Page 45 of Unhinged Cravings
Running up the steps to his room, I continued my path to my side of the bed, noting how the other side was disturbed. The side he had told me was one he didn’t prefer, but he’d taken it tonight. Perhaps out of habit or maybe some awareness that he would eventually collect me and I would fill that space.
I settled in and he stood over me, a perplexed slant to his eyebrows. “Don’t get any ideas. This is to keep your mouth shut so you don’t wake all of Seagate with your screams.”
He handed me a book, but I shook my head and pointed to the other in his hand. His eyes drew in more.
“I have two chapters left in that one, so I need them both.”
A roll of his eyes and the book was in my hands. He thumped to his side of the bed, leaving on his sweats and T-shirt.
“If you didn’t want me here, why bring me?” I asked, flipping to my chapter.
“I didn’t say that,” he grumbled, picking up his phone.
My sight moved to him, but he avoided looking at me.
“So you did want me here? And it wasn’t just because of my night terrors?”
“Read, Ava.”
“Hmm.”
He lowered his phone and finally looked at me. A wish, simple yet convoluted. To have him kiss me, to have his hands on my skin, his body against mine.
“Hmm, what?” he asked, disturbing my reckless thoughts.
“Nothing.” I went back to my book, sinking some into the bed to get comfortable. I sensed his eyes on me, but I didn’t turn back to him. The heaviness of that stare disappeared, and he returned to his phone.
We sat together, me reading while he worked or whatever he did on his phone. A comfortable silence sat between us, the sense that this was a natural thing for us. Two people who barely knew each other, whose circumstance was complicated and twisted, but who somehow needed each other even when they couldn’t say it. Because I knew from the moods that crossed his navy irises and from my own slow descent into madness that we were heading to something neither of us could avoid.
I woke the next morning,my book laid open on the bedside table and the blankets pulled up over me. No memory of falling asleep, which told me I had drifted off while reading and Emerson had moved my book. The nightmares hadn’t come, and I had slept peacefully. Too peacefully, only waking once when his arm slid around my waist.
Sitting up, I stretched and realized I wasn’t in my room. He had left me in his, which seemed like madness considering I was his prisoner. Was this an opening to change things? I chewed my lip. No, because if it were, he would send me home. The air fled my lungs as an unexpected melancholy overcame me. As much as I wanted to be back home to my apartment, to Uncle Den and Riley, to work and school, it would mean not seeing Emerson. And that thought stung. I rubbed my chest, trying to fight off the sensation. It made no sense, but the ache was there, too prominent to ignore.
Shoving it away, I used the bathroom, thinking it looked too tidy. My bathroom at home was a mess of makeup and hair ties, lotions and body scrubs. Candles and bath bombs. Even the one I was using here was already a mess. This was like a blank slate—clear countertops, neatly hung towels. The only evidence it wasn’t a showroom was the towel hung at the back of thewalk-in shower. Normally, showers weren’t that exciting to me, but this one was too fascinating not to look. It was massive, big enough for multiple people, and I stepped back out as the thought of him with another woman in it crossed my mind. The envy that leeched into my veins seemed inappropriate, but it was there, too irritating to ignore.
I considered taking my books back to my room but left them, like a mark that I had been there and might return. After peeking into his closet, which was nearly the size of my apartment, and running my hands absently over the plethora of suit jackets and pressed dress shirts, I denied my urge to sniff them for his scent. On my way out, something caught my eye, a bit of gray silk peeking from a drawer. Thinking it looked familiar, I opened the drawer. Amid the extensive collection of expensive watches and cufflinks was the scarf I’d worn the night he kidnapped me. I didn’t know what to think of the warmth the sight caused in my chest or the fact that he’d kept a piece of me like a treasure.
Quickly closing the drawer, I gave in to the urge and brought one of his shirts to my nose, breathing in his scent before heading downstairs.
The creepy guard stood at the end of the hall, blocking the way to the garage, and I turned quickly from his heavy gaze. The joy that had been in my step turned to that nagging fear and I pulled at my shirt, suddenly self-conscious in just Emerson’s T-shirt. Neither Pack nor Breaker were in the main room, nor were they in front of my room. As I showered and dressed, I contemplated what it meant. A show of trust? Or a test? But why would he test me unless the same convoluted emotions were swarming his mind like a hive of angry hornets like they were mine? I swore if my chest tightened at the sight of him one more time, I was going to impale it with something sharp.
My hair cutely tied in two knots, I padded from the room in my bare feet and ventured down the hall. I peered into the empty rooms that shared the hall with my room, surprised athow they were all furnished but seemed like they had never been used. The view from the room across from mine was as stunning as Emerson’s view. It overlooked the ocean, unlike mine that looked out to the lawn with woods in the distance. Maybe he’d been worried I would jump to my death rather than stay in his grasp.
With a laugh at how ridiculous that sounded, I continued down the hall, walking into the front foyer for the first time since the night he’d taken me. No blood stained the marble floor, no evidence remained that two men had died there. In front of me, the front door stood unguarded. The crystal chandelier above me threw prisms over the wall from the morning sun as I stood there. A door with no guards, no one to stop me from running. I wasn’t naïve. They were outside, patrolling or maybe waiting there. Waiting to see if I would risk it.
Risk. It was something I embraced, and days earlier would have taken. But now I hesitated. Emerson had left me alone, given me a taste of freedom, handed me his trust. If it was indeed a test, I didn’t want to fail because I didn’t want to disappoint him.
“What is the matter with you, Ava?” I muttered.
I twisted the fabric of my shirt. This was a chance to escape and yet I didn’t want to because it would mean leaving the very man who had captured me. A man who was stirring emotions that shouldn’t be waking. A man who had a side to him I didn’t think anyone knew existed. And he had revealed that side to me, like it was the most natural thing. Because he and I were alike, living in solitary, keeping our secrets, living with our demons, and not letting others all the way in. We took what we needed to get us through and turned away from anything more than casual sex, anything that meant commitment and opening up. Searching without searching until we found each other.
The realization hit so hard that I had to sit. I drew my knees to my chest as my mind continued to contemplate that fact. Emerson and I had found each other, our paths colliding with onestupid mistake. If I believed in fate, thought it was more than something in the books I read, I would have called it that.
I didn’t know how long I sat there, staring at the gateway to my freedom, sitting on the threshold between running and staying. Not accepting and accepting.
“What are you doing?” Jill’s voice caused me to jump from the trance I’d been in. She sat next to me and inclined her head to the side while she looked at the door. “Is this some artsy thing?”
I snorted, glad to have a distraction. “Nah, just a good place to think.” I tipped back on my elbows and stretched my legs out as I stared at the chandelier. “Why do rich people insist on hanging chandeliers in their houses?”
