Page 90 of Twisted (Never After)

He shakes his head even as he kisses me back. Pulling away slightly, he rests his forehead against mine, his heavy breaths coating my lips.

“Are you mine?” he asks.

His question cuts through my chest and settles in my heart, fracturing the already breaking pieces. I suck in a breath, my body freezing. I can’t answer that.

I won’t.

Because regardless of how I feel right now and what just happened, it doesn’t change anything.

Not really.

Being his means letting go of everything else, and I’m just not willing to do that.

He swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he nods against me, and then he’s gone, my body chilled from the loss of his touch.

I lie there for a long time, coming to terms with what just happened. And then slowly, I stand up, grabbing my ripped clothes off the rug and heading to my room.

I’m not sure what makes me do it, but I head straight to the burner phone, pick it up, and unlock the screen.

1 new notification.

My chest tightens as I open the text to reply to my lawyer.

Only the message isn’t from him.

Chapter31

Yasmin

Things don’t look the same in the daylight.

That’s the first thought that crosses my mind when I wake up in a foreign room with silk sheets beneath me and the most comfortable mattress I’ve ever laid on.

It takes me a few seconds to come to fully, rubbing the sleep from my eyes to figure out where I am.

Sitting up in the bed, I look around, blinking.

This must be Julian’s room. It’s filled with sleek modern furniture, and this is the largest bed I’ve ever seen. It screams masculine yet lacks any defining personality.

I smirk at the thought but then quickly remember why I’m here and what happened last night, and the amusement drains away.

Did he move me here in the middle of the night?

It’s the only logical explanation, because I remember falling asleep in my own bed, my chest feeling like it was splitting in two from the conflicting emotions going on inside me.

I wonder if anyone else has ever had the pleasure of being in here, but the second the thought crosses my mind, my stomach cramps, so I push it away, convincing myself that I really don’t care.

The urge to jump out of his bed and snoop through his belongings is strong, but now it feels heavier, like there’s a bigger sense of betrayal somehow. Although after opening the burner phone last night and reading a message from Julian’s “employee,” snooping is low on the list of things I’ve done behind his back.

I know I should regret what happened, that I should be beating myself up and claiming it was a mistake, but the truth of the matter is that I don’t really regret it.

For the first time in my life, my mind was clear, my body was free, and all my problems disappeared. At least for a while. I felt safe. Cared for.Wanted. Desired. And that’s not to say I’ve never felt those feelings before, but having that type of attention from Julian Faraci is like being used to cloudy days and then being blasted by the sun.

I’m not sure how I’ll go back.

But Ihaveto go back.

Just like everything else I should come to terms with but am choosing not to, I push the feeling down, ignoring it, deciding to enjoy the delicious strain of my sore muscles and the memory of what it felt like under his tongue.