For Loren, hewoulddo better.
—
When Loren woke up, dawn was pouring into the room, warming up the duvet that was piled upon her. It took her a few minutes before she could remember anything—before her head and stomach stopped spinning in endless circles, round and round and round.
Groggy, she pushed the soft black duvet down and glanced about the spacious room, struggling to figure out where she was. She didn’t recognize anything in here—not the bed she was sprawled upon, not the floor-to-ceiling gilt mirror beside the bed, not the walk-in closet, not the impressive collection of music that spanned an entire wall.
Her lungs tightening, she started to panic—
Until she caught sight of the shirtless Devil sound asleep on the king-sized bed beside her.
Cripes. She was in Darien’s suite. The events of last night flooded back to her then, and her body heated up just as it had when she’d sat in Darien’s lap, when his hands had been all over her.
Darien was sleeping on his stomach, his head turned in her direction, his muscular arms stretched out above his head, inked hands loosely grasping his pillow. He looked so calm, so…vulnerable. His black eyelashes fluttered softly as he slept, his smooth breathing disrupting a strand of dark hair that hung to the tip of his nose.
He was absolutely exquisite, and she couldn’t stop staring at him. She could’ve watched him forever and never grown tired of the way he looked. To think that those strong, tattooed hands had been touching her only last night, in places where no man had ever touched—
Loren gulped, clamping her legs together as that same heat she’d felt last night bloomed between her thighs, where it spread right up to her navel. She couldn’t think about that now, and—
She still felt dizzy. Still felt like she might throw up, even with the drug now out of her system.
How had last night gone so horribly wrong?
Darien woke up a few minutes later, those eyelashes fluttering. Loren held her breath as that heavy, intimidating gaze of his settled upon her, as real as a physical touch. Butterflies twitched in her stomach, the realization of exactly whose bed she was in setting those butterfly wings aflame.
From Rook and Redding’s to this. So much had changed, and in so little time, that she sometimes wondered how they’d got here.
“Hi,” Darien said, his voice rougher and deeper than usual.
Tucking the sheets up to her chin, Loren dipped her head and whispered, “Hi.” With the weight of Darien’s stare on her, the warmth between her legs spread through her entire body.
“How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine,” she whispered. “How are you?”
Darien gave her a sleepy smile that made her toes curl beneath the sheets. “Fine.”
Her heart was running a race in her chest, and she knew Darien could hear every thump it made. He was staring at her, those eyes darkening with something far more intense than the Sight. The way his eyes were slightly hooded as he looked her over made her body tingle. Her breasts turned heavy, and she pressed her thighs together below the duvet, desperate for physical contact—for a release she wanted onlyhimto give her. Not herself, not anyone else—him. Wanted to give him full power over her body and her pleasure.
Her thoughts drifted back to last night, back to all they’d shared at that nightclub, everything they’d done. She couldn’t remember much of what had happened after she’d been drugged, but the things that came before that moment were clear as day.
She remembered everything. Remembered every filthy thing Darien had said to her, word for word. Remembered the way the people in the club had devoured the sight of them touching each other, as if they were on a stage.
As if they were acting. The thought had Loren’s shoulders curling inward, and her breathing turned shallow. Heat spread through her forearm, warning her that she’d gone too long without eating. She ignored the signal, a sickness that had nothing to do with her mysterious disease twisting deep in her gut.
What did Darien remember from last night? Had their time at the Advocate felt as life-changing to him as it had to her? Or was she so pathetic that she was clinging to every word he’d uttered like it was a life raft for her pride? Had he said those same things to other girls before and meant them?
“Something’s on your mind,” Darien said, his voice exceptionally gentle as he propped his head up on a hand. His words snapped her out of the anxiety that had closed over her like a suffocating blanket. “Go on and ask me, sweetheart.”
“How much…” The gray sheets rustled as she fidgeted. She cleared her throat, and then she forced her question out. “How much of last night was pretending for you?”
Concern deepened his features, the corner of his distracting mouth tilting down. “None of it,” he said. “None of it, Loren. All of that was real for me—every single thing.” The space between his eyebrows crinkled with a new kind of worry, and suddenly it felt somewhat like looking in a mirror. “How much—”
“None of it,” she whispered. His expression smoothed. “I meant everything I said and did.”
An impish smile ghosted across his lips. “So youdowant me.”
Loren fought her own smile. “I meant everything I said,” she repeated.
