46
IVAN
I sit on the bed as Cora finishes her shower.
The water turns off and, a few seconds later, she pads into the bedroom with nothing but a towel wrapped around her. Considering what we just did, it shouldn’t send such awareness through me. But it does.
Every side of Cora is something new, something I want to collage and keep for myself.
Cora in my suit jacket.
Cora in a dress for date night.
Cora in the shower.
Cora in a towel.
Every single image is seared into my retinas. When will I finally have enough of her?
She falters when she sees me, hesitating for just a second before she walks over to the dresser.
“I didn’t expect you to still be here.” She frowns and turns away, digging through her top drawer and pulling out a black pair of panties. “Did you need something from me?”
Yes, I almost say. I need the rest of your life to be spent at my side, doing what we just did again and again.
But of course I can’t say that. And I don’t have a good excuse for being here.
So I push to standing, half-expecting to walk past her into my room and slam the door closed. But I’m drawn into her orbit as I get closer. As I pass, I open the drawer and pull out a silk pajama set.
“Wear these.”
She wrinkles her nose. “I get why you picked out my outfit for the interview, but I don’t see how what I wear to bed is part of our business arrangement.” She fingers the blush pink material.
I’m about to tell her that there is a whole hell of a lot going on between us that has nothing to do with our arrangement when I notice her arm. Her throat.
Bands of red wrapping around her, turning dark on the edges.
I reach out a hand and run my fingers over her throat. She goes taut like a violin string. One pluck and she could be in my control.
“I left marks,” I murmur.
“Oh.” She eases back, gesturing towards her throat. “It’s okay. I’m not hurt. Don’t feel bad.”
“Did anything I do hurt you?” I ask.
She blinks up at me, obviously confused. Her face flushes pink. “No.”
“Then why would I feel bad?”
The truth is that I fucking love these marks. I want them to stay. I want to look at her and always remember the moment when she begged me to fuck her.
I grab her towel. Cora doesn’t try to stop me as I tug it away from her.
It pools around her feet when I drop it, the rest of her blissfully naked.
“I touched you there.” I gently grip her hip over the marks I left behind. Then I smooth my way up to a few small bruises on her ribs. “And here.”
She’s staring down at where my hand is pressed to her skin, her green eyes blazing. “Do you always take stock of the collateral damage like this?”
No. Hell no.
In every other case before Cora, I’m long gone by the time anyone is in the shower. I certainly don’t stick around afterward and pick out their pajamas. That was the objectively better way to do things.
Even now, I should leave. But I can’t. Not yet.
Instead of answering, I grab the clothes from Cora’s arms and begin to dress her.
“I know you’ve seen me naked a lot, but I can dress myself,” she protests weakly. Her voice is thick and her nipples are pinched into sharp points.
I pull the silk camisole over her head, loitering around the soft swell of her breasts. “I told you I’d take care of you. So that’s what I’m doing.”
She swallows and nods, allowing whatever this is to continue. Both of us caught in the tangle of something we don’t fully understand.
I pull the shorts over her long legs, already itching to take them off again. But no. We shouldn’t.
And maybe that’s what this is. As I’m dressing her, I’m layering on my own armor. I’m taking back my self-control and giving this story a natural end.
As I settle Cora into the mattress and pull the blankets under her pointed chin, I tell myself this is over.
I can’t afford to lose control.
I can’t afford to be distracted.
I can’t afford to have anything that means too much to me. Anything someone else can take away.
She smiles up at me, those bruises glowing like jewelry around her wrists and throat. “I waited for you.”
“You were in the shower.”
“No.” She shakes her head. “I mean earlier. After our—After dinner.”
Date. She was going to say “date.” Is that what it was?
I want to know how the night would have ended if the champagne hadn’t shown up. In some ways, it feels like all roads will always lead back to this. Like we can’t help ourselves.
“I was worried about you,” she adds.
I remember the way she grabbed my hand as I put her in the backseat of the car. Be careful.
No one aside from Anya and Yasha has ever said that to me. No one has ever cared. Then she sat up at home waiting for me…
She’s looking at me like she’s still waiting. For what, I don’t know. But I know it’s something I can’t give her.
I adjust the blankets, then rise and turn away, walking towards the shared door between our rooms.
If Cora is waiting for me, she better get used to it.
She’ll be waiting forever.