Chapter Two

Ava’s POV

I didn’t let myself think too long.

The hallway was quiet, carpet thick under my shoes. Each step felt like I was walking away from the version of myself who had planned a careful, meaningful first time with a boy who had turned out to be a liar. That girl had been left behind in Vance’s bedroom along with the last of my trust. What remained was something rawer and less careful.

The restroom at the end of the corridor was single-occupancy. The door was unlocked. I pushed it open and stepped inside.

He was there, leaning against the marble counter with his arms loosely crossed, as if he had known I would come. The same calm expression. The same quiet authority. Up close he was even more solid than he had seemed in the elevator—broad through the shoulders, silver at the temples, eyes that watched me without hurry. The door clicked shut behind me. He reached past me and turned the lock.

For a moment neither of us spoke. The only sound was the low hum of the ventilation and my own uneven breathing.

“You’re sure?” he asked. His voice was low, steady, almost gentle. There was no pressure in it, only a clear opening for me to leave.

I should have left. Everything about this was reckless. I knew nothing about him except the way my body had reacted when he pressed against me in the elevator and the strange, hollow feeling that had been sitting in my chest since I walked in on Vance. I looked at the stranger in the expensive suit and realized I did not want to be careful anymore.

“I’m sure,” I said.

Something shifted in his eyes—approval, or hunger, or both. He pushed away from the counter and closed the small distance between us. One hand rose to my face, thumb brushing the edge of my jaw as if testing the shape of me. Then he kissed me.

It was not soft. It was deliberate and deep, the kind of kiss that left no room for uncertainty. I made a small sound against his mouth and he answered by pressing me back against the door, the solid weight of his body pinning me there. His hands moved over my waist, my hips, learning the feel of me through my clothes. When he finally broke the kiss I was already breathing hard.

“On your knees,” he said quietly.

The words sent a shock of heat through me. I had never done this. The thought of Vance and all his patient waiting flashed through my mind and turned bitter. I lowered myself to the cool tile without looking away from the stranger’s face. He watched me the entire time, expression controlled, as he unbuckled his belt and freed himself. He was already hard—thick, heavy, the head flushed dark. I stared for a second, nerves and curiosity tangled together.

He didn’t rush me. One hand rested lightly in my hair as I leaned forward and took him into my mouth. The taste of clean skin and salt filled my senses. I was clumsy at first, uncertain how much I could take, but he guided me with small movements of his hand and low sounds of approval when I found a rhythm. Every time I looked up, his eyes were on me. The intensity of that gaze made my own body respond—heat gathering between my thighs, a restless ache building with every stroke of my mouth.

After a while he eased me back and helped me stand. My knees were unsteady. He turned me to face the mirror, stood behind me, and met my eyes in the glass while his hands slid under my dress. When his fingers found the wetness already waiting for him, he exhaled slowly against my neck.

“You need this,” he murmured. It was not a question.

Two fingers pressed inside me, thick and sure. I gripped the edge of the counter and let my head fall forward. He worked me with patient, devastating precision—curling his fingers, rubbing the exact spot that made my legs weaken—until I was pushing back against his hand and making sounds I barely recognized as my own. When he dropped to his knees behind me and replaced his fingers with his mouth, the pleasure sharpened into something almost unbearable. His tongue was relentless, focused, as if he had decided to pull every last thought of Vance out of my body through sheer sensation.

I came with a broken cry, thighs shaking, the empty cold in my chest momentarily burned away by heat. He rose, turned me around, and lifted me onto the edge of the counter. I heard the tear of a packet, the brief pause as he covered himself, and then he pushed into me in one slow, deep stroke.

The stretch forced the air from my lungs. He held still for a moment, forehead close to mine, letting me adjust. Then he began to move—controlled, deep thrusts that filled me completely each time. One of his hands gripped my hip; the other braced on the mirror behind me. He never looked away from my face. Every time pleasure sparked through me he seemed to see it, and every time I tried to close my eyes he murmured, “Look at me.”

I came again with my arms around his shoulders, face pressed against his neck, the scent of his cologne mixed with the scent of us. He followed soon after, a low, rough sound against my skin as he buried himself deep and held there.

For several long seconds the only sound in the restroom was our breathing.

He eased out of me carefully, disposed of the condom, and helped me down from the counter. My legs felt unreliable. He smoothed my dress back into place with surprising gentleness, then cupped my face again and brushed his thumb across my lower lip.

“You needed to feel something else,” he said quietly. “I understand that.”

I didn’t know what to say. The hollow place inside me was no longer empty, but what had filled it was complicated and dangerous. I still did not know his name. I still did not know that the man who had just taken me apart in a locked restroom was the same man whose money had kept me fed and educated for fourteen years.

He glanced at his watch, then back at me.

“I have somewhere to be,” he said. “But I won’t forget this.”

He unlocked the door, checked the hallway, and stepped out first. I waited thirty seconds, then followed on unsteady legs, the taste of him still on my tongue and the ache of him still alive between my thighs.

Somewhere above us, in a private dining room, my aunt was waiting to introduce me properly to her husband.

I did not yet know that I had already met him.