Page 48 of West Bound

“I think it’s time you go back to bed, Zephyrine.”

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Send me off.”

“It’s late, and you’re probably still drunk.”

“What if I do it for you now?” She whispers the question, and the temptation winds its way around my spine.

“Do what?” I feign ignorance, buying myself time to try to talk myself out of this. All the while, the baser parts of me cheer her on.

“Touch myself.” She swallows and takes a breath, her fingertips brushing a half circle on the inside of my wrist. “Would you talk to me like that? I want to know what it’s like for a man to talk to me like that. Foryouto talk to me like that.”

Fucking hell.

“Zephyrine.” I say her name like a warning. I have an iron fucking will, but this is too much even for me.

“It could help you sleep, couldn’t it? It always helps me sleep.” She presses on.

“You’ve still got alcohol in your system on top of all the other reasons we shouldn’t.” It’s my last desperate plea to talk her back from this ledge before I jump with her.

“I won’t touch you. You won’t touch me. It’s dark. It's not that different from listening to the recordings, right?” She offers a convincing argument.

“And in the morning, when you can’t look at me?”

“In the morning, this was all just a dream. I’ll say an extra rosary if you want me to.”

Who could say no to this woman? I don’t think I can. Not under these conditions. Not tonight anyway.

I scrub a hand over my mouth as I contemplate what kind of fate this will earn me. What’s it going to cost me to corrupt a nun like this? A hundred? A thousand times as much? I’m already going to hell.

“Fuck it.”

NINETEEN

Zephyrine

“If you wantto listen to me, you’re going to actually listen to me. You’ll do what I say, when I say. Understood?”

“Yes.” I’d agree to just about anything right now, if I'm being honest. I just want to hear him talk to me like that again. Listening to Levi on audio felt like pure adrenaline running straight through my heart, making it beat again, making my stomach tumble with excitement and my cheeks warm, and that’s before we get to the way it lit up every single nerve ending in my body. Ones I barely remember exist most of the time.

“Fuck.” He lets the curse rip through the darkness, and he sits up straighter, leaning back in the corner of the couch until he’s facing me. His eyes study me through the dark, and I can feel my skin heat under his gaze. He presses his glasses up his nose and clears his throat.

“Lie back against the cushions on the arm there and get comfortable. Swing your feet up here.” He pats the spot in front of his lap. I do as he asks, tentatively letting my feet drop in front of his knees as I lean back, wiggling my butt to get comfortable.

“Good?” he asks once I settle in.

“Good.” I nod.

“Spread your legs,” he orders. Apparently, when he’s in, he’s all in.

It’s so quiet, you could hear a pin drop. Every brush of my skin over the cushion fabric sounds like it’s amplified through speakers, but I follow his instructions. I let my right leg fall back into the cushion of the couch and my left drop to the side until I’m spread in front of him.

His eyes fall over me slowly, my face and my body first, then my legs and my ankles and toes, before traveling back up again, but this time, his gaze falls heavy between my thighs.

“Are those fucking lace?” The shirt I’m wearing—his shirt—is riding up on my thighs and giving him a glimpse of what’s underneath. He scowls at the underwear I have on.