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After the day she had, trouble sleeping should’ve been impossible. She’d been fucked, spanked, licked, and bound. Massaged, bathed, fed, and fucked some more. Every inch of her body hurt in the most delicious, languid way.
Never in her life had someone accessed all her body’s secrets so expertly. Like a master musician picking up a dusty instrument and making it truly sing.
No, after all that, she should be sleeping like a fucking baby. Yet she’d spent hours staring at the fireplace, watching the fire die down until the room plunged into near-total darkness. And here she was after three in the morning, tossing and turning and screaming into a feather pillow.
Propping herself up on one elbow, she gazed across the bed, finding the small rectangular shadow on Rafe’s nightstand. He let her check her email on his phone twice that evening—once before dinner and again right before bed. Both times, her heart raced as she signed in, a nauseating mixture of hope and anxiety whirling around in her gut. And both times, she plummeted into misery when the inbox loaded without a response from Holly.
But that washoursago. And Holly lived on the west coast; it was barely after midnight in Seattle.
Waking her new Dom to check her email was obviously out of the question. If she didn’t have to wake him, though...
Nell climbed out of bed with such slowness and care, she suspected a glass of water set on the other side of the mattress wouldn’t even ripple. Watching Rafe’s dark form beneath the duvet, she tiptoed around the foot of the bed, stopping every time he so much as twitched. It felt like an eternity before she made it to his nightstand, though it probably took under a minute.
Using only her fingertips, she lifted the phone from the nightstand with painstaking care, ensuring the charger didn’t so much as brush against the wood.
Just as she unplugged his phone, he let out a single, loud snore. The charging cable tumbled from her fingers when she jumped, clacking against the nightstand on its way to the floor. There wasn’t anything she could do about it, as both hands were occupied with juggling the phone she almost dropped at the same time.
By the time she pressed the phone securely against her chest, her heartbeat raced so fucking fast, she feared she might have a literal heart attack. But Rafe’s eyes remained closed, and he returned to his slow, gentle breathing after a couple of seconds.
Jesus, that was close. She needed to get to the safety of the en suite bathroom before anything else could go wrong.
Creeping like a thief in the night (which she technically was), she made her way toward the bathroom as silently as possible. A soft blue light emanated from the crack in the door, guiding her footsteps across the room like a beacon. She didn’t remember a nightlight in any of the plugs, but clearly she hadn’t paid close enough attention.
Shit, did the door have squeaky hinges? She couldn’t remember.
Holding her breath, she eased it open without a sound. Relief flowing through her, she hurried inside, the tiles toasty beneath her bare feet. A place as fancy as Fairford Manor apparently required heated floors.
Taking her time, she pushed the door closed as slowly as she could, not daring to make a single additional sound. Satisfied, she turned around—and nearly blew everything by laughing.
The fuckingtoiletwas glowing.
Good God, could this place get any fancier? She noticed the bidet when she used the facilities before bed—hard not to given the heated seat and large remote—though she’d been too nervous to use it. But apparently the thing even had a light sensor, because it definitely wasn’t glowing before.
Shaking her head at the ridiculousness of it all, she shuffled over to the toilet, taking a seat. If Rafe came looking for her, she could simply claim she needed to pee.
The blue light disappeared as she pressed her thighs together, plunging the room into total darkness. Resting her hands on her lap, she tapped his phone screen with one thumb. His wallpaper was a picture of the Manor at the height of summer, its front gardens a riot of colorful plants and flowers.
With guilt forming a ball in the pit of her stomach, she entered his password, consoling herself with the fact she didn’t memorize it on purpose. She had no choice but to learn how to be sneaky in her years under Micah’s thumb, and now it was second nature.
Pulling up his internet browser, she found the tab with her email and signed in. Hope surged in her chest as the inbox loaded, only to die seconds later.
There was no sign of Holly’s name.
As worst-case scenarios started boiling over in her head, she forced herself to close her eyes and take several deep, calming breaths. They hadn’t spoken in almost a decade. Of course Holly might need time to process before she emailed back. Hell, if this was an old email she hardly ever checked, she might not have even seen it. There was no reason to freak out.
Yet.
Still very much freaking out, she made sure the phone looked exactly like when she opened it, then started to stand. But something kept her rooted to the heated toilet seat with Rafe’s phone still glowing in her hand.
Don’t fucking do it,warned a livid voice in her head. A voice that sounded very much like Holly the last time they were together.
Nell frowned down at the phone as she pulled up the internet browser again. Ever since that morning, a single word ricocheted around in the back of her mind—closure.
She wouldn’t respond to Micah. She legit never wanted to see or speak to him again, zero exceptions. But maybe, just maybe, if she read his words—learned about everything he’d done to try to make up for the years of abuse, and got an actual, genuine apology...
Maybe it would help her finally move on for good. Stop looking over her shoulder every damn second of the day.
With Holly’s voice berating her in her head, she signed out of her new email and into her old one.
