Collateral (Collateral Damage 1)

“If you’re going to punish me, I’d rather just get it over with.” I feel a little sick.

Stefan’s eyes narrow infinitesimally while he studies me and it’s hard for me to hold his gaze.

“What do you think I’m going to do to you, Gabriela?”

I hug my arms to myself, look down.

“Christ.” A long, silent moment passes. “I’m not going to punish you.”

I look up at him, surprised, expecting something else.

He steps toward me, close enough I can feel the heat of his body.

“This is your one reprieve with me, Gabriela. I won’t allow another. You belong to me. Understand that and understand it fast. I already told you, I don’t want to bury you along with your father. Believe it or not, I don’t want to hurt you. But don’t push me. If you stand in my way, or you pull any stunt like this again, you will get hurt. Am I clear?”

I nod. He’s crystal clear. Always was.

“Good. Get cleaned up and go to bed,” he says, and turns to walk into the bathroom, taking off his jacket on his way and tossing it over the back of a chair.

“What are you doing?”

He pulls his shirt out of his pants, undoes the buttons and cuffs and strips it off.

My gaze shifts to his chest and I have to drag it back up to his face.

He’s got that one-corner grin thing going on.

“What are you doing?” I ask again, having to clear my throat before I can speak. My voice sounds strange even as I shift my weight to one leg and set my hands on my hips to appear annoyed.

“Having a shower,” he says.

“Go have one in your own room.”

He undoes his belt, then the button of his pants. “This is my room now. I can’t have you wandering around in a construction zone. It’s unsafe.”

“You said…you can’t.”

He walks toward me, tips my chin up. “That’s where you’re wrong, Princess. I can do whatever I want.” He cups the back of my head and pulls me to him, then kisses my forehead, holding his lips there for a long moment. It’s like a marking, a branding. Like I’m his.

When he releases me, I stumble backward. He disappears into the bathroom. He doesn’t bother closing the door and a moment later, the shower goes on. “Join me if you want,” he calls out.

“In your dreams,” I say but not loud enough for him to hear. I go into the other bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth.

I realize I don’t have pajamas with me. With the alternative being sleeping in my underwear, I slip into the bed in my dress and turn out the lights. It’s a big bed. He’ll sleep on the other side.

The shower switches off and a few minutes later, I hear Stefan walk into the bedroom, feel the comforter lift and the bed depress as he climbs in.

And he doesn’t sleep on his side. He takes up the middle.

In fact, not a moment later, his heavy arm drapes over me and he pulls me backward toward him.

I gasp, try to get free, but he’s too strong and when my back is plastered to his front, I can feel that he’s naked and I freeze.

“Why are you still dressed?”

“I didn’t pack pajamas.”

“Neither did I. Take off the dress.”

“I’m fine.”

“I’ve seen naked women before, you know.”

“I know.”

He tugs me closer, curling his body around mine. “Suit yourself.”

I squirm but he holds tight. “Can you put something on?”

“No.”

“But—”

“Grow up.”

I shut up. It’s quiet and all I can think about is his big hand on me, his big, naked body behind mine. I can’t sleep. I won’t be able to. No way. But he seems to have no trouble at all.

“Thank you for not hurting him,” I say quietly after a few minutes.

“It’s okay,” he answers, surprising me. I thought he’d fallen asleep.

“I’ve never slept with a man in my bed,” I tell him for reasons I can’t understand.

“Well, it’s not a big deal. Just go to sleep.”

“I don’t think I can.”

“I’m not leaving.”

“Stefan…I’m not ready—”

Before I can finish, he rolls me onto my back with a hand across my belly and lifts himself up a little to look down at me. He doesn’t switch on the lamp so I can only make out his dark features in the light that comes through the split in the curtains.

“Nothing is going to happen, Gabriela. We’re just sleeping.”

I bite my lip and I don’t know what I’m feeling. Embarrassed. Inexperienced. Out of my league.

The image of Clara naked and gliding across the pool the other night, her clever words and sophisticated confidence earlier this evening flash across my memory.

“I’m not going to touch you. Not like that,” he adds.

“Okay,” I say quickly, hoping he can’t see me clearly either because I can feel my eyes filling up with tears. I don’t know what it is that does it. If it’s his words or the way he says them because there’s a tenderness in them. A gentleness.