From the corner of my eye, I saw Anders bristle, straightening his spine, but he kept his mouth shut. He knew a peace offering when he heard one.
Tessa stared at me. Her arm was trembling violently now. The adrenaline was crashing, leaving her weak.
"You won't touch me?" she whispered. "Promise?"
This was it. The pivot point.
I looked at her, really looked at her.
She was a mess of tangled hair and oversized fabric, smelling of trauma and sea salt. But beneath that, I saw the fire. I saw the girl who had built an empire from the ashes of her humiliation. I saw the woman who had writhed under my hands last night with a hunger that had nearly undone me.
I remembered the feel of her hips grinding against my forearm. I remembered the desperation in her voice when she begged us to fill the empty ache.
I couldn't promise indifference. I wasn't a monk, and after last night, none of us were innocent. We had crossed a line that couldn't be uncrossed. We had tasted the air around her when she shattered, and that scent was currently wired into my hindbrain like a drug.
To promise her we wouldn't want her would be a lie. And I was done lying to her.
I leaned forward slightly, resting my hands on my knees. I let my voice drop lower, into a register that felt like a caress, intimate and dangerous.
"We won't touch you again, Tessa," I vowed, letting the words hang in the air, heavy and charged. "Unless you beg while you’re in your right mind."
The air in the room seemed to snap.
It wasn't a threat. It was a challenge. It was an acknowledgment of the reality she was trying to deny, that in the fever of the heat, shehadbegged. And we had answered.
Fresh color flooded her pale cheeks, a furious, humiliated blush that traveled all the way down to the neckline of her shirt. Her nostrils flared, scenting the sudden spike of Warm Bread and Spice that pushed off me in a heavy wave.
For a heartbeat, no one breathed. The tension was a pulled wire, humming between us.
Then her hand opened.
The brass lamp fell. It hit the carpet with a dull thud, rolling onto its side.
Tessa scrambled back, moving like a crab until she was pressed against the headboard, pulling her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them as if trying to hold herself together.
"Get out," she whispered. It wasn't a scream this time. It was a dismissal. "Get out of my room."
I nodded.
"Simon," I said, not looking away from her. "Door."
Simon peeled himself away from the window. He moved like a ghost, skirting the edge of the room, keeping his eyes on the floor, terrified to look at her. He slipped into the hallway.
"Anders," I said.
Anders hesitated. He looked at Tessa, his jaw working, likely cataloging a dozen liability clauses and damage control strategies. Then he looked at the lamp on the floor, and back to me. He straightened his ruined shirt, nodded once, a sharp, jerky motion, and retreated, his footsteps heavy as he left the room.
I was the last one.
I put my hands on the floor and pushed myself up. My joints protested, stiff from sleeping on the hardwood, but I ignored it. I stood to my full height, feeling the way the space shrank around me.
I looked at her one last time. She was watching me with eyes that were no longer terrified, but wary. Calculating. Burning.
"Lock the bolt, Tessa," I whispered.
I turned and walked out, closing the door behind me. I stood there for a moment and listened. The soft rustle of fabric greeted my ears followed by hurried footsteps.
Click.
