9. HEAVEN

ELI’S POV

One taste of Rowanne Steele, and my control shattered completely and brutally.

Goddamn it. I thought I could do better. I thought I could fight it, this pull that tore through reason and loyalty. But the truth? I’d been lying to myself from the start.

She was Jett’s wife. Was. That word had become my only lifeline, the thin string I used to justify the hunger that had taken root in me.

And yet, that night at my apartment... the second her lips met mine, I knew I’d already crossed the line with the way she kissed like she was trying to remember what it felt like to be wanted. Hungry. Desperate.

God, the sound she made when I pulled her close still haunted me. Her taste was sweet and wild, like honey laced with sin and I almost lost every piece of control I had.

I’d been living off the memory ever since.

If I had to beg for one more taste, I would.

If I had to get on my knees and worship her just to know what she really tasted like again. I damn well would.

If I had to fall to my knees just to feel her tremble beneath my hands, I would.

Rowanne Steele had ruined me.

She was driving me insane with her avoidance, those unanswered calls, those smiles when she pretended not to feel what I knew she did.

And that damned ring still on her finger, a ghost of a man she refused to stop mourning. She respected Jett, I’ll give her that. She was loyal. But how could she be loyal to someone who never loved her? Who never even touched her the way she deserved?

Jett had called her an eyesore.

I called her my heaven.

Said she was “too proper to be passionate.” But what he never realised was that Rowanne wasn’t ice, she was glass, delicate and breakable. You just had to know how to hold her right.

Even with her family’s influence in the media, Rowanne was never a headline to me. She was the kind of woman you didn’t just love, you surrendered to.

I still remember her wedding day. I stood in the crowd with my forced smile, watching her walk toward my brother.

Every step she took down that aisle felt like a knife twisting deeper. She was radiant, glowing, smiling like she believed she was walking into forever and I was dying knowing she should’ve been mine.

That day became my curse. My nightly haunting. The slow bleed I lived with.

And it only worsened after I saw her begging a man incapable of love for something he’d never give. If I’d known sooner that he was cheating, I would’ve burned the world down before letting her stay with him another day.

When I realised the man she stayed faithful to was sleeping with someone else, I almost saw red.

Now, she was avoiding me like I was the sin she needed to escape. Maybe she was right. But it didn’t stop me from craving her.

I downed my fourth drink at Rory’s place, sitting in the corner while the guys laughed and planned how to crash the bridal shower. My head was a mix of whiskey and Rowanne, always her.

Then I heard Sivan’s voice. “Ohhh, is that Rowanne? You mean Rowanne, Eli’s sister-in-law? I didn’t know she was this hot.”

Rory whistled low. “Lovely too.”

My jaw tightened. My grip on the glass faltered as I turned toward them.

“What did you just say?”

Sivan grinned, holding out his phone. “Kalea sent this to me. Look.”

I leaned closer and the world stopped.

She was sitting on a blush sofa, draped in lace so sheer it looked like moonlight.

The dress clung to her softly and was indecently perfect. Her head was tilted back, one hand covering her face, and her golden hair tumored down her shoulder like silk.

I swallowed hard. Once. Twice. My throat was dry.

She looked alive. Radiant. The kind of beauty that makes your pulse slow, then race all at once.

A muscle in my jaw twitched as I stared at the photo, my chest rising and falling fast.

Because that hunger that I needed I thought I could cage was back. And if she thought she could run halfway across the world to escape it, she didn’t know me well enough yet.

One of the guys slid into the seat beside me, grinning like he was about to say something stupid. Ralph. The kind of man who never knew when to shut the hell up.

He took a sip of his drink and leaned closer, his tone dripping with that smug, careless arrogance I hated.

“I bet she tastes so sweet. She looks like she would,” he said, chuckling. “I heard she’s single now. Why don’t you introduce her to me?”

The words barely left his mouth before my body moved on instinct.

“Ralph.” My voice came out low but deadly. I turned my glare toward him, my jaw clenching so hard it hurt.

He smirked, mistaking the warning for banter. “What? Relax, man. I’m just saying. If she’s free, someone might as well make her—”

I didn’t let him finish.

My fist connected with his mouth before he could take another breath. His chair scraped back, the sound echoing through as he stumbled, clutching his jaw, eyes wide in disbelief.

“Jesus, Eli!” Rory barked, rushing forward to pull me back. “What the hell, man?”

I barely heard him. My chest was heaving, my pulse slamming in my ears.

I snapped, my voice rough with fury. “You don’t talk about her like that.”

Ralph spat blood into a napkin, his expression half shock, half rage. “You’re losing it, Carter. All this over your dead brother’s wife?”

The entire room froze.

Something inside me twisted so violently it felt like a knife. I lunged again, but Rory shoved me back, his arm across my chest.

“Don’t, Eli,” Rory hissed. “Not here.”

My hands balled into fists before I even realised it; my breath came in ragged pulls. The room felt too small, the air too hot, every heartbeat pounding like a war drum in my ears.

Ralph straightened slowly, jaw swelling already where my first blow had landed.

He wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand and sneered.

“You’re acting like you’re the one fucking her. What—she’s too sweet to share?”