Prologue

The house was quiet the way only old money estates could be on cool Friday evenings…thick walls, heavier silence, every creak a secret waiting to be caught.

Gabriella Walter was nineteen the first time she truly let herself break.

She slipped through the corridor on bare feet, the hem of Aiden’s stolen black button-down brushing the tops of her thighs like a lover’s teasing fingers.

The shirt still smelled like him…sandalwood, smoke, and the sharp edge of restraint he wore like armor.

Her nipples tightened against the cool silk, already aching, already wet from nothing more than the thought of him.

She shouldn’t be here.

She should have been in London, playing the perfect straight A heiress, pretending the ache between her legs wasn’t named Aiden Calder.

But the second she’d heard he was back in the estate for the weekend…she’d taken the last flight home like a woman possessed.

His bedroom door was open so she entered freely. Guess what else was open? His bathroom door… Just a crack…but it was enough.

The sound hit her first.

Low. Rough. Wet.

The unmistakable rhythm of a man’s hand working his cock under the shower spray.

Gabriella’s breath caught. Her toes curled hard against the hardwood, a sharp little pulse shooting straight to her clit.

She pressed her thighs together, already slick, already swollen. Her pussy throbbed in time with every filthy stroke she could hear through the half-open bathroom door.

Steam curled out like an invitation.

She moved closer, silent as sin, until she could see him through the fogged glass.

Aiden.

Six-foot-five of brutal, carved muscle, head tipped back under the pounding water, jet-black hair plastered to his forehead.

One big hand braced against the marble tile, the other wrapped tight around that thick, heavy cock she’d dreamed about for years.

He stroked slowly at first, then harder, veins standing out along his forearm, jaw clenched so tight she could see the muscle jump.

A deep groan tore from his throat…raw, broken, and desperate for someone to pound into.

Gabriella’s knees nearly buckled.

Heat flooded her core so fast her vision blurred.

Her clit swelled, pulsing, begging. She could feel her own slick dripping down the inside of her thigh, no panties to catch it. Just bare, needy cunt clenching around nothing while the man who’d owned her soul since she was one year old fucked his fist like he was punishing it.

She bit her lip until she tasted blood, pressing her palm between her legs without thinking.

The second her fingers brushed her swollen clit she had to stifle a whimper. She was soaked. Dripping. So sensitive that one light circle made her hips jerk.

Aiden’s strokes grew rougher, faster. Water sluiced down the ridges of his abs, over the deep V that pointed straight to where his fist flew. His balls drew up tight. His scar-cut eyebrow twitched, lips parting on another deep, animalistic groan.

He was close.

Gabriella’s fingers slipped between her folds, circling her clit faster, matching his rhythm.

Her other hand braced on the doorframe, nails digging in as her thighs trembled. Toes curling so hard her arches cramped.

Her nipples were diamond-hard, aching to be sucked, bitten, marked by the mouth currently gasping for release.

She wanted to push the door open. Drop to her knees on the wet tile and replace his hand with her tongue, her throat, her cunt.

She wanted him to snap, to shove her against the glass and finally take what they’d both been destined to take from each other since the day she crawled across that nursery rug straight into his arms.

But she stayed hidden…just long enough.

Aiden’s hips snapped forward. His voice cracked into a choked, broken roar as he came, thick ropes of cum painting the shower wall, pulsing again and again while his massive body shuddered under the spray.

The sight of it sent Gabriella over the edge.

She came hard, biting down on her own wrist…until a helpless, high-pitched moan tore free from her throat before she could stop it.

She slapped her hand over her mouth, but it was too late. The sound cut through the steam like a gunshot.

Aiden’s head snapped toward the cracked door, ice-blue eyes blazing, chest still heaving, cock still twitching in his fist.

But Gabriella was already gone.

Bare feet flying silently down the corridor, heart hammering, slick still dripping down her thighs, she disappeared around the corner just as the shower shut off behind her with a sharp metallic screech.

He never saw her.

He never knew whose desperate little moan had echoed through his bathroom.

But she knew.

And that single stolen moment…his release, her broken sound, the way his eyes had searched for what he could never have…branded itself into her soul like a promise.

She had crawled to him first.

One day soon, he would crawl back.

And when he finally did, neither of them would ever be able to stop.