CH. 2

Silence settled over the small space. Then, he turned me toward the mirrored wall.

My breath caught.

His hand remained at the back of my neck, broad, unyielding and his larger frame crowded close behind mine, surrounding me without fully touching.

"Look."

I lifted my gaze.

The reflection stole whatever oxygen I had left.

Adrian stood behind me, calm and commanding, with one hand curved possessively around my neck while I looked so small beside him. Vulnerable, even.

Heat unfurled low in my stomach as his second hand settled at my waist, drawing me backward until there wasn't even a fraction of an inch between us.

The movement was agonizingly slow, and my pulse jumped wildly.

I could feel the solid warmth of him at my back. The unmistakable awareness that every ounce of his dark attention was fixed entirely on me.

A soft gasp escaped my lips before I could stop it.

Adrian's gaze met mine in the mirror. Dark, hungry, and intent.

The hand at my waist drifted higher, stopping just beneath my ribs. Not enough to cross a line, but enough to make me ache for him to do it.

My breath came faster.

Adrian noticed, and a faint, wicked smile touched the corner of his mouth.

He leaned down, the brush of his breath against my ear making my knees weaken.

"Mine now, pet." His words were barely above a whisper. Yet they wrapped around me like a heavy, inescapable chain.

The elevator continued its descent.

Neither of us moved.

I couldn't stop staring at our reflection. At the hand around my neck. At the way he stood behind me, surrounding me completely. At the hunger simmering beneath his composure.

And the terrifying part wasn't him. It was me.

Because part of me felt like my deepest, most secret wish was finally coming true. But the rational part of my brain was kicked against this.

Everyone in the city knew Adrian was a notorious playboy. He went through beautiful, sophisticated women like they were disposable, leaving a trail of broken hearts in the tabloids.

If I gave in to this… to him, I wouldn't just be another notch on his bedpost. I would be shattered.

Yet I wanted this. Wanted the safety hidden inside his darkness.

Wanted the certainty of his control. Wanted the way a single touch from him could unravel every thought in my head.

The elevator deposited us into the cavernous underground parking garage of the Sutherland building.

The sudden shift from suffocating tension to cool, damp air made me shiver, but the heavy weight of Adrian's hand at the base of my spine kept me moving forward.

He steered me with absolute authority toward a sleek, black car idling in the VIP section.

A driver in a crisp dark suit stood beside it, posture rigid. As we approached, the driver pulled the rear door open without a word, his eyes respectfully averted.

Adrian didn't speak. His fingers simply pressed harder at my lower back in a silent command.

My legs felt like lead, but I obeyed, sliding across the cool leather of the backseat.

Adrian followed, his larger frame taking up massive space in the cabin.

The heavy door thudded shut, sealing us in.

The tinted privacy partition glided upward a second later, locking into place.

We were entirely alone.

As the car glided into motion, merging onto the rain-slicked streets of nighttime Manhattan, panic finally clawed its way up my throat.

I instinctively pressed into the far corner of the cabin, pulling my knees together and clutching my backpack to my chest like a shield.

I was trying to carve out a few desperate inches of space, trying to put as much distance as possible between myself and the man sitting beside me.

What was I doing? Getting into a car with my billionaire boss, a man I barely knew but had secretly obsessed over for two years, driving into the dead of night.

But where would I run? Back to Edwin's fists? Back to the mattress he'd torn apart?

Adrian noticed my retreat immediately.

He didn't look out the window or check his phone because his entire focus was locked onto me.

He shifted, angling his broad shoulders toward me and draping one long arm casually across the back of the leather seat.

He wasn't touching me, but the sheer heat radiating from his body bridged the gap between us, making the spacious cabin feel instantly claustrophobic.

"You're avoiding me."

I swallowed hard, staring straight ahead at the dark privacy screen. "I'm not."

"You are. You've been pressed into the upholstery since the doors closed."

I squeezed my eyes shut for a fraction of a second, trying to summon the professional intern who'd walked into his office two weeks ago.

I needed to hide the terrified girl who'd spent two years worshiping him from afar. I needed to regain some control.

I forced myself to meet his gaze. "Mr. Sutherland, I think we need to establish some boundaries."

"Boundaries." Adrian tasted the word slowly, his lips curving into a faint, dark smile that held no humor.

"Yes. Professional boundaries. You're my boss, and I'm your employee. You're the Chairman of this firm. We need to maintain appropriate distance. This... this is highly inappropriate."

Adrian moved at striking speed.

One moment I was safe in my corner, and the next, he'd closed the distance entirely.

He gripped my jaw, wrapping his fingers firmly around my chin as he tilted my face up, obliterating the space between us.

"Stop talking!"

Then he kissed me.

It wasn't gentle.

His mouth claimed mine with fierce, consuming hunger that stripped the oxygen from my lungs.

My eyes went wide in utter disbelief.

Two years of secret, desperate fantasies… of late nights wondering what it would be like to just be near him, hadn't prepared me for the devastating reality of his mouth.

He tasted of expensive scotch, dark coffee, and pure power.

I should have shoved at his chest. I should have protested, upheld the very boundaries I'd just demanded.

Instead, my traitorous body melted completely.

The backpack slipped from my grasp, tumbling to the floorboards.

My hands, which should have been pushing him away, lifted of their own accord.

My fingers fisted in the expensive wool of his lapels, pulling him closer. A soft, fractured sound escaped my throat.

Adrian swallowed the sound, taking it as permission.

His tongue swept past my parted lips in a ruthless invasion, tasting every inch of my mouth.

His hand drifted from my jaw down to my throat, thumb pressing against my racing pulse, holding me possessively in place as he devoured me.

The kiss went on and on, a dizzying assault on my senses that made the city lights blurring past the tinted windows completely vanish.

There was only him. Only the heat of his body, the bruising pressure of his mouth, and the terrifying realization that I belonged to him the second he touched me.

When he finally tore his mouth away, I was panting, head falling back against the leather seat.

My lips were swollen, parted, and tingling.

"That's what I thought." Adrian brushed his thumb lazily over my racing pulse and his dark eyes blazing with triumphant fire.

Before my spinning brain could process his words, his deft fingers moved down to the collar of my cheap blouse.

My panic spiked instantly like a cold rush of reality breaking through the haze of lust. "Mr. Sutherland—"

"Adrian. When we are alone, you call me Adrian."

He didn't wait for me to agree.

With meticulous precision, he undid the top three buttons of my blouse, pushing the fabric aside to expose my collarbone and the upper curve of my ribs.

The bruise was an ugly, mottled canvas of deep purple, sickly yellow, and angry black spreading across my side where my father's heavy boot had connected.

In the dim lighting of the car, it looked even more horrific against my pale skin.

Adrian's jaw locked. The air in the car seemed to drop ten degrees.

His fingers, so strong and capable of snapping me in half, traced the jagged edge of the bruise with a touch that was feather-light. Even so, I flinched, sucking in a sharp breath.

"Does it hurt?"

"Yes." A fresh tear slipped hot down my cheek.

Adrian’s eyes lifted from the bruised flesh to meet mine, and the sheer, violent darkness swirling in his gaze made me shiver. It was the look of a man who could destroy cities.

"Good. Remember this ache. Remember exactly what he did to you. Because you are never going back there. Do you understand me?"

I could only nod, entirely overwhelmed by the absolute certainty in his voice.

Adrian re-buttoned my blouse with the same slow precision he'd used to undo it, making sure I was fully covered.

Then the settled back into his seat, the physical distance between us returning.

But he didn't let me go.

He reached across the console, took my small, trembling hand in his, and laced his fingers tightly through mine.

His grip was firm. Almost painful. It was the grip of a man who was terrified that if he loosened his hold even a fraction, I would vanish into the night.

We drove in heavy, charged silence for several minutes.

The rhythmic hum of the tires on the wet asphalt was the only sound in the cabin.

I stared at our joined hands—his large, tanned, and powerful; mine small, pale, and trembling.

Finally, I found my voice. It was barely a whisper.

"Where are we going?"

"My penthouse." His thumb stroked slowly back and forth across my knuckles.

"Adrian. I can't just... I can't just move in with you."

He turned his head, pinning me to the seat with a gaze that stripped away any illusion of choice. "You said you had nowhere to go. Now you do."

I stared at his sharp, uncompromising profile, mind reeling. "You've thought this through. You planned this."

"I've thought of nothing else since you walked into my office two weeks ago."

The raw admission hung suspended in the quiet car.

"What?" I whispered, genuinely shocked.

“Why me?” I searched his face for a punchline, for a sign that he was mocking me.

Adrian's hand tightened around mine. He looked at me, his dark eyes entirely unreadable, but he said absolutely nothing as the car sped through the neon-lit streets toward his penthouse.