Page 23 of The Villain

Walking in, I close the door behind me. She may be a little thing, but she’s spread herself out, one arm splayed across my side of the bed, her cheek resting half on my pillow. I draw the duvet back and see she’s wearing one of my shirts. It’s huge on her and I smile because I like the thought of it on her. Carefully, I lift her arm to slip into the bed.

Her face is close to mine, her expression sweet when she’s asleep. She showered. Her hair is a damp, unraveling braid.

I turn my face up to the ceiling, set her hand on my stomach and close my eyes, glad I’m exhausted because I’m wrong. It’s not easy to be this close to her, to feel her warmth and not touch her, but I don’t. I won’t.

I close my eyes.

Sleep is ever-elusive. It comes in fragments throughout the night. Exhaustion is my constant companion. I’ve learned to thrive on it. But tonight, sleepcomes. It is a soft wave washing over me, no tugging undertow no riptide carrying me out to sea, drowning me.

Tonight, here, with her tucked warmly into my side, I sleep, a dreamless sleep.

7

ALLEGRA

An amber glow warms my face, makes the darkness a little less complete. It’s quiet, not a single bird to be heard, not Daniel in the next room playing with his toy train set. Not the sound of a vacuum cleaner running. I’m snug under a mountain of soft blankets and there’s something smooth, solid and warm beneath my hand.

I lay in a satisfied half-sleep until the light shifts, hitting my closed eyelids.

I stir.

Someone moves beside me.

Someone. Moves. Beside. Me.

Like a tsunami, memory comes crashing back knocking the sleep right out of me. My eyelids fly open, and I’m horrified to find a pair of eyes the color of a Mediterranean sea just inches from mine, watching me, a gleam of amusement inside them.

“What the hell?” I pull away, noting what was warm and smooth and fucking solid beneath my hand.

Cassian smiles wide, sets his hands behind his head and turns his face into the amber light. He gives a satisfied sigh. That light is the sun filtered by the stained glass of the window across the room.

He closes his eyes momentarily.

“I’ll never tire of this,” he says.

“Of what? Kidnapping women, beating them then sneaking into bed with them?”

He chuckles. “The light,” he clarifies.

“What are you doing here?”

I tug a greedy chunk of the duvet to myself. Without opening his eyes, he catches a corner and pulls it back over his naked body.

Shit. Is he naked? Am I?

No. I’m still wearing his shirt, but I’m naked apart from that.

“It’s my bed. And for the record, I did not kidnap you, you’re being held as collateral. Like I explained last night, your family knows exactly where you are, and they are welcome to collect you as soon as they’ve paid me back the money they owe me.”

“The money you’re extorting?—”

“The money they cost me plus a little extra for my trouble. As for beating you, a spanking is hardly a beating, especially when you’re wet at the end.”

“I wasn’t wet!”

“Then you have a very selective memory. And this is my bedroom and my bed. I wasn’tsneaking. Where do you expect me to sleep?”

“The other room. There’s a perfectly good bed in there,” I say, pointing to the door of the adjoining room.