carefully. “Last night, when I held it under your chin you leaned into it instead of flinching away.”

I feel the heat rush back into my face, but this time it’s a slow burn that coils lower in my stomach.

“It turned you on, right?”

Shame and desire war inside me, spiralling into each other, feeding off each other. I want to run, but I also want to stay.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I whisper.

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” he says firmly, his thumb strokes coming to a stop. “Pain can be a release.”

I look away and close my eyes. “It just… it helps me take back control.”

“Because it was taken from you?”

I don’t answer when I realize that I’ve already said too much. Reign shifts, letting go of my wrist and cupping my jaw instead, tilting my face back up to his. When I meet his eyes, there’s no disgust there, or pity, just understanding.

“There’s nothing wrong with having a pain kink, Angel,” he says quietly. “And there’s nothing wrong with wanting to feel in control of your body.”

He gently brushes his thumb across my cheek, then over my bottom lip, dragging it down softly.

“You don’t have to hurt yourself in secret, and you don’t have to punish yourself, either. If pain helps, then let’s figure out a safe way to use it.”

I tense slightly, but I don’t pull away. “You’re saying you’d… help me with that?”

“If you let me.” His voice stays steady, and he lets the words hang in the space between us.

“What the actual fuck is going on here?” Lando says from behind me, interrupting the moment.

I shriek, startled, and curl my body into Reign instinctively. He tightens his grip on me as he looks over my head to find Lando standing in the doorway, wide-eyed and breathing like he just sprinted across the estate.

“Oh, it’s you.”

Reign drops his head back onto his pillow and I turn around to face Lando, Reign’s arm still wrapped around my middle. His eyes bounce between me and Reign, and the fact that I’m tucked against his chest like this is completely normal for us.

“Lando—”

“Oh my God, Angelique,” he gasps, interrupting me. “Are you naked under there?”

“What?” I shriek, glancing down at the bare part of my leg that's sticking out from under the sheets. “Of course not!”

“Lando,” Reign says calmly. “Close the door and wait for us in the living room.”

“Absolutely not.” He storms further into the room. “I leave for one night, and I come back to see that my best friend has answered none of my texts from last night. So of course I call her, and of course she doesn’t answer a single time, which sends me into a panic.”

“I’m so sorry, I was?—”

“So, what do I do?” Lando continues, cutting me off again. “I race over here and instead of finding her fast asleep in her own bed, she’s wrapped up in bed with my brother, half-naked.”

Lando is livid, and he’s staring down Reign like he’s ready for a fist fight.

“I was sleepwalking,” I blurt. “And I woke up here instead of in my bed.”

I try to pull away from Reign, but he just tightens his grip again, keeping my back pressed against him as he continues to stare down his brother.

Lando returns the glare, just as threatening. “And let me guess, brother, you thought cuddling her to sleep was the solution? I thought I told you not to lead her on.”

“I didn’t touch her until a few minutes ago,” Reign replies, his tone calm. “She walked in here all on her own.”

“That’s not the point. You could have just brought her back to her room, like last time. But you tucked her in right next to you instead. Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

Like last time?

Reign’s jaw tightens. “And what exactly does that mean?”

“It means I know you. You see someone vulnerable, and you jump at the chance to break them.”

“It wasn’t like that, Lando,” I say, forcing my voice to stay steady.

His chest rises and falls with shallow breaths. “Wasn’t it though? You two snuck around behind my back all summer before you moved, and what happened after you left?”

Reign loosens his grip on me slightly as he focuses on every word that Lando is saying now.

“He broke you,” Lando shouts. “Just like he does to everyone who gets too close. And now you’re about to throw yourself into another mess as if it’s not the same mistake that already nearly destroyed you once. Don’t act surprised when it ends the same way.”

The room goes silent as I stare at Lando, my heart pounding loudly in my ears, and my breath caught in my throat. I’ve never had him speak to me like this before, but he’s right, isn’t he? I’m just opening myself up to more heartbreak, like I haven’t had enough of it.

“I think it’s time for you to leave,” Reign says behind me, his voice deathly calm.

My skin erupts in goosebumps just from the sound, and Lando’s eyes widen before he turns and walks out, the front door slamming shut behind him. I sit in silence with my back to Reign, unsure how to face him after what Lando just said.

The bed creaks as he readjusts himself behind me, the headboard tapping against the wall when he leans back on it.

He lets out a deep, frustrated sigh. “Can you turn around, please?”

I swallow back my nerves and hesitations, turning around to face him, the blanket slipping off and exposing my bare thighs even more. His eyes catch on my skin, but he forces them back up to my face.

“I want to talk about how I ghosted you,” he says, holding out his hand for me to take. “For real this time.”

Tightness forms in my throat as, second by second, the pain I endured when he vanished on me floods back in. I take his hand and let him pull me onto his lap, my palms resting on his shoulders and his on my hips.

“Why did you do it?” I whisper, unable to look into his eyes for fear he’d see too much.

He lets out a heavy breath, opening and closing his mouth like he’s struggling to find the words. Then, he tilts his head back against the headboard and finds my eyes.

“I thought I was doing what was best for you,” he says carefully. “I thought if you had nothing to come back to in Marlow, you’d focus on the amazing opportunity in front of you in New York and live out your dreams.”

His answer isn’t enough, it will never be enough. So, I ask the one question that I’ve asked myself almost every day for the last five years.

“Why was it so easy for you to let me go?”

And just like that, I see all the pain he’s been hiding behind the mask. He’s looking at me like I’ve just ripped his heart out with that one question.

“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” he whispers, voice cracking.

“Was it though?” I laugh, a watery sound. “You never once gave in, not even one.”

He reaches up and carefully wipes away my tears with a pained expression. “I did. You just never knew about it.”

I frown. “What do you mean?”

He opens his mouth to answer, but his phone vibrates obnoxiously on the nightstand. We both look over and see a picture of Terry’s face lighting up the screen.

“Answer it.”

He reaches over and picks up the call, putting Terry on speaker.

“Hey,” he says, pushing a loose curl behind my ear, his eyes never leaving mine.

“Are you and Angelique up for an impromptu rehearsal session right now, without Volkov breathing down your necks?” Terry asks.

Reign looks at me, lifting a brow in question. I nod, attempting to climb off him so I can go get ready, but he clamps a hand down on my thigh, stopping me from escaping.

“Yeah, give us an hour. We haven’t got out of bed yet.”

There’s a pause on the other line before Terry speaks again. “We?” he asks slowly. “Is Angelique in bed with you?”

I look at Reign, my eyes wide, and wave frantically for him to end the call. He can’t hold back his chuckle as he watches me.

“She is, isn’t she?” Terry asks, and I can hear the smile in his voice.

“Goodbye, Terry,” Reign says before hanging up and grinning at my flustered state.

His smile slowly fades as he runs a thumb along my cheek. “We’ll continue this conversation later?”

I nod as his arms wrap around me and hold me close. I can’t say I fully trust Reign again. I mean, I trust him not to physically hurt me, but I think in the back of my mind there will always be a voice warning me he might break my heart if I’m not careful.

But maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe it’s what I need to keep myself safe.