Page 77 of Phantom Flower

Everything felt too much. The kiss in the woods. The way he had pinned me against the wall. The filthy words he had growled in my ear. The way he had made me come with his hand wrapped around both of us. And now this.

“You’re overthinking,” he said, as if reading my mind. “Stop.”

“I’m not—” I started, but the lie died in my throat when he pressed a kiss to the nape of my neck.

“You are,” he countered, tightening his hold. “Just sleep.”

***

I woke up to my phone buzzing on the nightstand.

I did not move. Dimitri’s arm was still draped over my waist, and his breathing against the back of my neck made me want to stay exactly where I was. But the phone kept vibrating, so I carefully reached for it.

Mom: I miss you, sweetheart. When are you coming home?

I stared at the message for a long time.

What a fucking liar.

She did not miss me. She never had. Not really. Even when I was still living at the house, she barely noticed whether I was there or not. The only reason she was texting now was probably because Daniel had asked about me, or because it looked bad that her son had basically disappeared for weeks. Either way, I did not care enough to find out.

I did not reply. I fell back asleep.

When I woke up again, the bed was empty. I slowly stood up, got dressed, and went downstairs. I could not see Dimitri anywhere. I was a bit worried. Had he left without telling me?

Right when I was starting to overthink, I spotted a shadow on the terrace. I headed over there and saw him.

He was bent over one of the large flower pots the housekeeper kept out there, his nose practically buried in the blooms. His eyes were closed, and he was breathing in deeply like he was trying to memorize the scent. It was such a strangely soft moment for someone like him that I just stood there for a second, watching.

I must have made a sound because he finally straightened up and turned around. His blue eyes found me immediately.

“What are you doing?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

He did not look embarrassed at all. Instead, he just tilted his head slightly and asked, “What color do you want today?”

I blinked. “Color?”

“For your hair,” he said, like it was obvious.

Oh.

I hesitated. The truth was, I had not even thought about it yet. Before Dimitri, I used to only wear black flowers. It felt right back then. Empty.

But ever since he started showing up in my life, the colors had been changing.

“Red,” I said after a moment.

Dimitri stepped closer, studying me like he was trying to read something written on my skin.

“You wore red after the night I chased you through these woods too,” he said. “What does red mean to you?”

My cheeks burned, feeling way too exposed.

Red did not just mean one thing. It meant the rush of adrenaline that night in the woods when he hunted me. It meant the way my heart had been pounding so hard I thought it would break my ribs. It meant the kiss last night that had felt like it cracked something open inside me. It meant feeling alive in a way I had not felt in years.

But I could not say any of that.

So I cleared my throat and lied.