Page 29 of Betrayal (Corrupt Empire 1)

Her brow furrowed, but she didn’t ask me where I’d put her instead. I wasn’t sure what she’d think when she discovered I intended her to sleep in my bed. With me. I needed to keep an eye on her. It was the only way.

I stood up and gathered the plates. Pulling open the dishwasher, I stacked all the dirty dishes and took her glass when she was done.

“Can I have some water, please? To go to bed with, I mean.”

“The glasses are in the cupboard above the sink.”

I watched her select one and pour herself some water. She held it to her chest and looked at me with expectation written all over her face. I took her by the arm and walked out. She followed me into my bedroom. Her eyes went wide as she took in where we were. I took her glass from her and set it on the bedside table on the right-hand side of the bed.

“Go brush your teeth, dry your hair and come back here, understand?” I said.

She nodded slowly before shuffling back out the way we’d come. I pulled back the covers for her before stalking out the room. I went back into the cell, picking up all the discarded chocolate wrappers and everything else she’d left all over the floor, stuffing them back into the bag before I picked up the bucket. I left it outside the bathroom door because she was still in there and dumped the bag in the kitchen to deal with in the morning.

Stalking back down the hall, I snagged my laptop from the sofa in the living room where I’d left it. I still had things to do. I found the bucket was gone when I walked back out into the hall. She’d dealt with it. Good girl.

Avery was standing in the middle of the room when I got back. Her eyes darted around, taking in her surroundings.

On one side, I had big built-in cupboards behind sliding doors. I’d put the clothes I’d bought her in one of them. My king size bed took up most of the back wall. A huge window with the curtains drawn on the left-hand side. The walls were deep blue and the furniture black. The headboard on my bed was welded metal. Perfect for handcuffs, chains and rope, which I most definitely should not be thinking about right now. Not when she was about to get in my bed.

“You sleep here,” I said, pointing at where I’d drawn the covers back.

“Um… with you?”

“Yes with me.”

A blush crept up her neck and face, all the way to the tips of her ears.

“You did tell me you didn’t want to be alone, did you not?”

She nodded.

“I’m not going to bite, Avery. Just get in bed.”

She shuffled over to it and crawled in, settling the covers over herself. She hadn’t had a bed in three weeks.

I left my laptop on my side of the bed before going over to the cupboards. I unbuttoned my shirt and pulled it off. I had a t-shirt on underneath. I dumped the shirt in the washing basket before unbuckling my belt. I took off my trousers before tugging on a pair of shorts. I sat on the end of the bed to take my socks off, which went in the basket too.

I eyed Avery who was still huddled under the covers, not looking at me. Picking up the laptop, I leant against the headboard with my pillows tucked up behind me and set about getting some work done.

An hour later, I was sick of looking at lines of code so I turned it off and dumped my laptop on the floor beside the bed. Pulling the covers back, I got in and lay down, switching off the lamp which I’d left on.

Despite the size of the bed putting space between us, I could feel the heat radiating off her. And I was drawn to it. Drawn to her.

“Are you asleep?” I asked.

“No,” she replied.

“What’s wrong?”

“It feels weird being in a bed. I don’t even know how long it’s been.”

“Three weeks.”

It didn’t matter to me if she knew how long it had been or not. I imagined her sense of time was a little skewed.

“It feels like longer.”

“Come here.”

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