Then he fell to his knees before me, looking up at me with eyes that were equal parts heat and reverence. “Ma Belle, you have more power than you will ever know. I am undone by you.”
He slid my shorts down my legs and spread my knees wide. Fuck. This man was dangerous, but I wasn’t going to stop. I fisted my finger in his thick, dark hair, and he leaned forward and devoured me. With one arm behind me, propping me up and letting my head fall back, lost in the pleasure of this man’s mouth.
Was anything fixed? No, but as he sucked my clit into his mouth, I was miles away from caring.
23
BELLE
We fell asleep tangled together.
The kind of sleep that came after too much emotion and too much intensity in one day. My body was warm, pleasantly heavy, with his arm draped over my waist like it belonged there. It felt natural.
His breathing evened out first. Steady against my back. I lay awake a few minutes longer, staring into the dark, replaying everything.
It was quiet, too quiet. The kind of stillness that only exists at two in the morning. The room was dim, moonlight stretching long and pale across the floor.
I slipped out from under him carefully. He didn’t stir.
I walked down the hall to the bathroom so as not to wake him. In the bathroom, I splashed cool water on my face and stared at myself in the mirror.
“What are we doing?” I said to my reflection, but she said nothing back, equally confused as I was.
You are not powerless. His voice echoes in my head.
But Mel’s voice was there too. If something goes wrong, he holds more cards.
The words settled more heavily in the dark.
When I stepped back into the hallway, I didn't go straight to bed.
The upstairs felt different at night. Quieter. More cavernous. The library door was open down the hall, moonlight brushing the spines of my newly placed books.
And then my eyes shifted to the two doors closed at the far end of the corridor.
I’ve noticed them before, of course. I’ve cleaned upstairs. I’ve moved through these halls. But they’ve always been firmly shut.
I had been told on my first day that they were strictly off-limits. I didn't know why they’re off-limits, just that they are. They sat there now, darker than the rest of the hallway.
When I thought about it, I didn't actually know him all that well.
I knew the version of him who makes breakfast and gives me bookshelves and carries me up the stairs. I knew the man who touched me like I was something precious.
But I didn’t know what was behind those doors. The thought unsettled me. How could I have feelings for a man I didn’t truly know?
I took a slow step down the hallway. Then another.
The floorboards were cool beneath my bare feet.
The first door stood heavy and unmarked. The second lay just beyond it. My pulse ticked faster. This was ridiculous. People are allowed privacy.
But privacy feels different when you’re sleeping in someone’s bed. When you’re filling their shelves. When you’re falling in love.
I stood there in the dim hallway, heart pounding away in my chest, staring at the doors that had never opened for me.
I can’t help but wonder what else I haven’t been told.
I know I shouldn’t, but my hand was already on the knob. It turned easily. The first door opened with a soft click, and I stepped inside before I could talk myself out of it.
