CHAPTER 6: Because…

I expected him to question me.

To demand why I was here, why I knocked at his door in the middle of the night with my pulse in my throat. But Mr. Gage didn’t ask a damn thing.

He just looked at me with those dark eyes for a long, quiet moment, and then he stepped forward and kissed me.

Just like that.

Not even giving me enough time to inhale.

His mouth claimed mine, and the noise that slipped out of me wasn’t dignified at all…

It was a low, hungry moan I didn’t even recognize as my own.

His hand came up to the back of my neck, guiding me, angling me, deepening the kiss like a man who had been starving for years and had finally been handed a meal, and I melted so fast I could barely hold my own weight.

Fuck….

The way this man kissed me.

My fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt and pulled him closer like I couldn’t bear even an inch of space between us.

I felt alive and ruined all at once.

“Fuck!” I cried out as his hand slid up under my thin T-shirt, his palms skating over my ribs and breasts until he found my nipple and pinched hard enough to make me gasp into his mouth.

Then his fingers were lower, shoving past the waistband of my cotton shorts, and finding me already soaked.

Two thick fingers pushed inside without warning and I cried out, the sound muffled against his tongue.

He groaned, deeper and dirtier than I was, as his fingers curled, stroked, and fucked me in short, ruthless thrusts while his thumb circled my clit.

My knees buckled and I would have hit the floor if he hadn’t pinned me to the door with his body.

He broke the kiss only to drag his mouth along my jaw, then lower, grazing the curve of my throat.

I tipped my head back helplessly, a soft gasp spilling out as his mouth followed the path of my pulse, heat trailing over my skin.

When he reached my ear, he nibbled the edge of it, teasing, sending a violent shiver through me that I couldn’t hide even if my life depended on it.

And then he whispered…

“Go back to your room.”

At first I didn’t even understand the words. They didn’t compute. They didn’t make any fucking sense.

My eyes opened slowly, confused.

“What?”

But he was already stepping away.

My knees buckled right there, and I sank onto them before I had the chance to stop myself.

He was… walking away from me.

Walking away after kissing me like that??!

The only thing I managed was a breathless, “Why did you stop?”

He didn’t turn when he answered. “Because I’m not taking a woman to my bed when she’s clearly not ready for it.”

That… that set something off in me.

“Not ready?” I pushed myself to my feet, my voice cracking under the weight of everything I had felt in the past hour. “I came here by myself! Do you think I would be standing here, begging you, if I didn’t want it? I want it, Me. Gage. I want you. Stop pretending you’re protecting me from something I’m not already drowning in!”

Silence.

Cold, judging silence.

He turned to look at me and the expression on his face was so cold it stole the air from my lungs.

I had one heartbeat to realise I might have pushed too far before he moved.

One step.

That was all it took for me to instinctively take one back, my spine hitting the closed door with a soft thud.

He kept coming until he caged me in, one forearm braced beside my head, the other sliding under my shirt again. His palm spread over my waist, fingers digging in just enough to bruise, and he yanked me flush against him. I could feel every hard inch of him through his sweatpants, the thick line of his cock pressing into my stomach like a threat and a promise all at once.

“Then why,” he asked, “are you trembling?”

I froze.

Because….

Because I’m terrified.

Because the second you actually touch me I might shatter and never put the pieces back together.

Because Noah is downstairs.

Because I would cross a point where there’s no going back—where I might not even want to.

I was terrified of how easy it would be to fall apart for him.

But none of those truths made it past my lips. All that escaped was a soft, helpless whimper.

His eyes darkened, pupils swallowing the gray. He leaned in until his mouth brushed the shell of my ear.

“I’ll be nice,” he whispered, “This time.”

His thumb stroked my waist.

“But the next time you walk into my room on those pretty legs, little girl, I will ruin you so thoroughly you won’t be able to leave on them. I’ll have you on your knees, on your back, bent over every surface in this house until the only name you remember is mine. Do you understand?”

I couldn’t breathe.

The promise in his voice cut through me, and my legs nearly gave out again—and he felt it. I knew he did. His hand tightened slightly, steadying me in a way that only made it worse.

Then he let me go, stepped back, and turned away from me.

“Now leave.”

I stared at his back, wondering how the hell he had that much control—how he could kiss me, touch me, corner me, threaten me with pleasure, then just dismiss me.

While here I was, my clit throbbing in time with my pulse. Wondering is if I should drop to my knees, crawl after him and beg.

But I didn’t even have the courage to be that pathetic.

So instead, I did the only thing I could.

I turned the handle behind me, stepped out of his room, and closed the door.