The Dangerous Man Beneath My Bed

chapter 2

DOMINIC

The air in her apartment was thinner than anywhere else in the city. It was purer. It was an agonizing discipline not to unfiltered the Montecristo cigar I’d been craving for the last two hours, but I wouldn't taint her air. Not yet.

I was a smudge of charcoal in the pristine white landscape of Naomi Vance’s living room. I sat on her minimalist sofa, my Italian suit straining across my shoulders, a Glock 19 resting heavily against my ribs in its holster. My presence here was a violation of every rule in the Cosa Nostra handbook, a dereliction of duty that would get me a bullet in the back of the head if Don Moretti knew.

I didn't care.

I was supposed to be surveillance. She was collateral, a loose thread leading to her rat father who’d skimmed half a million off the family’s construction unions before vanishing. Naomi was the bait. I was just supposed to watch the trap.

But five weeks ago, I’d watched her play. I’d sat in the back row of the symphony hall, surrounded by soft marks in cummerbunds, and watched her dominate an instrument bigger than she was. She was rigid, controlled, ice-cold perfection on a stage under blistering lights. But I saw the fire underneath. I saw the way her jaw tightened when she hit a difficult passage, the way her deep, beautiful bronze skin gleamed with a sheen of sweat she refused to acknowledge.

I was hooked. The surveillance turned into stalking. The stalking turned into an obsession that clawed at the inside of my chest like a feral animal.

I got up from the couch, moving soundlessly across the hardwood. I was a ghost in this city, a cleaner of messes. Invisibility was my trade.

I entered her bedroom. This was the center of the maze.

It smelled like her. Not the expensive, generic perfume she wore for the public, but the real her. Underneath the vanilla, there was the sharp, metallic tang of rosin dust from her cello and the musky, warm scent of her skin when she first woke up. It was intoxicating.

I walked to her nightstand. Every night, I came here before she returned from a performance. It was a sickness. I needed to be close to the things she touched when her guard was down.

I ran a calloused fingertip over the spine of the thick book lying there. A biography of some Russian composer. She was so goddamn disciplined, even in her leisure. The book was perfectly parallel to the edge of the wood.

A dark urge curled in my gut, a need to disrupt her precious order. I nudged the book with my knuckle, knocking it just slightly askew. A petty act of vandalism. A phantom fingerprint left on her perfect life. I wanted her to feel crazy. I wanted her to feel the itch on the back of her neck that said she wasn't alone. I wanted to break the glass casing she kept herself in so I could get to the warm flesh underneath.

I sat on the edge of her king-sized bed. The mattress dipped slightly under my weight. I imagined her lying here, her rich, copper skin against the white sheets. The thought made the blood rush south, thickening my c**k against the zipper of my trousers.

It was getting harder to just watch. The beast inside me was starving, tired of scraps of sight and scent. I wanted to taste. I wanted to wrap my hand around her elegant throat and feel the pulse jump under my palm. I wanted to see the ice queen shatter and watch the real Naomi, the one buried under years of discipline and fear, claw her way out.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. A text from my capo.

Status on the father?

I ignored it. The father was a ghost. The daughter was real.

Then, I heard it. The distinct ding of the elevator down the hall.

My entire body went still. The predator’s instinct took over, overriding the lust. My heart rate didn’t climb—it never did—but my focus narrowed to a pinpoint.

I heard her heels on the corridor carpet. Light steps, tired steps.

She paused outside the door. I knew exactly what she was doing. Key in the deadbolt. Click. Turn. Then the second key for the chain lock. She was so careful. So diligent about her little security theater. It was adorable, really. She locked the world out, never realizing she was locking the monster in.

The door opened.

I didn't move from the bed yet. I inhaled, tasting the air. The scent of rain and exhaustion drifted in before she did.

"Safe," I heard her whisper.

The word nearly made me laugh out loud. It was a guttural sound, dying in my throat.

She wasn't safe. She had never been safe since the moment I laid eyes on her. She was mine; she just didn't know it yet. She was property I had already claimed in the dark corners of my mind.

I heard the heavy thud of her cello case being set down. She was moving toward the bedroom.

Time to disappear.

I slid off the bed, dropping to my knees on the hardwood. I didn't scramble; I flowed. I lifted the heavy dust ruffle and slid silently into the narrow space beneath her bed.

It was tight. Dust bunnies clung to the expensive wool of my suit. The wooden slats pressed against my back. It was humiliating for a man of my standing to be hiding under a bed like a terrified child, but the humiliation only fed the dark, twisting hunger in my gut.

I lay flat, my cheek pressed against the floorboards. My view was restricted to a three-inch gap between the ruffle and the floor.

The bedroom door opened.

I saw her feet first. Damp designer heels. She kicked them off, and they landed near my face. Then I saw her ankles, elegant and slim, the skin the color of aged bourbon in the dim light.

She was humming something low and mournful as I heard the zip of a dress being lowered. Silk pooled on the floor.

My breath shallowed. I was inches away from her nakedness. I could smell the fresh sweat on her skin from the performance. The proximity was agonizing. It was the most potent drug I had ever taken.

I lay in the dark, beneath her sanctuary, waiting. Waiting for her to climb into the bed above me. Waiting for the moment I would finally snap the lock on the cage and let myself out.