Chapter 22 Hazel and I moved in two weeks ago, and I haven't seen Vander in days. Again. Not once. Not at work and not at home. I made dinner for him the other night as a thank you for all he did for Hazel, but he never came home to eat it. I've been telling myself I shouldn't care what he does or if he doesn't come home. I shouldn't care if he's out with women or locked in that closet. I have space in this house. We're safe here. Hazel loves it. I love it. It almost doesn't feel real after this last year. I've been able to save money, and after a few paychecks, I should have more than enough to move us out here and into a place of our own. It's a dream come true. One I'd scarcely allowed myself to have. I'm not sure what to do with it other than be grateful and give Vander the space he's clearly telling me he wants. It's funny. Or maybe not. I never felt lonely until I moved here. I never had time for it to settle on me. For me to acknowledge it. But now I'm living in a house that isn't mine. A house that belongs to my boss. To my former boyfriend. I'm here, and he's not, and his absence is visceral. I'm not saying I want to crawl in bed with the guy or that I imagined by moving in we'd have some artificial notion of a happily ever after, but... ugh. I don't even know. I'm just restless. Filled with an energy I have no outlet for. With it, an ancient sadness I've forced into a box and slammed the lid on is creeping out. It's stolen my sleep and awakened my mind, and I hate it. I fucking hate it. I need a distraction, which is likely why I find myself in Vander's bedroom when I shouldn't be. It's somewhere close to midnight, and it's sleeting outside, winter giving us one final fuck you. The sound of it pinging against the windows drew me out of bed. Hazel and I took the third floor because I thought I'd need the distance, but now it's almost too much. He's still not home, and I have no clue what to make of that. This is the first time I've dared to venture in here, and I'm a little disappointed. When I stole his shampoo and bodywash, I ran straight for his bathroom, took them, and ran right out. But now that I'm snooping, I was hoping to see all kinds of weird shit that would turn me off or even help explain him to me, but no such luck. His room is obnoxiously clean and a little too minimalist. Whether this is intentional or simply that he couldn't be bothered to decorate, I have no idea. The rest of the house is warmer, more inviting. Like a woman has touched it and helped with the design and feel of it, and a pang of weird jealousy hits me. He's very much a loner, but I know enough about him to assume he's not celibate. It smells like him in here. All masculine and dark and spicy. He has no pictures on his dresser. A cream chair sits unused in the corner. His nightstand only has a clock and a charging pad, while the one on the other side is empty. Two pillows, charcoal sheets, and a matching blanket on a low-profile bed. For as much as I feel like I know him, I'm not sure I do at all. Dark and light. Shadows and sunshine. I think he likes that. I think that's how he lives best. Like this house. Beautiful and expensive without being overstated or flashy. Like how he is as a CEO. Out in the open and sitting in meetings, and yet he locks himself in his "closet" for days on end. You see what he allows you to see and nothing more. But I'm in his room now. His domain. And it doesn't give me any more answers than I had before. His closet is a monochromatic symphony of black with touches of gray and white. All of his clothes are practical yet expensive. My fingers run along a super soft tee he has neatly folded, and I strip off my old, ratty one and pull his over my head. The fabric drops to my mid-thighs, and I luxuriate in being wrapped in all things Vander and smile at my theft. Except when I turn, I find him standing there in his closet doorway, his hair and clothes wet from the sleet and his expression serious. Shit. Busted. And I didn't even get a chance to explore his bathroom or nightstand drawer. That's a shame. "Hi," I squeak. He stares at me, taking me in inch by inch, wearing only his T-shirt, and I wonder if he saw me strip out of mine and climb into his. "What are you doing in here?" "Um. Honestly? Snooping." "And stealing." He steps into the closet until his fingers graze my thigh, and he tugs on the bottom of his shirt I'm wearing. "It's softer than mine." And it smells like you. My problem? I don't want to want Vander. I don't. I think we've already established all the ways he's bad for me. But that doesn't mean I don't want him anyway. Those orgasms he gave me? Hell. And the way he looks at me sometimes-like right now-makes me feel like it's the same for him. And not because he got me off, and I got him off too. But because he wants me. "It looks better on you." He swallows and drags a hand through the blond hair that's wetly flopped to his forehead. "I didn't think you'd be home tonight." Because you never are. "I finished what I had to do." "What was her name?" I quip, my lips curling into a teasing smile. He steps forward, walking straight to me and forcing me back up against the far wall of his giant closet. "Whose name?" "The woman you're finished with." He captures my wrists in his hands and thrusts them over my head, dragging the hem of the shirt up and making my tits stand out toward him. His nose glides along mine. "That's sort of been my problem," he murmurs, his hot breath against my lips. "I thought I was finished with her years ago, but she seems to be everywhere now, back under my skin, and I don't know how to stop it." My breath hitches, my body flooding with heat. "You need something to help get her out of your system." "I tried that. I tasted her in a garage and made her come on my desk, thinking that would help." "And did it?" He shakes his head, some of the wetness from his hair dripping on my face and rolling down my cheek and neck, making me shiver. "Maybe you need to try something else?" "Maybe." He shifts my wrists to one hand and uses his other to run along my side from my upper thigh to the top of my ribcage and the side of my breast, his thumb grazing the swell. "What does that for you? What gets someone out of your system?" He nips at my jaw, and I shudder when I feel his thumb brushes my nipple. "I don't know. I've never experienced this before. She's the only one I've ever had this problem with." I swallow audibly and stare straight into his green eyes, about to ask a question that will change everything for me. For us. "Is that true?" He doesn't reply, just continues staring intently at me. "What is it you need?" "You." I shake my head, unable to trust my voice with how he says that and the way it makes me feel. Itchy and tingly and tight and out of control. "What else?" "Control. Pain. Pleasure." "What kind of pain?" "All different kinds, but nothing more than you could handle and wouldn't want." His hand glides over my breast, and he pinches my nipple until I whimper at the sting but also feel my empty core flood with heat and wetness. Oh, fuck. "What kind of pleasure?" He licks the seam of my lips as he continues to play roughly with my nipples. "Your pleasure. The kind you need. The kind that would have you begging me for more." I pant. "Vander." I shake my head again. "We said⁠-" "Then why are you in here wearing nothing but my shirt?" "I..." "Should I release you and let you go to bed? Once again pretend this never happened?" My eyes pinch shut, and I bite my lip. I need to say yes, but I can't make the word come out. I don't want to get my heart broken by this man again. That's what happens to girls like me. We spend a week or two in the billionaire's bed, and then when he grows bored, he casts us aside. Men like him never get serious with the former stripper. This isn't a movie, and there is no Hollywood ending. And he broke my heart once. He walked away from me. How could I trust that he wouldn't do it again? I'm living in his house, and he's paying my salary, and he bought me clothes, and I don't know what I'm doing. I'm scared. And I'm tired of being scared. He cups my jaw and nibbles on my lips. "You can say no. You can always say no." I release a heavy breath and open my eyes. "I don't want to. That's what scares me most." His nose glides along my jaw. "Did you miss me, my angel? Did you want to sleep in my shirt because it felt soft and smelled like me? Did you need that piece of me touching your body?" I'm shaking, my knees barely able to hold me up. His mouth trails hot, wet kisses up and down my neck as he speaks against my feverish skin. "Were you thinking about when I licked your pretty cunt? When I dry fucked you on my desk? About how hard I made you come? That was only the tip of the iceberg, you know. Only the very surface of what I can do to your body." Jesus Harold Christmas. I can't... I shouldn't... I have reasons! "Has anyone ever worshipped you? Ever owned your pleasure as theirs?" I'm losing my mind as he continues to lick and suck on my neck while his other hand works my tits in a way I can't even begin to formulate words for. "Only you," escapes before I can stop it, but it's true. As sad as it sounds, Vander is the only man I've ever had an orgasm with during sex. The only man who was ever attentive and nurturing and attuned to getting me off. And he wasn't even a man then. He was a boy. He groans, and his hand that had been working my tits slides down the front of the shirt and up beneath it until he cups my bare pussy. "So wet for me." I can't even deny it. I'm like a faucet only he knows how to turn on. "Such a good little angel." Two fingers slip into me, and I scratch at his hand holding my wrists. "Ah. Vander." "What?" he whispers against my neck as his fingers pump in and out. "Tell me." "This isn't smart." He pulls back and meets my eyes. "Maybe not. But I'm tired of fighting it." His mouth crashes to mine, kissing me for the first time since all this madness between us started, and any further argument I had dies. He opens my lips with his, and the moment our tongues touch, a groan tears from his lips and a shudder racks through his body. It sets him off. In a flash, my shirt is ripped over my head, and he lifts me into his arms, then pins me against the wall as his mouth devours mine. Our tongues thrash, and my legs wrap tightly around his waist. One hand is on my ass and the other is gripping my hair, tilting my head and diving in as deep as he can go. I cling to the back of his neck and head and hold him against me, kissing him back just as voraciously. He shifts me in his arms and pushes those two fingers back into me from behind, immediately fucking against my front wall. It's insanely good, and I grind against him while I pull on his shirt, frustrated and annoyed that he's still dressed. He smirks against my lips and spins us around. Walking us out of his closet, he grabs something I can't see, something cool and silky on the back of my thigh. He carries me into his bedroom, his mouth never breaking contact. Not even as I try to rip at his wet clothes, desperate to get them off, wild to relearn the landscape of him. My back meets the headboard as he sets me down, only to slide me lower so he can pin me down with his weight. On my next breath, he's got my wrists again, and he runs the silk of the tie he grabbed from his closet across my skin. "Um." Sᴇaʀᴄh thᴇ FɪndNøvel.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality. "Do you trust me, Angel?" I almost laugh at that. And his smirk tells me he knows exactly how I'm about to answer. "Nope." I do, though. That's the wild thing. I trust him even when part of me feels as though I still shouldn't. I wouldn't allow my child near him if I didn't. I wouldn't be here with him like this if I didn't. He's not the same as he was. He's harder. More reserved. Less trusting in his own right. But his eyes are the same, and so is the way he looks at me. He chuckles. "Good. I don't trust you either. But tonight we will."