Chapter 5-Radiance to Reality

5

Isabella

A sinful bliss was the aftermath of the nasty love that was made to me.

I lay there in the wrecked sheets, body humming, legs trembling so badly I wasn’t sure they’d ever hold me again.

Every muscle ached in the sweetest, most obscene way—sore thighs, bruised hips, a delicious burn between my legs that pulsed with every heartbeat. 

I couldn’t stop the tiny aftershocks that rippled through me, little echoes of the pleasure that had torn me open and put me back together again, over and over.

This had been the best night of my life. No contest. Not even close.

Darek had never come close to this. He’d been careful, predictable, always pulling back before things got too messy, too real. 

This man—stranger, client, whatever he was—had been gentle when my breath hitched, rough when I begged for it, tender in the spaces between until I didn’t know which version of him I craved more. 

He’d unraveled me piece by piece and then fucked the pieces back together until I forgot my own name.

The mattress shifted. His warmth lifted away, and cool air kissed the sweat-slick skin of my back. I felt the absence like a physical thing.

“You okay?” His voice was gravelly, softened by exhaustion.

I nodded against the pillow, too wrecked to form words.

A low chuckle rolled out of him. “Can’t see you in the dark, remember? Use your words, mon chérie.”

The endearment landed stupidly sweet. I hated how easily my body responded, how it still wanted to please him even after everything.

“Yes,” I rasped, throat raw from crying out. “I’m… okay.”

“You’ve been such a good girl for me.” He whispered. His fingers brushed the damp hair off my nape. 

The praise hit like a drug. Heat bloomed across my chest, my cheeks, behind my eyes. I resented it instantly—resented how much I liked it, how my stupid heart clenched like it had been waiting years for someone to say exactly that. I pressed my face harder into the pillow, trying to smother the feeling.

Then the bed dipped again as he moved. I heard his bare feet on the carpet, the soft click of the wall switch.

Light exploded.

I yelped, yanking the blanket up over my face, curling into myself like I could disappear inside cotton. 

My pulse spiked all over again, shame crashing in behind the pleasure. Without the darkness to hide in, I was suddenly just… me. Used. Exposed.

“Hey.” His voice came closer, gentler than I expected. The mattress dipped beside me. “You don’t have to hide from me.”

I shook my head under the blanket, throat closing.

Fingers curled around the edge of the fabric, not pulling, just resting there. “Look at me.”

I didn’t want to. I really didn’t. But his voice had that same velvet hook it’d had all night, and my body obeyed before my brain could argue. Slowly, I dragged the blanket down, inch by inch, until my eyes were uncovered.

He was kneeling beside me, shirtless, hair wrecked, chest still rising and falling too fast. And those eyes—God, those eyes. Piercing blue, the kind of blue that felt like looking straight into the winter ocean. 

I gawked at him wondering how things would have been if we did all that with the lights on.

Then his expression changed.

It happened so fast I almost missed it, but I didn’t. I saw the exact second something in him fractured. His mouth parted, eyes widening, pupils blowing out like he’d been punched.

“This is a mistake,” he said.

The words landed like glass shattering inside my ribs. My heart cracked clean in half. I couldn’t breathe around it.

He scrambled off the bed, movements jerky, nothing like the controlled grace he’d had all night. He snatched his shirt from the floor, yanked his jeans up without bothering with underwear, belt buckle clattering. Every motion screamed retreat.

I knew that look. I’d seen it before on Derek. Rejection.

The kind that said you weren’t worth it. That whatever had just happened was something he needed to erase.

I pulled the blanket back up, covering my face completely this time, pressing it hard against my eyes so the tears wouldn’t fall where he could see. My chest burned. My throat burned. Everything burned.

He didn’t say anything else. No apology. No explanation. Just the rustle of fabric, the jangle of keys, the soft thud of boots.

Then the door opened.

Then it clicked shut, and the silence that followed was louder than anything we’d done all night. I stayed curled under the blanket for what felt like hours, face pressed into the damp cotton, trying to breathe through the sharp, stupid pain in my chest. He hadn’t said goodbye. Hadn’t even looked back. 

Eventually I forced myself out of the blanket. The room was too bright now, everything exposed—the tangled sheets, the torn lace scattered on the floor, the faint red marks his mouth had left on my skin. My gaze drifted to the nightstand.

A thick stack of cash sat there, crisp bills held together with a single rubber band. Hopefully, it was enough to buy my dignity.

My legs still shook when I pushed myself upright. Every step reminded me of him—how he’d held me open, how deep he’d gone, how he’d whispered praise against my throat until I believed it. The ache between my thighs throbbed in protest as I staggered to the bathroom.

I turned the shower on scalding. Steam filled the small space while I stood under the spray and scrubbed. 

Soap suds slid over the bruises on my hips, the faint bite marks on my breasts, the fingerprints still visible on my inner thighs. I scrubbed until my skin turned pink, trying to erase the memory of his hands, his tongue, and right before he looked at me like I was poison.

It didn’t work.

When the water ran cold, I shut it off, wrapped myself in a thin towel, and went back to wearing the clothes I stepped in.

The stack of cash felt like an insult as my fingers closed around it but we needed it so I had to take it 

When I got to Derek's room he stepped out and smiled as he saw the cash I brought. 

“Well done,” he said, the closest thing to approval I’d heard from him in months. “We should have done this months ago.” He said as he took the money not once looking at my face.

Not that I wanted him to see how miserable I looked.

The dreadful night was over, it was done, my life should be brighter now since I did what he said.

But it did feel that way even after a week passed. I moved through the days like a ghost in my own life. Cooking. Cleaning. Waiting for Derek to need something. But none of it felt real. 

My body remembered him, a man I didn't even know his name. But he would forever be tattooed on me.

Hopefully with time I could learn to live with it.

Derek stayed the same. Cold. Distant. Occasionally funny in that sharp, cutting way of his. Strangely, I didn’t care anymore. The absence of warmth from him no longer stung. 

Something else had taken its place, a quiet, persistent ache that followed me everywhere.

That morning I was in the kitchen, chopping onions for stew, when Derek’s voice cut through the house.

“Isabella.”

I froze, knife hovering. He never called me from downstairs. He stayed in his room, always. I wiped my hands on a towel and walked out.

He was in the living room, wheelchair angled toward the couch. But that wasn’t what stopped my heart.

Standing next to him, one hand resting casually on the back of the sofa, was HIM.

Same piercing blue eyes that had stared at me in horror a week ago.

The world came to a halt, the air forced out my lungs.

Damien glanced between us, oblivious, a faint smirk tugging at his mouth like he was proud of his surprise.

“Meet my stepbrother,” he said. “Rohan. He’ll be staying with us for a while.”