Chapter 3

NADIA.

Jeremy's gaze dropped to the black folder crushed against my chest.

Then, slowly, he stood.

Oh, God.

He rose from that couch to his full height, the way a tide comes in, unhurried and completely, like he had all the time in the world and I was the one running out of it.

I forgot how to breathe.

Six-foot-three of hard muscles and long legs. Every inch of him bare. Broad chest, a stomach cut like something carved out of stone, forearms roped with veins, and hands big enough to wrap my whole throat.

And between his legs...

God.

He was still hard, thick, flushed at the tip. It stood upright, curving slightly, impossibly large, bobbing with every step he took toward me.

I couldn't look away. I swear, I tried to look away, but I couldn't.

My face burned so hot I thought I might actually die from it.

Move.

Run.

Scream.

Do something other than stare at your naked boss like a complete idiot.

My legs refused to move. They had turned to concrete, fused to the floor, betraying every sane instinct screaming at me to run.

He didn't stop until he was close enough that I had to tip my head all the way back to hold his eyes as my back hit the wall behind me.

The folder pressed so hard against my chest that the edge dug beneath my breastbone. I barely noticed.

Slowly, he braced his left hand on the wall just above my head.

I felt small and stupid and foldable, trapped between his naked body and the wall while my brain kept screaming at me to look anywhere except down.

I looked down anyway.

God help me, I looked.

He was still hard, thick, flushed, and shamelessly erect between us, almost poking my stomach.

His presence was overwhelming.

I'd never had to stand alone in a room with my boss before. I always thought I could never stand it. And I was right.

Because, right here, his presence was slowly drowning and swallowing me whole.

The corner of my left eye stung from looking up at him for too long.

He wasn't saying anything. He was just... Looking...

His flat, burning gaze peered deep into my eyes like he was trying to dissect my very soul.

I had never understood how silence could feel violent until Jeremy Kellason aimed his at me.

I could not stand it.

“What…” My voice cracked, so I tried again. “What were you doing?”

His head tilted, like the question was mildly amusing. “What was I doing?” he repeated, very softly. “In my bedroom? In my private suite? On my phone?”

He smirked and let the silence rot for a while. "Never seen a man fist his cock before?"

Goosebumps rushed over my arms so fast it hurt. The rawness of the words made my stomach drop and twist at the same time.

I've never been in my boss's unprofessional space before, not even when he is around Liam.

"I..." The word died when his gaze lowered to my mouth.

"The question should be, what are you doing?" His voice was so quiet that it preceded an avalanche.

"What?" I breathed, still confused and trying to get a hold of myself.

"It's nearly two in the morning. You're in my private suite. You're holding a confidential executive review folder you were never authorized to touch, pressed against your tits." His eyes dropped slowly, and dragged back up, and my face went up in flames.

"You came through a door no one opened for you, stood in my doorway and watched me get off until you couldn't keep still anymore." A pause that lasted a year. "And you'd like to know what I was doing?"

He leaned in enough that his chest nearly brushed mine. "So I'll ask you." His breath hit my forehead. "What are you doing, Nadia?"

My words suddenly failed me. But he waited, impossibly patiently, like a predator who already knew how this ended.

"I didn't — I wasn't snooping; the folder got into my bag somehow, I don't even know how, it must've gotten mixed in when you — and I came to give it back, that's all, that's the whole—"

"You came to give it back." He nodded slowly, holding my lie upright so we could both watch it topple. "At two a.m."

"I knocked, the door wasn't even latched, I called your name—"

"And then you entertained yourself." His voice dropped.

I should have had the upper hand. He was the one with pictures of me. Naked. In my own bedroom. Dozens of them. Sorted like some unholy collection.

But somehow, with his hand over my head and his body caging mine, I felt like I was the one who had been caught.

"Why do you have those photos?" I whispered. "Private ones. In my apartment. How did you—"

"You're asking the wrong question." He breathed. "You should be curious about how a woman engaged to Liam Orlands ended up under this level of surveillance from me."

His other hand came up slowly and traced my neck, like he was weighing how easy it would be to squeeze and end me right there.

Suddenly, his thumb brushed lightly over my pulse point, observing me carefully while at it.

My body, traitorous little thing, responded shamelessly to his touch... A man's touch.

I hadn't been touched in weeks. But that wasn't reason enough to feel such ache between my thighs from being touched by a man who could as well be a serial killer for all I now knew.

“Sir…” My voice came out breathless. “What are you doing?”

His thumb moved once over my pulse.

“You’re Liam’s best friend,” I whispered, pressing myself further into the wall.

Jeremy’s eyes darkened.

"And yet, you sent videos of you fucking yourself to me." He growled.

"No..." My eyes widened. "I didn't. I... I sent it to Liam. I didn't..."

Realization slowly dawned on me... Could I have... No. God, no.

The floor pitched under me. "That was an accident, I swear."

"Was it?" He asked with a menacing smile. "Six photos and one vivid video? An accident?"

I nodded. "I swear, it was."

He was quiet for a while.

"Then, let's see how Liam reacts to this accident." He said, turning around to walk back to the couch when I moved on pure, undiluted instinct.

I grabbed his hand with mine, and it all happened so fast that I couldn't even process it.

He turned.

His hand closed around my throat before I could blink, and my back hit the wall hard enough to knock the breath out of me.

The folder slipped from my arms and hit the floor with a dull slap.

His face was inches from mine now, and I watched control drain from his eyes.

"Put your hands on me again," he growled, his mouth so close to my ear that I felt every word vibrate down my spine, "and I swear to fuck, I'll forget all about friendship and brotherhood. I'll forget every reason I've had to stay on this side of you."

His hips pressed forward. His erection, so thick, hot, and impossibly hard, shoved against my stomach until I felt it jerk like it had a pulse of its own.

"And I'll fuck you so hard, you'd think you've been fucked by a beast."

His breathing turned ragged.

"Because you don't get to send me a video like that with you on your bed, your fingers buried in that greedy little cunt, moaning like a whore in heat, and then walk into my bedroom at two in the morning, touch me with those shaking little hands, and still expect to leave untouched."

His words carried both ice and fire.

His eyes burned intensely, like I'd lit a match in a gas station.

My hands flew to his strong one, desperate for air.

"Sir... Jeremy... Please." I managed.

“Tell me the truth,” His voice reduced to a menacing whisper. “Did you send them on purpose?”

“No.”

His eyes searched mine like he wanted to cut the answer out of me.

"You want to get fucked by me?"

I shook my head. "No. No. I swear, no."

He held my gaze for a second too long as something crossed his eyes. But he looked away before I could read into it and released me so suddenly I almost fell.

He slowly turned his back to me, almost like he couldn't stand me anymore.

“Then you better run. While you still can.”