Given how cautious and street smart she’d already proven herself to be, both from what I’d seen in person and our research, I knew it couldn’t have been an accident.
No. She’d done it on purpose.
It had been an invitation.
“Better lock your bedroom window, beautiful. Could be a psychopath lurking nearby.”
She’d made her choice.
She’d wanted me to crawl through her window and descend on her.
The moment I’d barged into that bathroom and seen her reaction to me while she’d stood there all wet and naked, had pulled me up short on the whole punishment and settling up I’d threatened her with, though.
She hadn’t shied away.
She hadn’t tried to fight it.
She’d fucking well surrendered to it.
To me.
In that moment, punishing her for that kiss with my brother had lost all meaning. It just hadn’t fucking mattered.
Only harnessing that reaction had.
Her openness.
Her honesty.
That raw part of her.
It had gone better than I’d even imagined with her actually admitting that she wanted me.
Fucking finally.
I smiled over at her as I stroked her hair away from her face while she slept.
In my t-shirt.
I’d woken up in the middle of the night—the norm for me—and I’d put my wet clothes in the dryer that I’d found downstairs when I’d given myself an unsolicited tour of the place. She’d been shivering, so once they’d dried, I’d slipped my shirt on over her naked body. I’d thought I would regret covering her gorgeous body from view and her skin marked by me with scratches, bites, and even my cum, but seeing her wearing a piece of my clothing had gone beyond that, my blood roaring at the possessiveness of it all. It satisfied me in a way I hadn’t experienced before, in a way that soothed me. So much so that I’d actually managed to fall asleep for a few hours again.
And then I’d awoken again to find myself not alone in bed.
I couldn’t remember the last time that had happened.
It hadn’t happened before.
Even when I’d been more sexually prolific, I’d never had a woman sleep over. I’d ordered them a cab, or had a car service drive them home.
I’d hated the very idea of having anybody in my space, that intimately close.
But this, waking up to Skylar twice now, it hadn’t felt like that. There’d been no agitation, no need to get the hell out. I’d relished it. I still couldn’t get out of my head the image and feel of her being wrapped tightly around me the first time I’d awoken in the middle of the night. Clinging to me, her face buried in my chest.
A little while after I’d come to the second time, that peaceful look on her beautiful face had twisted into a pained grimace and she’d started to turn in her sleep, seemingly distressed.
It was why I’d started stroking her hair—well, one of the reasons—and it had worked, calming her down until that peaceful sleep had returned to her.
As I thought more about it, about her anguish that I’d witnessed up close, it had me getting more and more agitated. Because I had a very good idea where it was rooted, what was causing it. Well, who was causing it.