Page 138 of His To Erase
His mouth twitches into one of those half-smiles that never quite reaches his eyes.
“You’re not here to sleep.”
My breath stutters. “Excuse me?”
He turns then. Eyes dragging down the length of me—slow and unapologetic.
“You wanted safe?” His voice is low. “Then you should’ve called someone else.”
I open my mouth—ready to say something to claw back some power—but he takes a step forward, and I back up on instinct.
He doesn’t stop.
Another step. Then another. Until my spine hits the wall and the firelight dances over his face like it knows exactly what he came here to do. His hand braces beside my head. God, it’s embarrassing how much I want to close the distance between us.
“I’m not going to be gentle,” he says, deliberately. A warning and a promise wrapped in smoke.
My breath hitches.
“Then don’t,” I whisper. “Just get it over with.”
His eyes flare.
“Not how this works.”
Then he leans in, his mouth brushing my ear. “You don’t get to come apart unless I let you.”
His hand finds my throat again, like he knows I’ll bolt if he doesn’t hold me still.
“Take off your hoodie,” he says.
I don’t move and he smiles. Fuck me, that smile.
“Or I can always do it for you.”
I freeze long enough to feel the weight of that quiet threat in his voice. It has no business turning me on the way it does. He steps forward, and for a second, I’m positive he’s going to rip it off me.Oh my God, yes. Please touch me again.
That snaps me out of those thoughts real fast, and my fingers finally move. I slowly pull it off, despite how shaky my hands are. I’m doing my best to act like I’m unaffected while my skin is humming. His eyes track every inch I reveal like he’s already undressing the rest.
When I shrug it off, his hand brushes mine—and fuck, I flinch like I’ve been lit on fire. That’s what it feels like every time he touches me.
He takes it from me without a word and turns—walking upstairs like I didn’t just short-circuit in his shadow.
What the hell just happened?
My legs still feel like Jell-O in a windstorm, and I’m just standing there in the glow of his fire like some confused hoe with my arms crossed like that’s gonna hold me together. I shouldn’t be this fucking wet for a man who talks to me like I’m some limited-time offer he hasn’t decided on yet.
Then his voice floats down the hall. “Are you coming?”
The double meaning is not lost on me.I wish I was, buddy. God, I hate him.No, I hate how much I want him.
Every step down the hallway feels like I’m walking deeper into something I won’t come back from. My brain is screaming, but my body is begging. Am I seriously going to let him fuck me right now? Just like that?
He’s waiting at the end—leaning against the doorframe like he owns me, wearing that same unreadable expression on his face he always wears when he doesn’t want me looking tooclose. He’s clearly already made every decision, and I’m just here trying to catch up.
“Let me know if you need anything.” He pushes the door open with one hand, like this didn’t just shift the axis of my entire fucking world. His voice is calm, but dismissive. And I hate that I flinch.
I thought—I don’t know. I thought this was headed in a different direction. I thought this was going to be feral and violent. When he said I wasn’t here to sleep, and looked at me like he wanted to taste the bruises he put on me, I followed him down that hallway ready to burn.
