Chapter 3: The Second Night

Chapter 3: The Second Night

Liora couldn't sleep.

Not a single wink. Not even close.

She laid on her side with Damien's arm still wrapped around her waist, she had watched the city light move across the ceiling in slow, shapeless patterns while Damien slept with his body practically molding into her form, like he'd been doing it for years. His breathing was deep and even. His body, foreign, heavy and warm, and when she'd tried to shift away from it he'd made a sound low in his throat and pulled her back without waking up.

So she'd stopped trying.

At 6:57 the clock on the nightstand glowed red in the dark. Three more minutes.

Her neck was stiff. Her back ached from holding herself rigid all night. She'd spent eight hours listening to a billionaire breathe and cataloguing every place his body was too close to hers, and the worst part the part she wasn't going to think about was that somewhere during the night, she'd started to find the rhythm of it almost calm.

Almost.

At 7:01AM, he stirred.

A slow exhale first, then a deeper breath, it was obvious that he was awake at this point, his breathing had shifted. His face was still tucked against the curve of her neck. She felt him inhale, deliberate, like he was taking one last breath.

Then he lifted his head. and suddenly they were too close.

His eyes were gray. She hadn't registered that last night in the dark. almost transluscent, the color of a receding storm, and for the first time since she'd met him, something close to clear and tranquil appeared in his eyes, compared to the frantic, hollowed-out look from the night before, like a tide going out slowly.

"You stayed," he said. His voice was rough from sleep.

"I signed a contract."

He pushed up on one elbow and leaned down to look at her and now they were even closer, he was looking at her face , studying, cataloging . "You didn't sleep."

"No."

A small frown. "That won't work. You need to be rested for this arrangement to work"

Liora stared at him slightly stunned. "You blackmailed me into your bed and you're worried about my sleep schedule."

He didn't react to the edge in her voice. He reached over and moved a strand of hair off her cheek a gesture so unhurried and certain that she didn't have time to pull back before it was done.

"Go home," he said. "Sleep. Eat something. Be back at 10:45."

She sat up and swung her legs off the bed, putting the mattress between them. "I need to see Elias first."

"I messaged him last night  after we signed the contract. He knows the arrangement is holding." Damien stood, walked to the wardrobe, pulled out a robe and shrugged into it. "His job is secure. For now."

"You keep saying that. 'For now'."

He glanced back at her, fastening one button. "Six months, as agreed. Every night you show up, it stays that way."

She picked up her bag. "I'll be here at 10:45."

"Liora."

She stopped at the door, looking at him from her position at the doorway;

"Don't change your lotion. Don't try anything new. what ever it is that you've been using, nothing." He said it the same way he'd dictated the contract terms precise, no room for interpretation. "I need your scent. Exactly as it is."

The words settled over her with a particular kind of weight. "Your scent. Exactly as it is." Like she was a formula he needed to keep stable.

She left without answering.

Elias was pacing when she got home, he looked worn out  wearing a path between the kitchen and the couch. He stopped the moment she walked in and crossed the room in three steps.

"Are you okay. did he......" he started with.

"I'm fine." She let him hug her. "He barely touched me. He just slept. and basically treated me like a pillow ." she gave him a reassuring smile.

"Liora"

"Six months." She pulled back and looked at him. "He pays well, which will help alot" She said it firmly, for both of them.

Elias looked like he had more to say. but He pressed his mouth shut instead.

'' If you say so'' he said with a tight smile.

''Dont worry big brother, everything is under control, and in six months this whole thing will be a thing of the past'' she said as she rubbed his back. ''for now, i'm going to hit the sack, it has been a long day, or night''

He finally smiled, ''ok, i understand and i'll see you later''

She showered with her usual unscented soap, applied the same lavender-strawberry lotion she'd used for years without thinking much about it, and lay down in her own bed. She slept until four. Worked a shift at the bookstore from five to nine the same quiet kind of evening that she was used to, two customers, the smell of old paperbacks, a kind of ordinary she felt grateful for in a way she hadn't before.

By 10:30 a familiar car showed up in front of the bookstore, Marcus was waiting outside, she had met  him the night she forgot that wretched blanket .

She'd changed into cotton shorts and a loose tank top using a long coat to cover up, before leaving the bookstore. Comfortable. Practical. She'd told herself it didn't matter what she wore since he'd be asleep in ten minutes anyway.

He was already in the living area when the elevator opened. Black silk pajama bottoms, no shirt, the low lighting catching the lines of him in a way she made a point of not following too carefully. He looked better. Rested. The dangerous kind of better, where someone has enough energy to be exactly what they are.

"You're early," he said.

"I didn't want to find out what late looks like."

Something moved in his expression not quite satisfaction, but close to it. He moved closer to her. not too close but close enough for her to notice the moment he inhaled, quiet and deliberate, checking.

"Good," he said. And then, softer: "Good girl."

The words landed somewhere she didn't want them to. She turned toward the hallway before her face could do anything about it.

The bedroom was the same. Dark, quiet, city lights through the glass.

She took her side of the bed. He took his. But this time when he settled in he didn't wait his arm came around her waist and he drew her back against his chest in one smooth pull, like they'd already established this was how it went.

"The contract says......." she started.

"Necessary contact." His voice was already blurring at the edges with sleep. "And the scent is stronger here. I need...." He exhaled, face pressing into the nape of her neck. "Here. Just like this."

Liora went still.

She could feel everything. The solid weight of his chest against her back. The steady beat of his heart. The slow, even pull of his breathing against her hair. And then, barely there, almost something she could convince herself she'd imagined the shift of his hips, closing the last small distance between them.

Not aggressive. Almost unconscious.

But there.

Her own breath caught.

Damien made a low, settling sound and went quiet. A minute later he was asleep she could tell by the way his arm grew heavier, the tension leaving his hand.

Liora lay in the dark and stared at the city and tried to think about something practical. The money. The six months. The thirty-day exit clause.

The heat that had started low in her stomach was harder to think around.

'Six months,' the contract had said.

She was starting to understand this was going to take while.

And it was just night two.

Four more to go before she even finished the first week.