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“Get the fuck out,” I shouted at him. “Is it not enough that I’m trapped here? Can you not just leave me the fuck alone?”
I shouldn’t have been so furious, especially when I was precisely where I wanted to be. But I wanted one night to calm my nerves.
One night to get myself together.
One night to prepare for what was to come.
If he was here, I couldn’t do that.
“You’re in my room, Stellina.”
“And enough with the damn name. Stellina? Little star? Seriously? You’re fucking ridiculous.”
He leaned on the bedpost, flexing his forearms as he moved. “You may be the fieriest woman I’ve ever met. The name fits,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “And you think I’d risk giving you your own room?”
“What do you think I’ll do? Jump out the—”
I paused and slammed my mouth closed.
That was exactly what I’d done earlier.
I had certainly not marketed myself as trustworthy since being here, but I had to test him in the only ways I could.
“If you don’t trust me enough to leave me alone at night, maybe you shouldn’t trust me enough to stay in a house with yourfamily,” I said instead.
He didn’t respond immediately as he pushed himself off the bed and removed his shirt. I stared at the deep ridges of muscles across his entire back. I barely kept a handle on my erratic breathing as he reached for the hem of his pants and lowered those, too.
With his back turned to me, he finally spoke.
“You’re in herebecauseI can’t trust you.” I could hear that he wasn’t done speaking from the slight uptilt of his tone. “I can’t let you go to the cops and tell them what you saw. I can’t trust you because I don’tknowyou. So, you’re staying close to me until I learn enough about you to either trust or dispatch you.”
“So you need enough information to be able to track me when you let me go?” I shot back.
“Until then, you’ve proven to be quite the distraction. I need one of those these days, and you amuse me—for now.”
“You need a distraction from your big, bad job as a career criminal,” I seethed.
“Something like that.”
He turned off the lights, and I watched closely as he eased across the room, coming straight for the bed.
“Absolutely not,” I said, sitting all the way up.
He paused with a hand on the duvet cover, and I could imagine the way he stared down at me. “I’m showing you kindness by allowing you to sleep in my room and not a cell in the basement after all the shit you pulled. Don’t mistake my generosity for obligation.”
Then, he pulled the blanket back and slid beneath it, wearing nothing but boxers.
The bed sunk from his weight, but it was large enough that from my edge, I didn’t have to touch him. I had enough space to sleep out of his embrace.
I wiggled as close to the edge as possible.
“Stellina,” he said.
“What?”
“I promised I wouldn’t touch you again unless you asked me to. I wasn’t lying to you. You’re safe when you’re with me.”
I exhaled a deep sigh, my shoulders sagging. I hadn’t realized how much I needed to hear those words. He’d made the promise before, but hearing it reiterated meant something.
