Page 54 of Quarantined with the Billionaire

“How come you haven’t sent more pictures?”

“I hadn’t thought about it.” Actually, now it felt like an invasion of his privacy. “I’ll snap some pics of my bedroom for you later.”

“So what’s it like?” I described the house to her in excruciating detail, helping to feed her imagination. Chances were when I sent her the pictures, she’d be disappointed after having built it all up in her mind. “You don’t sound very excited—I mean…living in the lap of luxury and all.”

“Elise, if I tell you something, do you promise not to freak out?”

“Uh, just asking me that has me freaking out. What’s going on? What aren’t you telling me?”

I bit the side of my cheek, trying to keep myself calm. All I’d wanted to do over the past hour was cry—and I’d managed to stop myself. Now, though, talking to the woman who knew me better than anyone else on the planet, I found that dam trying to break. “I had sex with him last night.”

She coughed, sounding as if she’d choked on a beverage. “You what? And why doesn’t it sound romantic? A guy like that—”

“Romantic? No, not even close. It was…” My mind raced back to the night before, how Maddox had made my body feel, how easily I’d reached orgasm yet wanted more. And now all that was out of reach. “It was lustful.”

Elise started laughing, and it even made me giggle, despite the turmoil brewing inside me. “Lustful? Like a naughty novel?”

“Actually, yeah. Kind of.”

“So did he rip off your bodice? I want details, girl!”

“I don’t know, Elise. It was…so weird overall. I had a nightmare Friday night.”

“You haven’t had them in a long time, right?”

“Yeah. But I did—and I guess I woke him up. He rousted me from sleep and let me curl up in bed with him.”

“Holy shit.”

“But we didn’t do anything that night.”

“Now that’s weird.”

“Not really. I…uh. I’ve never felt that safe in my life, the way I felt in his arms that night. And then last night.”

“Yeah?”

“Last night, he kissed me right before bed. And I don’t know. There was something about it. I could feel it down to my toes. God, in my ovaries. And I was lying in bed, unable to get him out of my mind. That kiss felt like so much more, like he was communicating with me on the level of molecules.”

“Bailey, do you hear yourself?”

“What?”

“You sound like you’re in love.”

My laugh probably sounded too forced, but I had to try nonetheless. “Stop it.”

“So how did it happen?”

“I went to his room.”

“Like a siren call, that kiss of his.”

That time, I actually laughed genuinely. “Yeah, I guess so. I was out of my freaking mind. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I felt restless. I saw a light in his bedroom, so I knocked on the door and then after I was in there, I kind of froze. When he asked what I was doing, I told him I wanted him. And it went from there.”

“Oh. My. God. You are the bravest woman I know.”

I didn’t laugh. Because my mind was reliving every second from the night before—the way he’d touched me, not just physically but down to my soul. And then, when all was said and done, how he’d rejected me. It hurt more than I could even admit.

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