Sylas’s room remains unlocked. The soft rumble of his sleeping breath travels through the darkness. With the curtains drawn over his window and only faint light seeping from the hall behind me into the room, I can only make out the vaguest shape of his bed and his large form beneath the covers. The distinctive scent that reaches my nose, like rich earth and woodsmoke, tells me I’m in the right place. My pulse starts to race. Where do I go from here? Can I really just walk right up to him and…? It seems I can. My feet carry me to the massive bed—it’s got to be at least half again the size mine is, and mine’s already the biggest bed I’ve ever slept in. This one is high, too. I rest my hands on the edge of the mattress, my eyes adapting as much as they can to the darkness, watching Sylas’s sleeping body sprawled down the middle of that expanse. Maybe I could just curl up next to him and see what he’d like to do with me when he wakes up? My coming here should be a pretty clear proposition. I have the feeling I’ll make a fool of myself if I try to express my intentions in words. I turn to heft myself onto the bed ass-first, roll to lie on my back— A muscular arm shoves me down into the mattress with much more force than I was prepared for. A squeak slips from my throat. Sylas stares down at me, braced over my body with his arm clamped across my chest, so close the fall of his wavy hair grazes my cheek. My lungs have only just started to clench in panic at being pinned when his expression shifts from defensive to confused. As his brow furrows, he sets his hand beside me and pushes himself higher, still peering at me. I can’t shake the sense that his ghostly scarred eye sees just as much as the dark whole one. “Talia?” he says, his baritone thickened by the sleep I’ve woken him from but his gaze now fully alert. “What are you doing?” His entire body is still hovering over me, its heat teasing through my nightgown and over my skin. His knees feel almost scorching where they’ve settled on either side of my thighs. I can see enough in the darkness to tell he isn’t wearing anything from the waist up. His shoulders and chest are all sculpted muscle, even more impressive than when hidden under his shirts, the stark black lines of his tattoos swirling and twining across his brown skin. A weird shivery tingle races down through my belly. I can’t tell whether I’m more terrified or turned on. Every nerve is quivering with the knowledge that this man is dangerous, and I’m definitely not half as scared as I should be. “I—I thought—” I manage to force my voice out of its timid whisper. “I thought you might like some… company.” Even with my awkward phrasing, the insinuation clearly isn’t lost on him. He blinks, the furrow in his brow deepening, but the heat I saw before sparks in his unscarred eye before he tamps down on it. “And why did you decide to offer that company now, like this?”