Page 41 of Insatiable

“Too innocent for you now?”

“Okay.” I throw the duvet off. “I’m sleeping in the car.”

He captures my arm, and the electricity running through my body has me inwardly gasping.

I grit my teeth. “Stop being a dick. Really, Kade. You know this is awkward, and you being an idiot is making it worse.”

“I’ll stop,” he says, his gaze a little droopy now he’s closer to me. “It was a joke.”

I can tell he’s tipsy by how hooded his eyes are. He’s always had beautiful sleepy eyes. When he’s been drinking, they fall nearly closed. Even then, the silvery blue is still noticeable. Still breath-taking.

It’s annoying when I’m supposed to be mad at him.

I put a pillow between us. “Don’t come on my side or I’ll poke you in the eye.”

There’s a shadow of a smirk on his face.

Silence falls. The lamp on his bedside table is still on. This is bad. My heart shouldn’t be racing and threatening to blow through my chest. I shouldn’t be nervous. We’re two people sharing a bed because there’s no other option.

Except, I fear that my body will gravitate towards him in my sleep. And this new version of Kade who hates my guts will push me away and probably knock me off the bed.

He sits up, and my eyes linger on him as he types at rapid speed on his phone. Call me nosey, but I can’t help it. He’s replying to emails. At least, I think they’re emails – I don’t recognise the app he’s using. I chew on the inside of my cheek, pull my own phone out and start scrolling, bored.

Ten minutes pass. “Why are you replying to work emails so late?”

Kade doesn’t stop typing. “Because some people need to actually work, regardless of the time.”

“Where do you even work? Last I knew, you were helping Ewan and studying.”

He opens a new email and types to someone with a name starting with B, then angles his phone so I can’t see what the message says. “None of your business. A lot has changed in two years.”

So he isn’t going to tell me where he works? Weird, but okay. Noted.

“Did you see the news? Someone was killed not far from here. Decapitated. The person who did it is still out there.”

Kade doesn’t look up from his phone, and with the most monotonous, bored tone, he replies, “Shame.”

11

STACEY

Iwake to Kade standing by the window, looking out with a hand in his pocket, drinking a glass of what I assume is whisky that he must’ve picked up from the bar downstairs.

Ice cubes clink against the glass as he takes a drink – and the gulp is so audible that I can picture the way his throat shifts as he swallows.

I perch on my elbow and rub my knuckles into my eyes to rub away the tiredness. “Do you ever sleep?” I ask groggily as I yawn.

“No,” he replies sternly, taking another sip. “Go back to sleep.”

“That’s all I’ve done since we got here.” I sit up fully and stretch my arms, rocking my head from side to side to fix the cramp in my neck. “How long until we fly out?”

He walks slowly to the bedside unit and checks his phone for the time even though he’s wearing a watch. “A few hours.”

“You should lie down.”

“No.”

“You look tired.”

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