CHAPTER 17: Restraint and Temptation

Nirvana's POV

Ronan drove me back to the manor in complete, suffocating silence. He gripped the leather steering wheel so tightly his knuckles turned entirely white.

He did not say a single word about what had just happened in the private viewing room. He was completely oblivious to the gold plaque hanging on the wall. He only cared that Adrian had his hands on me like one hell of a protective brother.

He parked the SUV and escorted me inside the massive, silent house. The suffocating tension from the car ride followed us all the way into the foyer.

"Ronan—" I started, my voice barely a whisper.

He didn't even look at me. "Go to your room, Nirvana. Get some rest," he cut me off, his tone devoid of its usual warmth.

Without another word, he turned his back and walked away, leaving me standing completely alone.

I hugged my arms to my chest, my heart pounding painfully against my ribs as I watched him disappear into the shadows. What exactly was he going to do to Adrian?

I spent the next three hours pacing the entire length of my bedroom. The thick carpet muffled my heavy footsteps, but my mind was incredibly loud and chaotic. I was completely frustrated by the entire evening.

Adrian and Ronan had literally handed me back and forth and pushed me around the restaurant as if I had no agency of my own. I was absolutely sick of being treated like a piece of luggage.

I hated being left in the dark and treated like a fragile child who could not handle the violent reality of their lives. The revelation of my painting hanging in that room pushed me right over the edge of my patience.

I knew Adrian was lying straight to my face when he called my work a crude financial investment. It hurt deeply to hear him insult the canvas, but I saw the desperate and protective look in his eyes right before Ronan interrupted us.

He insulted my art to push me away and protect me from whatever threat had him so incredibly on edge. I also realized he walked away from the physical fight to protect his long friendship with my brother. He took the violent hit from Ronan against the wall and left without defending himself because he refused to tear their loyalty apart in front of me.

But I needed actual answers. I refused to sit in my room and wait for the men in my life to decide what information I was allowed to know. I waited until the large house went completely quiet and the digital clock on my nightstand read two in the morning.

I grabbed my heavy leather jacket from the closet and slipped quietly out of my bedroom. I crept down the back staircase, avoiding the specific creaking floorboards I had memorized over the last few weeks.

I knew exactly where Adrian went to hide when he was stressed.

I paid the cab driver and stepped out onto the dark and quiet street. The private garage looked completely closed from the outside, but I saw the faint glow of yellow light spilling from underneath the heavy metal bay doors. I walked up to the side entrance, grabbed the handle, and pushed the door open.

The familiar smell of motor oil, gasoline, and cold metal engulfed me the absolute second I stepped inside. The scent had become incredibly comforting to me over the last few weeks. It meant Adrian was near.

He was standing by a large wooden workbench at the very back of the garage. He had stripped his dark dress shirt off entirely, leaving his broad chest and heavily tattooed arms completely bare in the cool air.

He was wiping dark grease from his hands with a dirty shop towel. He froze the moment he heard my footsteps.

He turned his head slowly and stared at me. He looked incredibly exhausted. The heavy tension in his shoulders was obvious even from across the large room.

I walked straight toward him. I did not give him any time to put his cold and distant professor facade back up.

"You lied to me," I said. My voice was loud and steady in the quiet garage. "You stood in that restaurant and told me my painting was just a crude financial investment. You expect me to believe you bought the one piece of art my mother stole from me just to flip it for profit?"

Adrian tossed the dirty towel onto the wooden workbench. He turned his body to fully face me. "You should not be here, Nirvana. It is late. Ronan will lose his mind if he checks and finds your room empty."

"I do not care about Ronan right now," I told him. I closed the remaining distance between us and stopped just a few feet away from his bare chest. "I care about the gold plaque on that wall. I care about the fact that you insulted my work to push me away. Stop treating me like a piece of luggage you can just hand off to my brother when things get complicated. I am not a child. Tell me the truth."

My direct confrontation completely stripped away his cold and indifferent act he tried so hard to maintain in the restaurant. He did not yell at me or try to order me out of the building. His broad shoulders dropped heavily, and he let out a long, ragged breath that filled the quiet space between us.

He looked down at the concrete floor before bringing his dark eyes back to mine. The vulnerability on his face caught me entirely off guard.

"I bought it," Adrian confessed. His voice was a low, rough rasp. "I bought it the very same week Katerina sold it to the dealer. I paid triple his asking price just to make sure no one else could take it away from the city."

I stared at him, trying to process the timeline he just revealed. "You bought it before I ever came to New York? Before Ronan picked me up. You bought it while we were just talking on the phone."

"My obsession with you started long before New Orleans," he admitted heavily. He stepped closer to me, his chest rising and falling with his deep breaths. "I listened to you talk about your art every single night. I listened to you describe the colors and the specific pain you put into that canvas. When you told me Katerina stole it, I tracked the underground dealer down immediately. I needed to have it. I needed to own the one thing that meant everything to you because I knew I could never actually have you."

The confession hit my chest like a heavy weight. He had been looking out for me and protecting my work from the shadows for months. He cared about my pain long before we ever stood in the same room together.

"Why did you think you could never have me?" I asked quietly.

Adrian reached out and grabbed the sides of my leather jacket with both of his large hands. He did not pull me closer, but he held on to me tightly. "Because Ronan is my brother, Nirvana. He trusted me with his life and his business. He trusted me to keep you safe from the exact violence I live in every single day. I cannot betray him. I cannot drag his sister into my mess and ruin the only real family I have left."

I totally understood the heavy burden he carried. Trn violently between his intense loyalty to my brother and the undeniable connection we shared. His words made me incredibly emotional.

The raw honesty in his dark eyes broke down every single wall of anger and frustration I had built up over the evening.

My eyes welled up with thick tears, blurring my vision slightly. I did not want him to fight his feelings anymore. I did not want him to suffer through this severe internal conflict just to keep a promise that was already breaking both of us apart.

I reached my hands up and placed my palms flat against his bare, warm chest. I felt the heavy and rapid thumping of his heart against my skin.

"Please," I begged him. My voice was thick with tears and dripped heavily with deep, undeniable arousal. "Please, Adrian."

I looked up at his face. I could see the conflict raging in his dark eyes. He stared down at my mouth, his eyes clouded with desire. He clenched his jaw tightly.

I genuinely feared he would force himself to step away, reject me, and slip back into his cold and distant behavior to honor his loyalty to Ronan. So, I held my breath and waited for the rejection.

But the rejection never came.

Adrian let go of my jacket, wrapped his large arms securely around my waist, and pulled my body flush against his bare chest. The physical intimacy was incredibly slow and deeply possessive. He did not rush or act out of anger. He lowered his head and pressed his mouth directly to mine.

The kiss was inevitable. It started as a desperate gasp for air before deepening into something violently consuming. I opened my mouth, letting his tongue sweep inside, tasting the dark liquor on his breath. A heavy, liquid heat pooled instantly between my thighs, making my entire body ache with immediate arousal.

I tangled my fingers into his dark hair, holding on as he walked me backward until my thighs hit the heavy wooden workbench. He grabbed my waist and lifted me onto the edge. Metal tools rattled against the wood, but my only focus was the scorching heat of his body pressing into mine.

He stepped perfectly between my parted knees. His hips dragged firmly against mine, and I gasped out loud as I felt the thick, rigid length of his arousal pressing exactly where I needed it most. I arched my back, rubbing my sensitive chest against his solid torso, desperately chasing the friction.

His hands went straight to the collar of my shirt, popping the buttons loose with rough, hungry movements. He pushed the fabric off my shoulders, exposing my flushed skin to the cool garage air. His mouth dropped to my collarbone, sucking a hot, wet mark into my flesh before trailing lower.

Every touch was a territorial claim. The sheer sexual need that had been building for months finally shattered my restraint. I wrapped my legs tightly around the back of his thighs, locking my ankles to drag his hard hips flush against my aching core.

But my cell phone suddenly vibrated loudly against the workbench right next to my hip. The screen lit up the dark space between us, casting a bright glare over the metal tools.

Adrian stopped moving immediately. He lifted his head from my chest and looked down at the glowing screen. I thought it was Ronan but it was not. It was a text message from an unknown number.

The notification displayed a live photograph taken from a high angle. I looked down at the image and my blood ran completely cold. It was a picture of the two of us, taken right now, through the high garage window located above the bay doors. The caption underneath the photo was clear and terrifying.

"It's been a while, Muse. Now it's my turn."