Page 54 of Vow to Claim You

“You should sleep with me tonight,” he says without looking at me.

A jolt runs through me. I knew this was coming sooner or later. It had to. There’s a deadline hanging over us—or over me, at least. Even so, it catches me off guard, because he says it so abruptly, so impassively, as though it’s nothing more than business.

“Alright,” I say with the same businesslike tone.

“Alright,” he repeats.

“I’ll need a few minutes.” I rise from the bench, and my legs feel strange, distant, like they belong to someone else. “To prepare.”

He watches me, still unreadable, still carved from ice.

“Take your time.”

I walk past him, my heart pounding like a hummingbird.

I spend far too long getting ready for something I keep telling myself doesn’t matter. I put on black, ridiculous, lacy lingerie—sheer enough to leave absolutely nothing to the imagination. The matching robe does precisely nothing to help. If anything, it makes it worse.

I stare at my reflection and feel like a stranger looking back.

What are you doing, Ayanna?

Darkening my lashes, staining my lips a shade deeper than I’d normally wear, smoothing highlighter across my cheekbones like I’m preparing for a photo shoot instead of... whatever this is.

For him. The man who speaks in monosyllables and watches everything with those cold, pale eyes.

Get a grip.

I refuse to do anything more. I let my hair stay loose, still damp from the bath, curling into waves that spill past my shoulders and down my back.

I draw a breath and leave my room. Aric’s bedroom door is already open. He stands at the window with his back to me, and the breath catches somewhere behind my ribs before I can stop it.

He’s shirtless. I’ve seen him shirtless before, but under very different circumstances, and I’d forbidden myself from thinking of him that way. Now, though, I can’t help but notice the broad sweep of his shoulders, the long muscled lines of his back tapering to a narrow waist, the ink crawling over all of it. He looks less like a man and more like something a sculptor lost his mind trying to perfect. It’s unfair. Genuinely unfair that a man this cold gets to be built like that.

Then he turns, and it gets worse…

This man has an actual six-pack.

I bite my lower lip without thinking, and immediately regret it when his gaze lifts and catches the motion, because there’s that infuriating spark, like he knows exactly what just happened.

I straighten at once, heat rushing to my cheeks, and I enter the bedroom, closing the door behind me.

His eyes roam over me, taking in every inch. Nothing like the quick, stolen glance I’d allowed myself earlier. Unapologetic. Like he has every right. The corner of his mouth tips up, and my body reacts before my pride can.

I hate it. I hate the effect this man has one me, the way my body has its own desires whenever he’s around. I hate it and I’d never admit it out loud.

I clear my throat, square my shoulders, then reach for the tie of my robe and pull it loose. The sheer fabric parts.

His brows lift—the faintest hint of surprise—before his head tilts, one corner of his mouth curving higher than before.

Is that…

...a dimple?

He’s never smiled enough for me to notice. But there it is. A dimple.

Oh, that’s completely unfair. He already looks like temptation wrapped in a tailored suit. He doesn’t get to have dimples too.

“Is that…” His words pull me out of my thoughts, “what you thought I meant?”