Novels by Edgy Rose

~ Thea's POVThe regression analysis on Lance’s laptop screen might as well have been written in hieroglyphics.My eyes traced the columns of data, variables, coefficients, standard error, but my brain refused to process a single number. All I could process was the feeling of being watched.It wasn't the heavy, suffocating weight of Stellan’s gaze. That felt like being hunted by a wolf in the dead of winter—cold, inevitable, and terrifying. This was different. This felt like being examined by a cat that had cornered a mouse and was deciding which limb to play with first.I looked up from the screen, my patience snapping like a dry twig.Ethan Hayes was sitting across from me, his chin resting in his palm, a lazy, half-cocked smile playing on his lips. He hadn't looked at the textbook in twenty minutes. He was just looking at me. He was dissecting me. His blue eyes, so similar to Lance’s but lacking any of the warmth, were drilling into my skull."Is there something on my face, Ethan?"

~ Stellan’s POV The lie tasted worse than the cheap wine I had found in her apartment.Just spam, she had said. Just a random number.I sat at the head of the massive mahogany table in the main boardroom of Vaughn Enterprises, my gaze fixed on the skyline of Manhattan visible through the floor-to-ceiling windows. The city looked small from up here. Manageable. Everything down there moved according to patterns I could predict, markets I could manipulate, and people I could buy.Everything except Thea Mercer.My hand rested on the polished wood surface, my fingers tapping a slow, rhythmic cadence that seemed to set the heart rates of the twelve executives sitting around me. They were terrified. They should be.I wasn't listening to the Vice President of Marketing drone on about the "optics" of the gala. I was back in the limestone bedroom, watching Thea’s face pale as she looked at her phone. I was watching the tremor in her hand. I was watching the practiced way she flipped the devi

~ Thea's POV"Show me," Maya demanded, her hand hovering over my phone where it lay face-down on the velvet cushion."No," I said, snatching it up and sliding it into the pocket of my sweatpants. My heart was still doing that awful, fluttery thing it had been doing since I read the text."Thea, if someone is threatening you, or stalking you... Stellan needs to know," Maya argued, her voice rising in pitch. "Or at least I need to know. Why won't you show me?""Because if I show you, you'll freak out," I said, standing up and pacing the length of the living room. "And if you freak out, you'll tell Stellan. And if Stellan sees it..."I trailed off, the memory of Stellan’s eyes in the mansion—dark, void-like, and promising violence—flashing through my mind."If Stellan sees it," I continued, my voice quieter, "he won't just track the number. He’ll burn down half the city trying to find the source. I can't handle another war, Maya. Not today. Not after last night."Maya bit her lip, lookin

~ Thea’s POV"Thea?" Stellan asked, his voice dropping an octave, vibrating with a suspicion that made the hair on my arms stand up. "Who was that?"I looked up at him, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. I tried to keep my face blank, but I could feel the blood draining from it. The fear clutching my throat wasn't the fear of the press outside, or even the fear of the man sitting across from me who had just spent the last eight hours claiming every inch of my body."Just... spam," I said. My voice came out too high. Too brittle. It sounded like glass breaking. "Just a random number. Probably a reporter trying to get a quote."Stellan didn't blink. He stared at me, his dark eyes stripping away the layers of my defense. He knew a lie when he heard one. He traded in lies, in secrets, in the currency of hidden things.And he knew that reaction. He knew that my trembling hands weren't the reaction to a stranger. They were the reaction to a ghost."Open it," he command

~Stellan’s POVI withdrew slowly, letting the friction drag a broken whimper from her throat, before slamming back into her with a force that shook the heavy frame of the bed.This wasn’t the first time they were doing this."Is there any space between us now?""No," she sobbed, her nails scoring lines down my back, her legs wrapping tighter around my waist as if she were trying to fuse her skeleton to mine. "No space. None."I didn't stop. I couldn't stop.The rage that had ignited in the car, had transmuted into a dark, inexhaustible hunger. I needed to consume her. I needed to rewrite the neural pathways in her brain so that she no longer associated safety with distance. I needed her to understand, in a visceral, primitive way, that fleeing was impossible because I was everywhere.I was the air in her lungs. I was the ache in her muscles. I was the cold metal of the collar pressing against her throat and the hot weight of my body pinning her to the mattress.Midnight came and went

~ Thea's POVI had whispered, the plea hanging in the heavy air of the car like a white flag of surrender.I thought, for a fleeting, naive second, that he might actually listen. That the blood on his lip and the desperation in my voice might pierce the Dragon of Wall Street's armor.I was wrong.Stellan didn't give me space. His hand shot out, and is fingers wrapped around the back of my neck."Space is not an option," he snarled.He yanked me forward. I didn't have time to gasp before his mouth crashed onto mine again. This wasn't the silencing kiss from moments ago; this was a declaration of war. It was rough, wet, and angry. He bit my lower lip, punishing me for biting him, licking the metallic tang of blood that bloomed there.I tried to push him away, my hands flat against the starched front of his tuxedo shirt, but it was like trying to shove a mountain. He only deepened the kiss, his tongue invading my mouth with a rhythmic, carnal insolence that made my toes curl in my heels