CHAPTER 4

The sound was soft.

A rub against the door frame, not quite enough to rouse most from their sleep but I was different.I was a light sleeper and I had not slept soundly since my arrival here. Only waiting. Like an animal that sleeps with an open eye.

But tonight, exhaustion had finally overtaken me. I’d curled into the sheets in the oversized bed, the candle burned low on the dresser, my body heavy with the weight of too many questions. Somewhere between midnight and now, sleep had taken me down.

I stirred when the door opened. No knock. Just the soft hush of it swinging inward. My lids blinked open in darkness, instinct rising in icy flood.

Immediately he entered, his scent filled up the room. I was so sure it was Solan and my tension eased, just a little. 

He crept like a shadow—determined, silent, unwelcome and inexorable. He didn't hesitate. He didn't ask. He entered my room as if he owned it. As if he owned me.

He was dressed in black. A long-sleeved shirt, black trousers, covered unlike me. His hair was disheveled, his eyes unreadable in the golden light streaming back through the hallway behind him.

I sat up, the sheet slithering down my shoulder. "Sloan?"

"You're sleeping," he grunted, his voice a raw rasp of sound.

"Yes," I said warily.

"spleep time is over. Get up" He closed the door quietly behind him, the sound much too final by far. And then he approached the bed, each step slow and deliberate, as though he was stalking something already caught. I was confused as to what was happened so I just stayed still in one spot. 

My heart was racing. "What are you doing?"

"Walk with me. I'm here to remind you," he told me, standing at the foot of my bed. "That in The Order, obedience is not selective. It does not clock out at night. It isn't deferred by night dreams."

I swallowed. "So you wake me to make a point?"

"Yes," he told me quietly. "And you will do as I tell you because I'm in charge here. And when I tell you to come, where and when it is, you will come. That's what you signed up for." 

The air pulsed around us with the authority of his words. And I, God preserve my soul, I didn't protest. He stared at me. "You can still refuse,but remember, every offense has a penalty."

I talked softly. "I won't intervene."

His eyes grew darker. "Good."

Sloan moved back from the bed and drew the sheet lower, exposing my legs. I had gone to bed in nothing but a satin slip. It provided no shield from the warmth emanating from beneath the skin. He leaned forward and pushed a lock of hair back behind my ear. His fingers stroked my cheek.

"You're beautiful when you sleep," he whispered. "But you're more beautiful when you obey."

I shivered, gasping for breath as darkness fell around me with suspense.

"Get up."

I stepped out on shaky legs, the ground chilled beneath my feet as I faced him. The cold air stung up my naked skin, a harsh contrast to the writhing flames burning under it. Sloan didn't step forward at once. He just looked at me with that unreadable face, as though he was measuring every inch, every breath, every consideration I might be thinking.

Then, tentatively, his fingers touched my arm. Light. Inquiring. As if he had just the right touch to fan flames.

He leaned in, lips on my temple.

"Take off the slip."

My fingers moved, pulling them and lifting it over my head. The dress fell to the floor between us, a soft relinquishing. Nipples tightening in the chill of the air. Sloan's eyes dropped, paused, but he made no move towards me.

Rather, he stepped towards the doorway.

"Follow me."

I was shivering naked, and I still went with him. We walked down the hallway a second time, but it was different then. Darker shadows. Tense air. The house groaned as we moved by it, sensing something very familiar to it: initiation. 

The walls watched in silence, it seemed like it  held its breath. Far away in the distance, there was a ticking clock, a reminder that time still had the courage to move, even now.

This time, he brought me to another room. Not the opulent drawing room, not the library of secrets. This one was private. Low ceilinged. Black velvet drapes. A golden light cast by one lamp over the room. Segmented mirrored walls reflecting flecks of light. My body, bare and exposed with his, towering over me.

A bed sat in the middle. Big and soft-looking, covered in deep gray sheets that reflected the faint light.

Sloan closed the door.

His voice was a wisp of smoke. "This is where I choose."

I slowly turned.

He approached me with the confidence of a man who'd never heard no.

"Where I go, you go. When I wake you up, you wake up. When I tell you I want you on your knees, you kneel. When I tell you I want you here, like this…"

His fingers drew a path down my side.

"You present yourself."

I clamped my lip between my teeth. "Even like this?"

He leaned forward, lips against my ear again.

"Especially like this."

And then he kissed me. Not sweet. Not slow.

It was a conflict of need and power, his lips claiming mine with force. His arms around my waist, then higher, lifting me. My legs went around him of their own accord, letting him carry me to the bed.

He paused, and then he set me down.

Then he stood, ripping his shirt over his head with one smooth movement. The shadows defined his chest—every curve, every muscle outlined by need and control. His bants followed. He did not pause for me to look. He did not ask for my approval, he simply returned to me, creeping up on me like the slow onset of a storm.

His lips tracked along the curve of my collarbone, my shoulder, to my breast. He didn't rush. His tongue danced, his teeth scraped, his hands cradled until I gasped a breath beneath him.

"You respond well," he said, watching me.

I squirmed. "I can't help it."

"That's the idea," he breathed. "I want your body to know who it belongs to."

He kissed down my stomach, nipping gently at the round of my hip. My back arched, fingers gripping the sheets, needing something to anchor myself.

And then his mouth was on me. Hot. Wet. Devouring.

I cried out, my legs trembling, the pleasure unbelievable in its force. He didn't stop. He lapped at me like he had all night, like time meant nothing, like the only check was the reverberation of my moans off the mirrored walls.

When I was close, too close, he withdrew.

"No," I begged, panting. "Please…"

"Not yet," he breathed, crawling back up to me. "You don't come until I say so."

I might have screamed. I tried to be quiet. 

But suddenly, he forced himself into me, and everything else unraveled.

He was hard. Deep. Rough from the begining, fast strokes that made me writhe, and made my fingers claw at his spine. But as I struggled after him, begging with my body, he released himself entirely.

"Say it," he snarled against my throat.

"Say what?"

"Say who's got this."

"You," I panted. "You do."

He slammed into me once more, coiling a scream from my body.

"Louder."

"Yes, you do!"

His fist was in my hair, my head pressed back as he drove into me. My climax built, all my nerves tightened to the snapping point, each breath a prayer for release.

When it hit, I shattered around him with shaking legs, white-hot eyes. And still, he did not stop. He fucked me through it, riding each spasm, each shudder, until his own grunt tore from his throat and he came, deep and hard.

Neither of us moved for a very long time.

He lay above me, our sweat-glossed bodies merged together, his heart pounding a beat I could feel in my bones.

Then finally, he leaned down.His lips brushed the shell of my ear. This is how it works," he whispered. "I call. You answer. Even while sleeping. Do you get that?"

My throat was sore. "Yes."

"And next time, you will remember."

I nodded weakly. "I will."

He kissed my forehead. Once. Gentle.

Then he stood up, grabbed his clothes, and left.

The door clicked softly shut after him.

And I stayed there, body expended, pulse still echoing in my ears, skin seared and stinging, knowing that none of this was complete.

The Order was remodeling me.

But Sloan? Sloan was claiming me.