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Jay wanted to ask her how exactly she knew what time it wasn’t with her head underneath the pillow. He also wanted to inform her that it was Thursday. But he stayed silent.
Stella continued to hide beneath the covers for another thirty seconds while Jay continued to watch her shape. He could sit there forever, on the side of her bed, in her small bedroom, watching Stella hide from the day.
But she didn’t stay there forever. Stella didn’t work that way. The covers eventually pulled back to reveal her flushed, pink cheeks and furrowed brows. “You’re dressed.”
There was disappointment in her voice. Jay liked that. Liked to see her entire body react to the prospect of his absence. She missed him before he was gone. And she didn’t try to hide it.
Jay missed her while she was sleeping in his fucking arms.
“I have to go to work,” he said.
Her bottom lip protruded ever so slightly as she pouted at him. He felt that pout in his fucking dick.
“But it’s Sunday. Sunday’s are my days,” she murmured, sleep still clinging to her voice.
Fuck.
She was going to fucking ruin him.
“My days are mine,” he said, still not correcting her that it was in fact Thursday. He didn’t know why he did that.
Jay hated himself for the look on her face. The pain he’d created there. The hope he had killed inside her. She was hoping he might change. Might become gentler. Might treat her with more care. It didn’t matter that he wanted to. More than anything.
He wasn’t capable.
So he was cruel. Cold.
“I’ll be in touch. Let you know when I expect you at the house,” he said.
She stared at him, eyes wide, dreams still lingering in her gaze.
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
Jay had an almost unbearable urge to kiss her forehead. To inhale her, take her with him through the day. Give her a dream to hold on to.
But instead he stood. Left. Without saying goodbye.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Jay left my apartment in the early hours of Thursday morning, but his presence lingered until Friday night. He was everywhere.
Which was precisely why I hadn’t wanted him here. Hadn’t wanted him to know me in that way. I didn’t want the memories of him existing here. Once this was over, I’d have to move. Maybe that sounded dramatic, but it really didn’t seem like it right now.
I hadn’t been able to sleep after he’d left. At five in the morning. On what I later discovered was a Thursday. I’d been mucked up because I’d woken up with Jay, something that usually happened on Sunday. Then there was the martinis from the previous night.
The previous night.
My body hurt from it. Ached. Every inch. Especially my ass. A delightful pain that reminded me how utterly and completely Jay owned me now.
Luckily, I barely had to be at home, didn’t have to linger in Jay’s absence now that his presence was everywhere. I didn’t have a moment to think. To overanalyze. Which was the point, considering the date that loomed ahead of me like a death sentence.
Which was the entire point of my current schedule.
My schedule was something I could control.
Until Saturday came.
Jay had already informed me that he had ‘business’ all day, so I didn’t arrive there until late afternoon. Which I hated. Fucking hated. Jay was the remedy to all my fears, worries. Even though he was the one who scared me most. It was a relief to enter the threshold of his house. To walk through the familiar halls and find Jay at his desk. Have him instruct me to kneel, to take him in my mouth then have him carry me to the bedroom. To fuck me senseless.
It was like coming home.
Which was a problem.
A big fucking problem.
But lying in his arms, my entire body tingling in satisfaction—I couldn’t find it in myself to worry.
Until he spoke.
“You’re working yourself to the bone,” Jay said, fingers trailing over my protruding hip.
It looked ugly. Sharp. Too much like those emancipated models waltzing down the runway. I hated it. Hadn’t realized just how much weight I’d lost until now.
“It’s gearing up to awards season,” I explained. “It’s always manic, and clients on cleanses forget that there are normal human beings around them who are meant to have things like lunch hours. I’ve had more requests than ever from some of the top actresses and actors in town, and I’m not exactly going to turn down our generation’s Meryl Streep, am I?”
I was trying to keep my tone light, so he might not spot the lie.
However, this was Jay. He spotted everything.
His brows furrowed ever so slightly, the closest I’d come to actually see the man frown. “I don’t care if the Queen of fucking Sheba is trying to contact you, you give yourself time to eat, sleep, see me and be fucked by me,” he scolded me in his flat tone. “And I don’t fuck skeletons, Stella.”
