CHAPTER 6

Jane

The city lights blurred past the tinted windows as Julius's driver who Julius had called after we fucked in the car, navigated through downtown. 

I sat in the back of the car, my wedding dress a wrinkled mess around my thighs, my body still trembling from what we had just done. What I had just done.

I should have felt guilty. Horrified. Ashamed of myself for fucking my fiancé's father in the back of a car while Hudson waited at the altar, but all I felt was alive.

Julius sat beside me, his hand possessive on my thigh, his grey eyes studying me like I was a puzzle he intended to solve. 

He had barely spoken since we finished. He just held me while I caught my breath, his fingers tracing lazy patterns on my skin.

“Where are we going?” I finally asked, my voice hoarse.

“My place,” His thumb stroked higher, dangerously close to where I was still slick and sensitive. “Unless you prefer I drop you somewhere else?”

I wanted to say yes. I wanted to ask him to take me to a hotel, or back to my apartment, anywhere that wasn't deeper into this mistake. Instead, I shook my head.

Julius's smile was slow and predatory. “Good girl.”

Those words shouldn't have affected me. Hudson called me that all the time, usually right before demanding I do something I didn't want to do, but from Julius's mouth, they sounded different. Like praise instead of condescension. Like he actually saw me as something worth rewarding.

The car pulled up to a sleek high-rise in the most expensive part of the city. Of course Julius lived here. 

The building practically screamed wealth and power, all glass and steel reaching toward the sky.

His hand found the small of my back as we entered the lobby, guiding me toward the private elevator. 

The security guard nodded respectfully, not even blinking at my disheveled wedding dress. I wondered how many women Julius had brought through here.

I told myself I didn't care.

The elevator rose swiftly, my ears popping as we climbed. Julius stood behind me, close enough that I could feel the heat of his body, smell his expensive cologne mixed with the musk of sex. His hand slid around my waist, pulling me back against him.

“Still with me?” He murmured against my ear.

My breath hitched. “Yes.”

“Good,” His teeth grazed my neck, sending electricity down my spine. “Because I'm not done with you yet.”

The elevator doors opened directly into his penthouse, and I barely had time to register the sprawling space, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the glittering city, modern furniture that probably cost more than my yearly salary, art that belonged in museums, before Julius spun me around and claimed my mouth.

This kiss was different from the frantic desperation in the car. This was deliberate. It was thorough. 

Julius kissed me like he had all the time in the world and intended to use every second learning exactly how to make me melt.

His hands found the zipper of my dress, sliding it down with practiced ease. The ruined white lace pooled at my feet, leaving me in nothing but my bra and the stockings he had torn earlier.

“Fucking beautiful,” He growled, his eyes raking over me with open hunger. “Hudson's a goddamn fool.”

He lifted me effortlessly, my legs wrapping around his waist as he carried me deeper into the penthouse. Through a hallway, past more expensive art, into a bedroom that was all dark wood, luxury and elegance.

Julius laid me on the bed like I was something precious, and that alone nearly undid me. Hudson had never been gentle. He never treated me like anything but a warm body to use.

“Tell me what you want.” Julius said, his hands sliding up my thighs.

I blinked at him. “What?”

“What you want, Jane,” His fingers traced the edge of my stockings, teasing. “Tell me, and I'll give it to you.”

Hudson had never asked me that. Not once in two years.

“I... I don't know.” I admitted, instantly feeling ashamed and inadequate.

Julius's smile was wicked. “Then let me show you.”

He unclasped my bra, tossing it aside, and lowered his mouth to my breast. The first touch of his tongue against my nipple made me arch off the bed, a moan escaping before I could stop it. 

He lavished attention on one breast, then the other, his teeth grazing sensitive flesh until I was writhing beneath him.

“So responsive,” He murmured against my skin. “Does my son know how to make you feel this way?”

“No.” I gasped, and it was the truth. Hudson barely touched me during sex. It was always quick, perfunctory, about his pleasure and nothing else.

“His loss,” Julius kissed his way down my stomach, hooking his fingers in my torn stockings and peeling them off. “My gain.”

When his mouth found me between my legs, I nearly came off the bed.

Hudson had never done this. He told me it was degrading, beneath him, something only desperate men did, but there was nothing degrading about the way Julius worshiped me with his tongue.

Nothing desperate in the deliberate way he learned what made me gasp, moan and beg.

He took his time, exploring every fold, every sensitive spot, building pleasure until I was trembling and incoherent. His fingers joined his mouth, stretching me, finding places inside me I didn't know existed.

“That's it,” He encouraged when I tried to muffle my moans. “Let me hear you. Let the whole goddamn building hear how good I make you feel.”

The orgasm hit me, crashing through my body with an intensity that left me shaking and breathless. Julius didn't stop, drawing out every aftershock until I was boneless and oversensitive.

When he finally pulled away, his mouth glistening, his eyes were molten silver.

“Beautiful,” He said again, stripping off his clothes with efficient movements. “Absolutely fucking perfect.”

He entered me slowly this time, letting me feel every thick inch as he filled me. It was different without the frantic desperation of the car. It was deeper, more intimate and more devastating.

Julius set a steady rhythm, his hands gripping my hips, his eyes never leaving my face. He watched every expression, adjusted his angle when he found a spot that made me cry out and learned my body like it was something worth studying.

“Look at me," He commanded when my eyes started to flutter closed. “I want to see you when you come.”

I obeyed, meeting his intense gaze, and it was almost too much, but I couldn't look away.

The second orgasm built slower and deeper, until it consumed everything. I came apart beneath him, and Julius followed moments later with a groan that sounded almost pained.

We lay tangled together afterward, both of us catching our breath. Julius pulled me against his chest, his fingers threading through my hair.

“Stay.” He said simply.

I should have said no, but I was so tired of saying no to things I actually wanted.

“Okay.” I whispered.

We moved together again sometime in the night. It was slower and sweeter with Julius making love to me like I mattered. Like I was more than just a body to use.

When I finally drifted off, wrapped in expensive sheets and Julius's arms, I felt safer than I had in years.

Morning light streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows, dragging me back to consciousness. I blinked groggily, disoriented by the unfamiliar surroundings.

Sleek modern bedroom. Panoramic view of the city. Everything expensive and luxurious, and then it all came crashing back.

The wedding. Hudson and Maribel. The car. Julius.

Oh fuck. Julius.

I sat up abruptly, the sheet falling away from my naked body. My wedding dress was still crumpled on the floor by the door, a white lace monument to everything I had destroyed yesterday.

I had slept with Hudson's father.

Not just slept with him. I let him fuck me, multiple times. Enthusiastically. I had begged for it, moaned his name, let him do things to me that Hudson had never even attempted.

The man who was supposed to become my father-in-law had spent the night worshipping between my thighs.

Horror washed over me and it was truly cold and nauseating.

What had I done?