It wasn’t sexual, but the simple glide of her hair against my palms slowed my pulse to a torturous crawl before kicking it into overdrive. Touching her killed me, then brought me back to life again. The quiet roar of my heart thrummed in my ears. I rinsed out the shampoo and worked the conditioner into her strands. The irony of me cleaning Stella wasn’t lost on me. She was the purest soul I knew, and I was neck-deep in blood. The angel and the sinner. Two
oppositional forces with nothing binding us except a sheet of paper and the unquenchable need in my soul. I didn’t deserve to touch her, but I wanted her too much to care. After I finished washing her hair, I picked up her loofah, dipped it in the water, and lathered it up. The gentle lap of the water against the tub tightened low in my gut. “Lean forward.” Restraint roughened the edge of my voice. Stella obliged. I ran the loofah over her back, my eyes tracking every inch of its slow journey down her smooth, bare skin. The air pulsed with tangible energy as I dragged it up over her shoulder and across her front. Low enough to skim the tops of her breasts, but high enough to keep things appropriate. Stella’s body went taut when my arm brushed her neck. I paused, picking up on the renewed rapidness of her breaths. Its rhythm was different this time—
heavier, more weighted. Heat sparked in my gut, and I stood so abruptly she jumped at the movement. “We’re done.” There was something fucked up about lusting over someone who was traumatized, even for me. I yanked a bathrobe off where it hung on the wall and held it open, my eyes averted and my jaw tight. After a beat of hesitation, Stella climbed out of the tub and slipped into it. I cinched the belt so tight it elicited a small gasp, but at least the oversized robe covered her from her neck to her calves. I dried her hair briskly and was about to push her through the bedroom and into the hall when her earlier request resurfaced in my mind. Can you stay with me? Just for tonight.
A new set of curses scorched my tongue before I swallowed them. “Do you want to stay here for the night?” I asked gruffly. She hugged her arms around her waist and, after another moment of hesitation, nodded. Fuck my life. Still, I pulled back my covers and nodded at the bed. “Get some rest. We’ll deal with everything in the morning.” It was early in the evening, but exhaustion lined her face and cast shadows beneath her eyes. I left the room to grab her nightclothes so she could change into something more sleep-friendly, but by the time I returned, Stella was already fast asleep. It was the most at peace I’d seen her in weeks. I’d never let another person sleep in my bed before. I thought the sight of her nestled amongst the black and gray silks would be strange, but it felt right. I placed the clothes on the nightstand next to her and tried to catch up on work, but my brain couldn’t focus. With my building security compromised, the incompetent but annoying shits at Sentinel breathing down my neck, and a thousand emails to wade through, all I could think about was the woman sleeping a few feet away. She’d been in my house for less than two hours, and she was already wreaking havoc on my life. I rubbed a hand over my jaw, my aggravation at war with my desire to protect her at all costs. I’d been wrong. Stella wasn’t a distraction. She was a danger—not only to my business but to myself and the parts of me I hadn’t known still existed.
17
STELLA
I woke to sunshine and the faint scent of leather and spice. That was the first sign something was amiss since I exclusively used lavender scents in my bedroom. The second sign was the color of the sheets. Slate gray silk, luxurious in its simplicity and rumpled with sleep, but a far
cry from the soft cream ones I’d bought two years ago. The fog of sleep lingered as I stared at the dent in the pillow next to mine and tried to piece together what happened last night. I was clearly in a man’s room. The dark colors and the watch and cufflinks on the nightstand were a dead giveaway. Had I gone out drinking and hooked up with someone at their place? Unlikely.
Had I stayed the night at Ava’s place? But her guest rooms didn’t look like this, and— “You’re awake.” A scream clawed up my throat at the unexpected voice behind me. I whipped around, my heart thundering with panic until the speaker stepping out of the bathroom came into focus.
Dark hair. Whiskey eyes. Chiseled face. Christian. This was his room. Why was I in—
Yesterday’s memories slammed into me so fast and hard they knocked the breath from my lungs. The note in my bedroom, calling Christian, moving into his place, him bathing me… Oh God. Dread and mortification curdled in my stomach. I would've thrown up had I eaten anything more than a croissant yesterday. “You didn’t want to be alone, so I let you stay in my room for the night.” Christian straightened his sleeve. It was eight in the morning, but he was already dressed in one of his signature suits and loafers.
His hair was perfectly styled, his face sharp and clean-shaven. “That was a one-time exception, given what happened, but you’ll be sleeping in the guest room from now on. It’s there for a reason.” I frowned, trying to reconcile the cold man in front of me with the one who’d carried me to his room and taken care of me yesterday. A flush sluiced down my skin when I remembered the heat of his body behind me and the graze of his touch against my bare skin. It hadn’t been sexual, and I’d been too in shock to react much at the time, but the memory ignited a soft burn that warmed me from the inside out. Christian’s eyes darkened like he could see straight into my mind. “Breakfast will be served in half an hour. I’ll see you then.” He walked out before I could respond. I guess he wasn’t a morning person. A headache throbbed behind my temple as I tried to make sense of the past twenty-four hours. Yesterday morning, I woke up in my own bed feeling fairly optimistic about the stalker situation. Now, I was living in Christian Harper’s house because the stalker broke into mine. Whoever they were, they knew where I lived and could break into one of the most secure buildings in the city. Fear slowed the beats of my heart. It’s fine. You’re fine. Maybe they could break into the Mirage, but they couldn’t break into Christian’s penthouse. Right? I reached for my necklace, only to realize I wasn’t wearing one. Christian had brought only the essentials last night, which meant my crystals were sitting downstairs in my room. The bite of fear intensified at the thought of returning to my old apartment. I’d loved that apartment, but I couldn’t imagine going back after the breakin shattered its sanctity. I hated my stalker for destroying that peace almost as much as I hated him for the notes. After all these years, I still couldn’t understand why he’d targeted me. Was it my social media presence? My looks? Or was I just unlucky enough to catch the attention of some creep who had too much time on his hands? I forced a deep inhale into my lungs.
Everything’s fine. You’ll be fine. It was broad daylight, and Christian was right outside. As moody as he was, he wouldn’t let anything happen to me. I didn’t know why, but I felt the conviction of that in my gut. You’ll be fine. I repeated the reassurance in my head as I went to the guest room—a.k.a. my new room for the foreseeable future—and changed out of my bathrobe into day-appropriate loungewear. When I entered the dining room, Christian was already seated at the head of the table with a cup of coffee, a pen, and that morning’s