House of Glass. Jen Christie

in, worse even, had taken over, and my body was in full agreement.

      I ran my lips along his jaw and his stubble tugged at my skin. His body was rigid, muscles tense with restraint, and when I pressed against him I felt him hard as a rock.

      The distant warning in my mind that I had been ignoring got louder then. I could no longer blot it out. I needed to stop. Too much depended on my job. Here I was, kissing the man I had been forbidden to touch. Lingering in a forbidden place. I had been this close to putting on the dress. What was I doing?

      I put my hands on his chest and pushed—pushed him away with all my strength. He did not move. I ducked and moved out from beneath him.

      “I’m sorry…” I stammered. “I shouldn’t be here.”

      “No, you shouldn’t be here.” A slow smile spread across his face. “What happened? Did you get scared?” He took one step in my direction. “I could scare you in a different kind of way.”

      He was unhinged, not caring about anything, and the sharp lines of his face were marred by the jaded words that came next. “Is that what you want?”

      “No,” I said sharply. All the certainty that I felt from a few minutes before had evaporated. “No, that’s not what I want.” I only wanted to run.

      “You think I care what you want?”

      A realization dawned on me, fought up from the maelstrom of emotions and sensations that I was drowning in. He was full of hurt and anger, and something else, a recklessness. “I think you do care,” I whispered. I could think of nothing to do but escape. I backed away. “I think you care very much,” I repeated.

      “Do you?” He stepped back and leaned against the wall that I had just abandoned and crossed his arms over his chest. He chuckled, and it was a horrid sound. “Then you fool yourself.”

      I turned and bolted from the bedroom, across the glass floor, and the last thing I saw as I left the house was the gold statue of her, Celeste, the lost wife. He arm was reaching out to me and it seemed almost accusing. I slammed the door and ran up the stone stairs.

      * * *

      That very night I found out exactly why my door was locked behind me. After I had gone to bed, a group of men arrived, and I know for certain that they didn’t arrive by the gate, because I heard them climbing the stone stairs, drunk and rowdy, and I peeked from my window to see them racing across the lawn, carrying torches that flared in the wind.

      They banged upon the terrace doors and someone must have let them in, because then I could hear them inside the house. Their greetings echoed down the long halls until they reached my ears as a muted, threatening sound. It quieted after that, for a while at least, and I had almost drifted back to sleep when a roar of laughter came from somewhere deep in the belly of the house. Not a moment later, there was a knock on my door.