Josephine watched hazily, her vision blurred, trying to make sense of the shadow above her.
Before she could focus, the large hand gripping her shoulder slid downward.
It wrapped around her slender waist—so slim it seemed it could be encircled in one grasp. The gesture appeared unbearably intimate.
Yet his fingertips were probing along the side of her waist, as though searching for something.
She had no time to think.
His palm was calloused, the roughness of it grazing her bare skin. A fine tremor rippled through her uncontrollably.
Josephine instinctively twisted her waist, rubbing lightly in discomfort.
"Mm…"
A soft, blurred whimper slipped from her throat, tender and sweet with the haze of intoxication.
It was like the tip of a feather brushing across someone's eardrum—enough to unravel all restraint.
The hand at her waist tightened without conscious thought.
"Mm… it hurts…" she murmured, her tone almost coquettish.
In a single motion, without warning, he flipped over and pinned her completely beneath him.
His voice was hoarse, gravelly with barely restrained heat.
"This time, the method is clever. You even used a drug."
The brocade bedding sank under their combined weight, releasing a faint rustling friction.
Startled by the sudden confinement, Josephine let out a short cry, her body tensing.
But soon, driven by the inexplicable fever raging inside her, her resistance dissolved into a more helpless closeness.
His large palm slid slowly along the curves of her body.
When his fingertips brushed her by accident, she let out a broken sob, tinged with tears.
There was no threat in the sound—only dependency and fragility.
The faint rip of fabric tearing seemed deafening in the darkness.
In the muddled haze of the dream, she felt cool air against her skin—then a heavier, burning body covering her entirely.
Fear struck her for a split second. Instinctively, she wanted to curl up, to retreat. She drew in a sharp breath, tears spilling free.
But her body betrayed her will.
It was like throwing dry wood onto an already raging fire.
The darkness swallowed sight, but sharpened every other sense to an unbearable degree.
All she could feel was the suffocating pressure of heat.
Sweat—she didn't know whose—beaded and mingled between them, sticky and intimate.
At some point, the hand that had been controlling her waist moved upward and closed around her throat.
His thumb pressed precisely against the pulse beating at the side of her neck.
The pad of his finger, rough with a thin layer of callus, stroked slowly along her soft skin.
His cold, rasping voice sounded almost painful against her sweat-damp ear, laced with the cruel appraisal of a predator examining prey.
"So delicate, so soft…"
His fingertip pressed lightly against her artery. "If I apply just a little more force… it would snap."
The chill in his words made her shudder.
But in the next moment, he stole away her ability to think at all.
Suddenly, near her left shoulder, close to the collarbone, sharp pain pierced her.
His teeth sank deeply into her flesh.
"Ah—!" She cried out.
The pain was sharp—real. For a fleeting second, her mind seemed to clear.
Yet before her eyes, there was still only blur and the looming outline of an invasive, unfamiliar body.
***
She woke some time later, jolted by the intense soreness throughout her limbs and the throbbing sting at her shoulder.
Morning light was already bright outside.
Sunlight streamed through the gap in the curtains, stabbing painfully at her eyes.
Josephine groaned as she tried to sit up, but her body felt as though every bone had been dismantled and reassembled. Her waist and lower abdomen ached unbearably, and the insides of her thighs throbbed with soreness.
The spot near her left collarbone pulsed sharply.
Memory crashed back—the chaotic, fevered dream.
Her heart lurched.
She looked down.
The silk nightdress she had worn to bed was gone.
She was completely naked.
Across her chest were suggestive marks, intimate and unmistakable.
A premonition of dread rose in her chest.
Scrambling, she tumbled off the bed and staggered into the bathroom.
In the mirror, her face was unnaturally flushed, her hair uterly disheveled.
And on her left shoulder... There it was.
A clear bite mark.
Bruised purple at the center, the edges broken slightly where the skin had split. It looked fresh. Vivid.
There was no possible way that could have happened at the wrap party. And it was not a position or angle she could have bitten herself.
Her legs gave out.
Her back slammed against the cold tile wall, the chill racing through her body.
What… what had happened last night?
She had thought it was just another erotic dream.
But now... She remembered clearly. After the wrap party, Victoria Henry had escorted her back to the hotel.
She had entered the room alone. Locked the door. Secured the chain.
She had showered.
Then slept.
So who?
Who could have entered?
She ran back into the bedroom like a madwoman, barefoot, checking every window. All locked tight.
The door chain hung intact.
She grabbed a hotel bathrobe, throwing it over herself, her fingers trembling as she dialed the front desk.
She demanded to review the surveillance footage from her floor the previous night.
After hanging up, her gaze fell on the hotel's white sheets.
There was no visible disturbance.
No.
The thought flashed and she immediately rejected it.
Last night, it hadn't felt like a hotel bed.
Her legs weakened and she sank onto the carpet. The unfamiliar soreness between her thighs was unmistakable.
As she tried to piece together the fragments of the night, one thought dominated:
That man had been terrifying.
And rough.
During the ten or so minutes she waited for the security manager, she wrapped herself in the blanket and curled into the corner of the bed, icy cold, her teeth chattering.
When the footage was finally pulled up, it clearly showed her stepping out of the elevator alone that night.
Her steps were unsteady, but it was unmistakably her swiping her keycard and entering the room.
After the door closed, until her phone call that morning, no one had entered or exited.
No one had even approached her door.
And she had not left.
"Miss Durand, as you can see…"
The security manager gestured meaningfully. "All records are normal. Could it be that you've been overworked recently and had a particularly… vivid nightmare? Our hotel's security meets the highest standards."
As he spoke, his eyes flicked toward the pale skin of her neck, where several obvious marks were visible.
In his mind, the entertainment industry was chaotic enough. Perhaps something had happened at the party and she now wanted to shift responsibility onto the hotel.
A trace of impatience crept into his expression.
Josephine froze.
A nightmare?
If it was a nightmare, then what about the bruised bite mark on her shoulder?
What about the purple and blue marks across her body?
And the deep, lingering soreness within her that she could neither ignore nor explain?