Damage Control

Chapter 10

I don't know how long I slept, but it was the best sleep I've gotten since my father's death. Wanting to stay in bed forever, I slowly flipped my body and wrapped my arms and legs around the warm pillow beside me when the cushion mysteriously began to shift underneath me. I lazily ran my arm down the pillow, thinking I was still dreaming when my hand came in contact with a hard bulge. At that same moment, a large hand instantly gripped my wrist, snapping me out of my peaceful slumber.

"You have one second to explain what you're doing in my bed before I call security and report you as a psychotic trespasser," a low, raspy voice threatened.

I had to still be dreaming because there's no possible way I'm in Nathaniel Creed's bed right now after deciding to go to Stella's for the night. Unless drunk Carter gave the wrong directions to the limo driver, which led us back to his place, which is how I ended up assaulting him in his own fucking room. The hand around my wrist tightened, confirming my dreadful suspicions. If I make it out alive, Carter is a dead man.

I found Nathaniel's pale blue eyes glaring down at me as I lifted my head from his bare tattooed chest. He wasn't wearing a suit covering his inked-up body for the first time, allowing me to see them close up. He had a huge beautiful bird in the middle of his chest that looked like it was made of fire. The rest of his torso was scattered with many randoms tattoos as if he had the tattoo artist pick out one for him each day. There was a skull and thorny roses on his right arm, and on the left was a wolf howling at the moon with a lot of cursive writing that was too small to read from where I laid.

"Fuck," I groaned, massaging my pounding head before quickly untangling my limbs from around him and sliding off the mattress. "I can explain."

"Get out," he growled as his eyes flickered down to my half-naked body. I silently thanked myself for wearing sexy lingerie for once instead of my normal sports bra and boy shorts.

"You're not even going to listen to what I have to say?" I asked, placing my hands on my hips, no longer caring about my lack of clothing.

He roughly ran a hand through his matted bed hair and grabbed his phone off the nightstand. "You can explain yourself to security when they're dragging you out," he grunted, waiting for the person on the other line to pick up.

"Why the fuck are you so angry all the time?" I blurted the first thing that came to my mind. He slowly tore his attention away from the phone and looked up at me to see if I was joking, but I wasn't. I really wanted to know why he never smiled, why he's so cold to everyone except Stella, why nothing makes him happy. Was he always like this, or did something happen to make him this way? Apart of me didn't really care to find out, but another part of me wouldn't be able to rest if I didn't.

His eyes darkened immediately as his nostrils flared in anger.

"Look, I was just-" I began.

"Get. Out."

Rolling my eyes, I slipped on my dress, grabbed my broken heels off the floor, and turned to leave. "By the way, you snore like a fucking chainsaw," I lied before slamming the door behind me.

As I stepped foot out of his room, I realized how I never had time to admire the mansion. The walls were a dusk grey color making the house naturally dark, but the wide-open windows placed against almost every wall in each room granted natural sunlight. I could hear my bare feet tapping against the cool marble floor as I made my way down the grand spiral staircase. How the fuck did I manage to make it up here drunk? I thought to myself.

"Stazi, where were you?" Carter asked as I walked into the massive kitchen where Stella and Keenan were busy scarfing down breakfast like it was their last meal on earth.