Page 79 of Dance of Ruin

“Nico—“

“The purpose of bringing you here, Naomi,” he murmurs quietly, “isaccess.”

I swallow, my face heating as his eyes sweep over me.

“You were right: staying at your place and wasting time traveling to my office—time that could better be spent on your knees or bent over the nearest stationary object for me—makes no sense. Ergo, I moved you here.”

I simmer as I shift on my heels. “Yeah, but?—”

“And while you’re here—seven months, was it, that we decided on?”

I shoot him a cold look. “Six.”

Nico smiles darkly. “Well, for thosesixmonths, you’ll sleep right here.”

“Why,” I say.

He shrugs. “Because if I wake up in the middle of the night and decide I want those pretty lips wrapped around my cock, or if I’m in the mood to fuck you into the mattress, it would be annoying…and, again, a waste of time…to have to go find you.” He shrugs as I stare at him in shock. “This way, you’re just…available.”

“And they say romance is dead,” I mutter dryly.

“Oh, no one’s promising you romance, Naomi,” he says, a glint in his eye. “But Iampromising that you’ll be my pretty little fuck toy for the next six months.”

My pulseblaresin my ears as heat spreads through my body.

He watches me as I walk to the bed, drop my bag beside it, and stare at the linens like they might bite.

“You’ll still go to the theater,” he says. “I won’t keep you from that.”

How generous.

“But when you’re not at work, you’ll be here.”

I nod once. My throat feels too dry to speak.

“You’ll wear what I give you,” he continues.

“And what might that be?” I ask dryly.

“Lingerie, sometimes. Or nothing, depending on my mood.”

I bristle, but keep my expression neutral. At least, I think I do.

He carries on, voice calm, almost clinical.

“You’ll sleep in my bed. Every night.”

I let that sink in, feeling it shivering over my skin as silence descends upon us.

“I did get you a welcome gift.”

I chew on my bottom lip as Nico goes to one of the recessed shelves, pulls out a drawer, and retrieves a matte black box tied with a white silk ribbon.

It’s not at all lost on me that this is the same type of white silk ribbon that he tied my wrists with that day in his office.

I look at it doubtfully as he hands it to me.

“It’s not a bomb, Naomi.”

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