Page 48 of Gilded Saint

If you’re headed to hell, you might as well enjoy the ride.

Chapter17

Willow

“My bed.”

His deep, commanding growl ripples down my spine, eliciting euphoria. This arrangement of ours will deliver for both of us. All I needed to do was to force him to see me as a woman worthy of partnership.

“I’ll be back,” I say, daring a glance over my shoulder to observe his reaction.

There’s no hint of anger or annoyance. No, he’s turned on. It’s clear in his hungry, heated gaze and the semi he’s sporting.

When I return to his bedroom, teeth and hair brushed, in a nightgown, he’s in bed resting against stacked pillows with the comforter draped across his waist. He’s wearing glasses, and I’m taken aback by how handsome he is in the black frames. The glasses knock him into the Grecian God realm. His chest and abdomen are muscular and lean. His showered hair has rippled into unruly waves, and the black-framed glasses bring another dimension to his personality. Instead of the intimidating, mysterious man from the formidable syndicate, with those glasses, he rocks a hot professor vibe. Like this, he’s approachable and impossibly sexier.

He looks up from his book, and I toy with my fingers, unsure what to do.

“You braided your hair.”

I braid my hair every night when it’s wet. It’s what gives my otherwise straight hair definition.

He pats the mattress beside him. “Join me. And take off that nightgown.”

It’s a silk chemise, and I’ve always thought of it as sexy. Jules liked it, but he liked everything, including my T-shirts.

The primary suite is about four times larger than my bedroom, and the windows surround two walls. The dizzying heights of the forty-first-floor place London on full, sparkling display.

“Would you like me to shut the drapes?”

The side of the bed he wishes for me to approach is mere feet from the wall of windows.

“No one can see in, you know.” He pushes a button on a remote, and a mechanical sound whirs as the drapes slowly wind closed. “You weren’t exactly bashful in the shower,” he continues.

I pad toward the far side of the bed. If a mutually beneficial arrangement is what I wish for, openness is required.

“I’m not a fan of heights.” His book falls flat against his abdomen, just above a path of dark spirals leading lower. “I mean, I’m fine in most situations. Elevators. Stairs. But I get queasy if I’m too close to a window in a tall building.” Or on a Ferris wheel. Rollercoasters are out.

“Did something happen?”

“What do you mean?” I come around to the far side of the bed, facing Leo, my back to the drapes.

“A fear of heights in someone your age often stems from experience.”

The cliffs near our home come to mind. The constant warnings to beware. “No experience, simply a healthy awareness of danger.”

“No falls?”

In my mind’s eye, a familiar scene plays out. A man in dark clothes, screaming, terror-stricken, flailing while falling, and then his broken form in the sand below, limbs twisted in unnatural directions. It’s a recurring dream. I don’t believe it actually happened, but the more I learn about my family, I sometimes wonder.

I climb into bed, lift the hem of my chemise over my head, pull the sheet over my breasts, and drape the chemise carefully over the end of the comforter at the foot of the bed.

He closes the book, sets it on the bedside table, and places his glasses on top. Lying on the flat pillows, I’m lower than he is. He must have four pillows stacked behind his back.

He lifts one of my long braids and twists it between his thumb and index finger, drops it like it’s bothersome, rests his head back on the bedframe, and closes his eyes.

I roll onto my side, studying him. This part of what a man and a woman do is new to me.

When Jules and I dated, we never spent the entire night together. That wouldn’t have been possible without risking his life. The lenient security team let me live a normal life, but they would have drawn the line at sleeping over with a man. Virginity is valued above all else.

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