Page 110 of Lavish
It was a dark hallway, and it had been for hours since we got home.
I held my breath as I tiptoed out, and to my office door. Should I knock? But what if I woke him up? What if he wasn’t asleep?
Do it.
I turned the knob—luckily he hadn’t locked it—and peered inside.
Miles was actually up, sitting. Staring out the window, and in his lap was a copy of a thriller I had started to read but abandoned. He didn’t say anything at first. Just looked up from the book, our eyes locking.
“You’re awake,” I breathed.
He wore nothing but a pair of black shorts slung low on his hips. His chest was bare—cut and golden in the moonlight, his skin smooth except for the faint scar slicing across his collarbone. A silver chain glinted at his throat. His braids were hidden under a black durag, tied clean and tight.
He tilted his head. “Couldn’t sleep.”
I stepped inside, trying not to stare, but my gaze dropped to his chest anyway, the slow rise and fall of it pulling heat through my body.
Behind him, on the pullout bed, Doughboy was stretched out on his back, all four paws in the air, snoring like he owned the place.
Miles’s gaze stayed on me, slow and steady, like he could see right through the thin night slip I’d thrown on without thinking.
I cleared my throat, folding my arms. “I—uh…I thought I heard something in my closet.”
“In your closet.”
“Yeah.” I nodded, too fast. “Like scratching. Or…movement.”
He glanced over at Doughboy then back to me. “You sure it wasn’t him or his toy?”
I shook my head. “No I just heard it now.”Why the hell are you lying?
A smile pulled at his mouth, slow and dangerous. “You want me to come check your closet at”—he glanced at the time on his phone—“two forty-six in the morning?”
“Can you do it?” I snapped.
“Be nice,” he said, standing up and stretching like he had all the time in the world.
My eyes dropped, involuntarily, to the way his abs flexed when his arms went up. The stretch revealed even more of that deep cut along his hips, the waistband of his shorts hanging criminally low.
“Show me,” he said.
I turned before he could catch the flush creeping up my neck and led him to my bedroom.
Pointing toward the closet—casually, like my heart wasn’t thudding against my ribs. “It was coming from there.”
He gave me a look likeReally?but said nothing. Just moved toward the door. I crawled back onto the bed, sitting cross-legged near the pillows, pretending not to stare while his broad back stretched and shifted. My eyes had adjusted to the dark and the light from the moon shining through the window gave me a lot to see.
I tried not to squeeze my thighs together.
He bent slightly to open the closet door and peered inside, muttering something under his breath as he leaned forward—tattoos flexing, abs tightening. Miles had to be one the finest men I’d ever laid eyes on.
Serena.Get it together.
After a moment, he straightened. “Nothing here. Closet’s clear.” He turned back toward me, brushing his hands together like the job was done. “No ghosts. No monsters. Just clothes and expensive shoes.”
He walked toward the door, and started to open it.
“Wait,” I said suddenly, sharper than I meant to.
