Page 101 of Sinful Desires
I opened the last drawer and placed the mic inside, right next to the two red, star-shaped pasties and her little thong she’d gracefully slid in my pocket.
Her gold star necklace lay beside them. I always took it off before my shower, then slid it back on like a habit I couldn’t break. It glinted next to the framed picture of her as a kid standing next to her horse, with blonde hair, smiling like the world hadn’t touched her yet. The one I’d taken a few weeks ago from the Hamptons.
The red satin scarf she’d worn around her neck at that gala three years ago was folded beneath it all. I’d found her on the floor that night, heels off, makeup smudged, passed out.
This was the drawer. My collection. The pieces of her that belonged to me now.
I’d guarded them like treasure. Every scrap, every trace. All of it, hers. All of it, mine.
I sat on the edge of my bed, towel clinging low to my hips, water still dripping from my neck in slow trails like blood. My legs were spread, shoulders slumped forward, body heavy with something far worse than exhaustion.
Putain.I’d miscalculated.
I had done the math, run the risk, locked down every possible variable?…?and still, I had gotten it fucking wrong.
I’d underestimated what it would feel like to have Scarlett Harper inside my life. Inside my space. Inside my head.
Inside my heart.
She was dragging my demons out by the throat.
I’d promised myself years ago: no attachments. No softness. No warmth. No one allowed past the wire. It wasn’t just a boundary, it was fucking survival.
Nine years of military conditioning. No comfort, just orders barked through blood and dirt until every trace of feeling had been ground out of me. Emotional silence. Precision through pain. I was trained to function, not to feel. Every weakness beaten out, every craving locked in a cage and left to rot. Then four more as a bodyguard, working sixteen-hour days like clockwork.
I’d built a life so fucking rigid it had strangled me quiet.
It was the perfect punishment.
A life shaped by guilt and discipline. No slip-ups. No feeling. No one to hurt.
But now?
Now I’d tasted heaven on earth, and I wanted it again. Worse, I needed it.
But this wasn’t just lust. She was peeling the skin off everything I’d locked away.
She wanted closer. She wanted the truth. She wanted to know what lived behind my quiet. And I didn’t know if I was ready to show her.
Because if she saw it, if she saw what I really was?… She’d run.
I was fucking sure of it.
Three faint knocks.
I inhaled slowly through my nose as the door creaked open. Her footsteps were soft, hesitant, just the sound of bare soles brushing cold tile.
My room was dark, lit only by the ghost of the city beyond the window and the pale light of the moon bleeding in through the glass.
Then I smelled her. Lavender. Subtle. Sweet. The kind of scent that doesn’t ask permission before crawling under your skin.
I didn’t turn around. Just listened. The rustle of fabric. The quiet tug of the cover being drawn back. She climbed into the bed behind me and went quiet.
I could feel her eyes on me, dragging over my skin. From the base of my neck to my ribs, down to the small of my back. She didn’t touch me. She just stared.
I have never slept in the same room as anyone. Not once. Even in the Navy, I’d fought for my own corner. However small. However isolated.
I couldn’t stand the sound of someone else breathing near me. Too human. Too fucking close. It reminded me of things I’d spent years trying to kill off.
