Page 74 of Honey Cut
We reach the ground floor, and I realize I’m still holding on to her elbow. I drop my hand, sheepish, unhappy.
“Isolde—”
“I can hear your nightmares,” she cuts in. “From your room.”
I give her a sad smile. “I can hear yours.”
“I don’t have them when I sleep with Mark,” she says, looking away. “At least, not as badly, I think.”
“I didn’t have them with him either.” The heavy cage of Mark’s embrace was the best sleep I’d had since killing Sims. Until… “I also didn’t have the dreams when I shared a bed with you. On the yacht.”
“Same.” Her voice is a whisper.
The bad idea hovers between us, unspoken and intoxicating.
“If we—” I start.
“It would be totally innocent—” Isolde says.
“Just while we’re here,” I say, like I’m being reasonable, temperate. “Just so we can sleep.”
God, it’s been ages since I’ve slept the whole night through. The ache in me is dangerous because of it—a craving that’s bound and tethered with exhaustion.
“It’s not breaking any rules.” She says it like she’s trying to convince herself. “It’s something friends would do.”
We’ve never been friends. We were polite to each other for a week and a half, and then I knew what her pussy tasted like. There was no in-between.
But I’m as ready to lie to myself as she is.
“Right,” I say, and then I pull her into my bedroom.
She tightens the sash of her robe as she sits on one side of the bed and I sit on the other.
“On the yacht, it—it helped when we held each other,” she says. My room is dark, apart from whatever city light is drifting in through the window, and I can only catch the shimmer of silk on her shoulder, a stray tendril of hair. “So I won’t say no touching. But we shouldn’t…”
“I know.” My voice is deep. Graveled. “We shouldn’t.”
We both climb into bed, hesitating only a moment before moving together. She fits as perfectly in my arms as she did on the yacht, and she smells just as sweet. Like honey spilled on soft, fresh earth.
We’re both stiff at first, holding ourselves still. I’m aware of every single inch of us under the covers, where our feet touch, where our knees touch, where her breasts graze my chest. Her back under my hands is taut, firm, the back of someone who’s dedicated hours of every day for years to martial arts. I try to forget that under her silk robe, she’s wearing nothing but the bruises Mark made her give herself. I try to forget that I could have her underneath me so easily, that I could part her thighs with my knee and then suck on her breasts while I pressed my dick against her clit and made her buck against it.
I try to forget, but I can’t. But the weight of her, the warmth of her, is so comforting and so sweet, and for a moment, the darkness doesn’t hold the memories of war but the promise of sleep.
And then I’m gone, melting into unconsciousness like ice in the sun.
* * *
When I wake up,Isolde is still in my arms, her hands on my bare chest and a little bit of drool on my bicep. Her robe has ridden up in her sleep, and I know that because one of her thighs is flung over my waist. I can feel the heat of her cunt through my athletic shorts.
My cock is so hard that it’s trying to fight its way free of my clothes. When I extricate myself and look down, I see the swollen, shiny head peeping above the waistband. Fuck.
At least I slept well.
By the time I finish my shower—and finishinmy shower, so that I don’t terrify Isolde with my erection—Isolde is already in her own room getting ready.
My phone rings, and I nearly hitignorewithout even looking at it—I’ve already had my monthly check-in with my dad, and I don’t particularly care to be grilled on the ethics of working for Mark Trevena today—before seeing that the call is from Mark himself.
My immediate and ridiculous thought is that somehow Mark knows that Isolde and I shared a bed last night, that I’ve been watching their nightly sessions on the roof. Even though I know for a fact that there are no cameras of any kind inside the penthouse because I spent the first few hours here combing through the leaves of every plant and checking behind every mirror.
