Page 50 of Dirty Game

---

My mind is quiet.

There’s only the sound of her breathing and the faint thump of her heart, steady as a metronome.

I drift off and when I wake, she’s still there. The room is blue with dawn.

She hasn’t moved, except her hand, which is balled in the fabric of my shirt. The sensation is so foreign I almost miss it: a kind of peace.

For a moment, I let myself believe in it.

Then the phone buzzes in the hall, and I remember who I am, and what I’m supposed to be.

But I don’t get up.

Not yet.

I didn’t dream of monsters and men, and right now, I don’t feel like putting on the mask of a man without a monster.

Instead, I pull her closer into me and inhale before softly kissing the top of her head.

Of all the medications I’ve tried, legal and illegal, she’s the only thing that’s held the dark at bay while I sleep.

And I’m not sure how the fuck I feel about that.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Rosalynn

I wake to absence.

Not just the absence of him—though his side of the bed is cold, the sheets barely rumpled like he left hours ago or maybe never really slept at all.

It's the absence of what happened last night, erased as thoroughly as if it were a dream.

Except my body remembers.

My lips are still swollen.

I stretch in the empty bed, and my muscles ache.

I force myself out of bed before the dream of being able to stay here takes over me.

The shower doesn't wash away the memory of his hands on my body, of his mouth against mine, the way he didn't take my virginity despite how desperately I begged.

My skin is oversensitive, yearning for him, aching for what I want.

By the time I make it to breakfast, dressed in one of his shirts because all of mine are in the laundry, I've almost convinced myself that last night changed everything.

That we've crossed a line we can't uncross.

That this morning will be different.

I'm wrong.

He's already there, reading something on his tablet, coffee black as his expression.

"Morning," I say, testing.

"There's food on the counter. Maria made eggs." His voice is perfectly neutral. Professional. Cold.

---