Fifty Shades Darker (book 5) novel Chapter 62

What is she doing?

She runs her finger along what I can only assume is the lipstick line. I close my eyes, waiting for the darkness to constrict my chest. Her finger touches my shirt.

“I’m not going to touch you. I just want to undo your shirt,” she says.

Opening my eyes, I keep my panic in check and focus on her face. I don’t stop her. The material of my shirt lifts and she unfastens a second button. Keeping the fabric off my skin, her fingers move to the next button down and she undoes that one, then the next. I don’t move. I daren’t. My breathing is shallow as I suppress my fear; my whole body is tense and waiting.

Don’t touch me.

Please, Ana.

She opens the next button down and smiles up at me. “Back on home territory,” she says, and her fingers trail along the line she made much, much earlier in the day and I tense my diaphragm as her fingers skim across my skin.

She undoes the final button and opens my shirt fully and I let out the breath I’m holding. Next she grabs my hand and, grasping my shirt cuff, removes my left cuff link, followed by the right. “Can I take your shirt off?” she asks.

I nod, totally disarmed, and she lifts my shirt up off my shoulders and pulls it from my body. She’s done. She looks pleased with herself, and I’m standing half naked in front of her.

Slowly I relax.

That wasn’t so bad.

“What about my pants, Miss Steele?” I manage a lascivious smirk.

“In the bedroom. I want you in your bed.”

“Do you, now? Miss Steele, you are insatiable.”

“I can’t think why,” she says, taking my hand. I let her lead me across the living room, through the corridor, and into my bedroom. It’s cold. My nipples pucker against the chill in the room.

“You opened the balcony door?” I ask.

“No,” Ana replies, looking at the open door with a bewildered expression. Then she turns to me, her face ashen. She’s alarmed.

“What?” I ask, as every hair on my body stands on end—not from cold but from fear.

“When I woke,” she whispers, “there was someone in here. I thought it was my imagination.”

“What?” I scan the room quickly, then dash to the balcony and look outside. No one there—but I distinctly remember locking this door during the search. And I know Ana’s never been on the balcony. I lock it again.

“Are you sure?” I ask her. “Who?”

“A woman, I think. It was dark. I’d only just woken up.”

Fuck!

“Get dressed. Now!” I order. Why the hell didn’t she tell me when she came into my office? I have to get her out of here.

“My clothes are upstairs,” she whimpers.