LOGINI don’t remember crossing the room. One moment, I was frozen in the doorway, and the next, I was standing in front of her, my heart thundering, my breath shallow, and consumed.
She gasped when she finally opened her eyes and saw me. But she didn’t stop. She didn’t hide. Her lips parted, and all I saw was need. Raw, aching need. “I shouldn’t be here,” I whispered, voice low, trembling with restraint. “But I can’t walk away.” Her answer was a breathless whisper. “Then don’t.” That was all I needed. I knelt between her trembling thighs and gently brushed her hand aside, replacing it with mine. My fingers slid through the heat she had created—slick and inviting—and when I slipped two fingers inside her, her back arched off the velvet seat, a cry catching in her throat. Her eyes never left mine, wide and wild with lust.VI moved slowly at first, curling my fingers just right. Her hips rolled, matching my rhythm, her breath falling in broken gasps that sounded like my name. I leaned closer, close enough to feel her heat on my lips, but I didn’t kiss her yet. I just watched as she came undone—biting her lip, clinging to the edge. Then I added a third finger. She cried out, her body tightening as I pushed deeper. “Jason!” she moaned, her hands fisting the cushion beside her, nails digging in. Her walls fluttered around me, her thighs trembling. “Look at me,” I said, my voice rough. “Say my name again.” Her eyes locked onto mine as she gasped, “Jason… please…” And when her release finally hit, it tore through her like a wave. Her body shook, lips parted in a silent scream as she clung to the moment—and to me. I held her there, gently easing her down from the high, brushing kisses along her inner thigh, her stomach, her trembling hip. I wanted more—God, I needed more—but I knew this moment wasn’t about claiming her. It was about showing her what it felt like to be wanted. To be worshipped. To be loved and desired. When I finally looked up, her eyes were glassy, lips swollen, chest rising and falling in shallow breaths. Neither of us spoke.VThere was only the sound of our hearts and the knowledge that everything had just changed. Forever. Fade to black. She was still trembling beneath my touch, her body slick with heat and want, her legs parted just enough for me to stay where I was—kneeling between them, my fingers still buried inside her, moving slowly now. Teasing. Worshipping. Her head lolled back, lips parted as she moaned softly, dragging my name from her throat like it belonged to her. And maybe it did. “Jason…” she breathed, her voice hoarse and shaking. She looked down at me with those heavy, lust-drunk eyes, and what I saw in them nearly undid me. Need. Longing. Trust. “Please…” she whispered. “Please, Jason… I need you.” I froze, my heart pounding so loud it drowned out everything else. I pulled my fingers free slowly, gently, and rose to my feet. She stayed sprawled on the chaise, her chest rising and falling, a thin sheen of sweat glistening on her skin. “You don’t know what you’re asking,” I said, my voice strained, but I was already unbuttoning my shirt. “If we cross this line, there’s no going back.” Her eyes never left mine. “Then let’s not go back.” I exhaled sharply, stepping out of my clothes. Every part of me was heavy with restraint and aching for her. I leaned down over her, our mouths just a breath apart. “Tell me this is real,” I whispered. “Tell me you want this. Not because you’re angry. Not because you’re hurting. Because you want me.” She reached for me, her hands trembling as they slid into my hair, pulling me closer. “I’ve always wanted you, Jason, even when I shouldn’t have. Even when I was pretending I didn’t.” That was it. The last thread of control snapped. I captured her mouth with mine, and it wasn’t gentle this time. It was messy and hungry and honest. She moaned into the kiss, her nails digging into my back as I laid her down completely, our bodies molding into each other like we’d done this a hundred times in another life. Our hips met—skin to skin—hot, desperate, real. I guided myself to her entrance, pausing just long enough to look into her eyes. “You’re sure?” I asked again, voice shaking. She nodded, breathless. “God, yes. Please, Jason… f*ck me. Make me feel like I’m yours.” And then I sank into her—slow, deep, inch by inch—until there was no space left between us. Her gasp turned into a moan, and I swallowed it with another kiss, thrusting slow and deep as her legs wrapped around me, pulling me closer. Pulling me home. We moved together like we were made for each other—years of silence, of longing, of what-ifs all melting into every stroke, every cry, every kiss. She clung to me like I was salvation, and I held her like she was the only thing that ever made sense. We made love in the silence of that old library, the air thick with secrets, and books watching like quiet witnesses. Her name left my lips like a prayer. Mine left hers like a cry of release. Again. And again. And when she finally shattered beneath me, I followed, burying myself inside her with a groan that came from somewhere far deeper than my body. We stayed wrapped in each other, breathless and still, hearts racing in perfect sync. I didn’t know what came next. But I knew one thing for sure. I wasn’t letting her go again.The fifth night began at moonrise.They did not carry her this time. Amara walked.Naked, collared, skin still faintly bruised from the previous nights, she descended the grand staircase of the villa flanked by the four men who now owned every breath she took. Torches had been extinguished. Only a single path of black candles led through the corridors to a pair of doors she had never seen open.Beyond them lay the viewing gallery.A circular room of smoked glass and dark wood. One entire wall was a window (one-way, floor to ceiling) looking down into a sunken chamber lit by a single chandelier of black iron. In the center of that chamber hung a web of leather straps and chains suspended from the ceiling: a harness designed to hold a body in perfect, helpless display.A dozen chairs faced the glass. Masked figures already sat in half of them (silent, elegant, powerful). Allies. Rivals. Collectors who had bid against Asher at the auction and lost. Tonight they were guests, allowed to wa
They carried her down before sunset.No blindfold this time. Asher wanted her to see every step of the descent.A narrow stone staircase spiralled deep beneath the villa, lit only by torches set in iron sconces that hissed with pine resin. The air grew warmer with each turn, thick with the scent of melted beeswax and something darker (myrrh, copper, sex). Amara walked naked between Asher and Cassian, wrists bound behind her back with soft crimson cord. Rowan and Silas followed, silent, their bare feet soundless on the worn steps.At the bottom, a single obsidian door waited. No handle. Asher pressed his palm to the center. Ancient gears ground somewhere inside the wall, and the door swung inward on hidden hinges.The chamber beyond stole her breath.It was vast, circular, carved from black volcanic glass that drank the torchlight. In the center stood a waist-high altar of the same stone, polished until it reflected like a dark mirror. Runes had been etched around its edges and filled
The moon hung low and bloated over the estate, the color of old bone. Every window in the villa blazed with light, but the true celebration spilled outside into the gardens. A labyrinth of twelve-foot yew hedges had been groomed for one night only, then laced with lanterns that glowed crimson behind black glass. Music drifted through the corridors: low, pulsing drums and the wet throb of cello strings that sounded almost like a heartbeat.Amara stood at the entrance to the maze wearing nothing but a thin silk gown the color of spilled wine. The fabric clung to every curve, nipples dark and visible beneath it, hem brushing mid-thigh. A black velvet half-mask covered the top of her face; the rest of her was bare. Around her throat, Asher had fastened a narrow leather collar with a single silver ring.He adjusted the ring now with one finger, tilting her chin up.“Rules are simple,” he said, voice velvet and steel. “You run. They hunt. When you are caught, you yield. No safe words tonigh
The drive took less than twenty minutes, but Amara lost all sense of time inside the windowless van. Her wrists were bound in front of her with soft leather cuffs, a blindfold of thick black satin over her eyes. The only thing she wore was a man’s silk shirt, Asher’s, unbuttoned and hanging open so that every turn pressed the fabric against her sensitive nipples. Between her thighs she was still swollen and slick from the night before, a constant reminder that she no longer belonged to herself.When the engine cut off, the blindfold was tugged free.She stood on a gravel courtyard lit by torches. A cliff dropped away behind her to a black sea that hissed against rocks far below. Ahead rose the villa: pale stone, arched windows glowing amber, bougainvillea bleeding purple across the walls. It looked like something built for gods who had forgotten mercy.Asher took her elbow. “Walk.”He guided her through a vaulted entrance hall where the air smelled of salt and jasmine. No servants app
The air in the old opera house tasted of candle smoke and old money. Beneath the ruined velvet seats and peeling gold leaf, a single chandelier had been lowered to cast a pool of light over a makeshift stage. No music played. Only the low murmur of masked bidders and the occasional clink of crystal passed between gloved hands.Amara had not meant to be here.She had followed a lead on a lost Caravaggio sketch, nothing more. A whispered name in a conservation lab, a false panel in a forgotten gallery, a narrow staircase that ended in this hidden theater. By the time she realized the door had locked behind her, a black silk hood had already dropped over her head. Rough hands stripped away her coat, her phone, her identification. When the hood came off again, she stood barefoot on cold marble in nothing but the thin linen dress she had worn to work.The auctioneer never gave his name. He simply lifted a hand and began.“Lot nineteen. Untouched. Twenty-four years old. No debts, no family,
She was halfway down the gravel drive when the headlights pinned her in place.The black Maybach rolled to a silent stop ten feet away. Viktor stepped out alone, no driver, no Luka, no guards. Just him in a charcoal overcoat, collar turned up against the wind whipping off the ocean. The moon hung low and bloated over the water, turning the world silver and merciless.Isabella did not run. She stood barefoot on the cold stones, wearing nothing but his shirt and the marks he had put on her skin, duffel bag slung over one shoulder like a refugee.Viktor looked at the bag, then at her face.“You are leaving in that?” His voice carried the same calm authority it always did, but something underneath it cracked.“I kept my part,” she said. “Seven nights. You kept yours until you didn’t. We’re done.”He took one step closer. “I burned the Kozlov file an hour ago. Every copy. The sale is dead.”She laughed, sharp and ugly. “Forgive me if I don’t trust the man who photographed me unconscious an







