I can’t wait to get into the shower and hit the bed. That is my last thought before I turn around unsuspectingly, my hand already at my back, gripping the zipper pull, when I lift my gaze and instantly turn to stone.
For a few seconds, I forget to breathe and think, let alone talk. I don’t know what hits me first. The sunrise lining the glass wall, breathing out mesmerizing beauty? The ocean calm and limitless like time itself?
Or the stormy eyes of the man sitting in the armchair right across the bed, pinning me with his steely gaze.
My hand falls from my zipper as I slowly straighten my spine.
His stare slams into me with the force of a hurricane. Everything I know about him goes straight out the window.
I feel like the ocean is about to open and swallow me whole.
His eyes are no longer clear. They look like a wall of dark water ready to sweep away everything in its way.
My lips are parched, my throat dry. I can’t say a damn thing. Although he has no business being in my room. Wearing his perfectly pressed clothes, a drink dangling from his hand.
Looking at me like that.
Or maybe it’s me misreading everything.
Perhaps what happened before. Or maybe what’s happening now.
I wish he could say a word. Maybe his voice will tell me something else. And shatter the gloomy feeling around my body.
“Raven…” he rasps, a cold smirk icing his lips.
I was wrong, so wrong… His voice is no better than his eyes.
Ice floating on an arctic ocean.
He empties his glass and tosses it on the table next to the reading lamp before pushing to his feet.
A few strides bring him closer while I instinctively retreat, moving to the door.
His clothes rustle while he closes the gap between us in a few steps.
I barely crack the door open when he slams his fist into the wood and locks the door.
“You’re not going anywhere until you talk to me.”
He spins in front of me, his broad back lining the door, while I freeze in front of him.
His eyes get me naked in a second, although they never, ever, not even once, dip below my chin.
“Talk to me,” he says, his voice hoarse, nasal, scratchy.
His eyes tell me he hasn’t slept all night. In that regard, we are no different.
His eyes also tell me that… I don’t know how to say this.
I’m a little… fucked. No pun intended. Or maybe it was intended.
I suck in a long breath as if I’m about to speak. And then nothing. Radio silence.
That’s pretty much all I’ve got.