Page 119 of Monstrous Urges

My eyes are drifting shut as he towels me off and carries me to bed: his bed, which he gets into with me.

“What are you doing…?” I mumble.

We don’t share a bed. We don’t spend the night.

“For once in your fucking life, counselor,” he growls. “Stop with the fucking objections.”

I smile as I snuggle back into him, feeling his heat and his strength envelop me from behind.

“Sleep, love,” he murmurs quietly.

And I do.

27

DRAZEN

Some changes happen gradually: a slow evolution from one state to another. I know that when I look back now on the path my life has taken, and seeing the past versions of myself I have shed along the way.

But other changes do happen overnight.

Sometimes quite literally.

One night, I was still sleeping alone, in my own bed. The next night, I wasn’t the only one in it.

Since then, Annika in my bed has become an every night thing. Or Taylor. I don’t know what to call her anymore. It’s become increasingly clear to me that the woman staying in my home and sharing my bed really is two different people. The first is the girl I married fifteen years ago. The cold, closed-off, quiet and uncertain teenager who mumbled “yes” to a promise neither of us wanted to make.

The woman whom I wake up next to every morning now is someone else altogether. Bold and confident. Tenacious and unflinching. A woman who faces the world on her terms and tells it exactly how to behave. A woman who looks me in the eye and says precisely what she’s thinking, no matter the consequences.

It’s infuriating. But it’s also refreshing. And it’s become something I look forward to. A challenge, to keep me sharp and on my toes.

So yes, she’s two people: the one from the past, and the one in the present. Before, she was Annika, and now, she’s Taylor. So for the last few days, that’s the name I’ve been using with her. At first, she was surprised. But she also couldn’t hide her smile whenever I said it. And goddamn if I don’t enjoy that smile. So I’ve kept saying it.

But then there’s another overnight change.

One little word that I never once intended to or thought about saying out loud. But out it popped, with no way of putting it back in the box.

Love.

It wasn’t preceded by an “I” or followed by a “you”. But still, it’s…out there.

Come what may.

“Boss.”

I look up from my desk as Milos steps into my office.

“Got a second?” I nod as he plops down in one of the chairs across the desk from me, a manila folder in his hands. “There’s two things we need to discuss.”

I frown. “Is this a bad news first or good news first thing?”

He grimaces. “They’re both shit. One involves a meal, though, if that helps.”

Milos clears his throat as he drops the folder in front of me. I reach for it, but he keeps his finger pinned on it for a moment.

“Can I speak freely?”

“By all means,” I grunt.