Page 36 of Santa Daddy
He stepped back a fraction, more because he allowed it than because I’d actually moved him. Space rushed in between us like oxygen in a suffocating room.
My skin burned where his hands had been. My body screamed at me for the loss of contact.
“Don’t,” I said, my voice shaking with a cocktail of fear and something I refused to name. “Just… don’t.”
Run, idiot.
Lock a door between you and whatever this is before you do something you can’t undo.
I turned and bolted. Bare feet slapping against the marble, dress hissing around my legs, the Christmas tree’s cold glow following me down the hall like a ghost.
I didn’t look back, but I felt his eyes on me all the way to the master bath.
I slammed the door. Twisted the lock like it meant anything against a man like him. My hands were shaking so hard it took two tries.
Breathe.
Just breathe.
The mirror over the vanity didn’t care about my directives. It shoved the truth in my face.
Smudged makeup. Hair mussed from his fingers, lipstick blurred at the edges from biting it in the car and at the restaurant and in here. Eyes too bright. Lips swollen.
I looked wrecked.
And thoroughly, shamefully, pleased about it.
The dress turned me into his idea of perfection—dangerous, slick, weaponized. Seeing myself like this, knowing what he’d already done to my body and what I’d let him do, made something sharp twist in my chest.
I pressed my palms to the cold marble counter. Let the chill seep into my bones.
I wanted him.
Simple. Brutal. Inarguable.
I wanted the man who’d stood in a Christmas tree lot, ordered a murder, and then dragged me out instead of putting a bullet in my head. The man who’d pinned me up against bathroom tile while water ran and my 911 call died between his fingers. The man who could end me with a word.
And the worst part—the truly terrifying, panic-worthy part—was knowing he wanted me, too.
Not just as a witness. Not just as a political solution. As a woman.
That knowledge crackled under my skin like static electricity. Every time he looked at me. Every time he said mine like a promise and a threat.
This wasn’t just survival anymore.
Wasn’t just about playing his fiancée until I found a way out.
This was about the way my pulse skipped when he said my name. The way my whole body tuned itself to his presence in a room. The way I’d backed up against glass instead of running the second we got through that door.
I was falling for my captor.
Becoming every cautionary tale I’d ever screamed at through a screen. “Don’t do it, you idiot. He’s the villain. Run.”
Through the door, I heard him moving around the penthouse. Slow, controlled steps. No raised voice. No slammed cabinets. Just that constant, looming presence pressing against my nerves like weight.
He was thinking.
Planning.
