Annakel
She wakes up warm.
That’s the first wrong thing.
The second wrong thing is the arm around her waist.
Heavy. Secure. Possessive in a way her body recognizes before her mind catches up. Alexander’s forearm is draped over her like a boundary line, and her back is pressed to his chest. She can feel the slow rise and fall of his breathing against her spine.
Annakel goes still.
A thread of panic tries to spark, but it doesn’t catch. Not fully. His scent is everywhere in the sheets, in her hair, in the cotton of the shirt she’s wearing. It’s like her nervous system has been drugged into calm.
She hates that.
She also feels… steady.
Her mind flickers back to last night: her knocking on his door, the humiliation, the relief when his bed made her body stop screaming.
Annakel swallo
