It caught him off guard. He and Imogen were supposed to be alone. Or so he had hoped.
When she passed the dining room—oblivious to his presence—he leapt across with a barely contained jolt of frustration. He meant to flee out the window while her back was turned. Everything had moved too quickly; the calculated precision he so prided himself on had faltered.
Before he knew it, Rory Holloway was in the house. The man had to sink to the floor, watching them from beneath the dining room table, cursing himself.
It all became worse as Imogen uncoiled under Rory in a scene that was intimate, obscene, holy, and wrong all at once. He felt it in his gut—a hot, sour pressure at the way he ravished her body. Part of the man burned with the animal ache he’d been bottling up: the impossible nearness of her, watching her experience this pleasure. Another darker part flared with a corrosive fury: This was not the way it was supposed to be. Not with Rory.
He didn’t move. He could not. So he stayed and watched. The sight made him feel small and enormous at the same time: small because he couldn’t cross the room and take what his hunger wanted; enormous because he was witnessing something he felt staunchly was in his future—something he had spent months building in his head.
He tasted bile and desire at once and felt a terrifying tenderness for her that curdled into rage. He told himself he would not scar the moment with violence. Instead, he hardened with intention—a plan that would not be thwarted by petty accidents or clumsy timing.
His blasted boot ruined everything. That single tap against the floorboards had cracked his containment of control, betrayed him in the worst possible way. When he heard Imogen’s fragile gasp of horror, he knew she had heard him.
Snarling now, he tears the boot off and flings it across the room. It hits the wall with a dull thud, leaving a grimy print behind before tumbling onto a side table, breaking a vase into shards against the hardwood.
The crash stirs something below: a thump, a shift. It’s coming from the cellar.
She must be awake,he thinks.
He fetches a broom from the kitchen, each sweep of the shards methodical, as if tidying the aftermath of his own mishap.
A trembling smile forms as he replays tomorrow’s plans in his head, the choreography of his upcoming actions replaying and replaying.
Tomorrow, he promises himself, he will no longer be the invisible specter floating around her house unseen.
Tomorrow, Imogen will be his.
25
IMOGEN
I wake to the steady warmth of Rory beside me, his arm slung heavy across my ribs, the early light casting a pale wash over my bedroom walls. For a fleeting moment, before I remember the house we’re in and The Nightmare, which I had clawed my way out of in the middle of the night, everything feels good. Waking up with Rory, in the safety of his grasp, is everything I need. I let myself dissolve into it for a spell, to fully enjoy the rare sensation.
It’s been years since I’ve woken up like this—with someone I trust, with someone whose presence doesn’t bind me to regret. The last couple years have been a carousel of halfhearted attempts at intimacy: faces blurred by wine, beds that weren’t mine, kisses that evaporated the second they landed. After each encounter, I felt the same: like an empty shell, hollowed out and unwanted.
Rory’s weight against me, his quiet breath at my neck, makes me believe for a few minutes that I’m not broken beyond repair.
But eventually, I untangle myself from his arms, Mom’s voice still echoing from The Nightmare, sharp with disapproval as she rushed to my side.
Down the hall, the kitchen waits with a note from Amelia. Her handwriting is as bright as her tone:
Morning! Back around 4. Happy packing! Let’s finish this.
PS. Movers coming at 9 a.m. tomorrow now! Wes can help you. Rory too?
PPS. You’re the best.
Amelia
I press the paper flat against the counter, hovering over it, guilt prickling under my skin. I am not “the best.” I will not get much packing done this morning. Not when there’s too much to investigate. Too many questions to answer.
That’s when my phone rings, as I stand in the kitchen, wiping sleep from my eyes. A local number, one I don’t have saved. I swipe to answer.
“Hello?”
“Is this Imogen Bly?” a familiar male voice asks.
“Yes, who’s this?”
