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The rose’s petals are just starting to open, and I run my fingers over their velvety softness, wondering what she thinks about when she sees a new one in the bud vase on her nightstand every morning. So far, she hasn’t called me out for sneaking into her room at random hours in the middle of the night to swap out the one from the night before with a fresh one.
It’s been a week of this.
A week of nothing while feeling like everything is heightened. I have barely seen Georgia. She avoids me like the plague. We’re two airplanes intentionally dodging each other’s airspace. She met with the people she needed to meet with and signed all the necessary documents, and then spent the week here, hiding out, lost in thoughts she won’t share.
And while she’s been doing that, I’ve been digging into the dirty world of Alfie and Ezra Earnheart. All the while watching as they—or more likely their cronies—do their best to infiltrate my systems. Ezra has been texting Georgia relentlessly. It’s been everything from apologies for the way he treated her in Vegas to asking where she is to begging for her to come back to him to threatening me if she doesn’t. He’s desperate, that much is clear.
Whether he’s desperate for her or her money or both is unclear.
His desperation makes him dangerous, and though Georgia is safe here, I need to eliminate him as a threat.
During the day, I go to work, avoiding the few press that have bothered to come up here, and Georgia stays here, Alice keeping her company as they go on hikes, and Georgia reads by the wood fireplace in the back room that overlooks the lake. I make her breakfast and coffee and leave it for her, and when I come home, I cook dinner, which she eats either after I already have, or sits there ignoring me while working on her laptop.
She’s mad, and she has every right to be.
But while she’s mad, I’m in agony.
I’m tormented.
She’s right here, but I can’t touch her, and I don’t know how to talk to her. I want to tell her. Aurelia told me I’m deserving and not to let this go, and maybe, just fucking maybe, she’s right. I want to tell Georgia everything because part of me can’t help but feel like this is what I’ve been building toward all these years apart. But is there any reality in that for us? This world that I live in… it’s not meant for her.
It never was.
But… could I change that? I don’t know.
So I sneak into her room like a man obsessed and bring her roses because the other day when I was passing by Naveah’s flower shop, I saw these in the window and immediately thought of her. Crimson red and deep green with thorns that make me bleed for her.
I turn back to the screen and smirk. You’re only going to see what I allow you to, but now that you’ve entered my game, I’ll have you soon enough. And then fucking destroy you and your wormy son.
Hitting a few keys, I bounce him out and shut everything down before leaving my office. Alice is already asleep on her dog bed in my room, and I make my way upstairs in the dark, bringing the rose up to my nose and taking a deep inhale of its sweet fragrance as I go. With slow, quiet strides, I slink along the hall, listening intently for any sounds of her stirring. She doesn’t stay awake for me, and she doesn’t try to catch me in the act.
But she doesn’t throw the roses in the trash either, so I take that as a win. She accepts my small olive branch, and as long as she continues to, I’ll continue to bring her a new rose every night. Just as I reach her door, I freeze midstride, my body angling as I try to listen deeper.
A soft whimper followed by a strangled groan comes from her room, and I hear her shifting about in her bed. What the fuck? I inch closer, placing my ear to her door, and catch her whimper again, her body moving violently.
Shit. Is she having a nightmare?
I twist the knob, squinting as I enter, but my eyes quickly adjust as the full moonlight that’s reflecting off the lake shines brightly into the room. Georgia is on her back, her head twisted to the side away from me. One hand is up her paper-thin white tank top, cupping her breast, and the other is shoved down her tiny purple sleep shorts as she grinds and fucks herself into it.
My mouth dries as heat and blood instantly shoot straight to my dick.
“Georgia?” I find myself saying, not even sure if she’s awake since I can’t see her face. But even before I know how I got here, I’m at the foot of her bed, needing to see her, to watch her, to hear her. As with every time I’m near her, everything else fades into the background and becomes nonexistent. No guilt. No common sense or reasoning.
It’s only her.
“Georgia.”
She starts, her eyes flashing open, wild and lust-hazy and unbridled with shock. And suddenly those eyes are on me as I’m climbing onto the end of the bed, staring down at her, and how the fuck did I get here?
I go to pull back, to force some awareness into my limbs when she says, “I can’t tell if I’m still dreaming or not.”
My throat thickens. “Were you dreaming about me?”
A jerky nod but now her hands have stilled, though they haven’t shifted from their position.
I start to prowl back toward her, sliding my body up hers and spreading her legs wider as I go. “What was I doing? Tell me, and I’ll tell you if it’s still a dream or not.”
I take the rose in my hand and bring it up to her exposed collarbone, dragging the soft petals along her skin and sweeping them across the swell of her breasts peeking out above the top of the cotton. She shivers, and I watch as she mentally debates this.
