Chapter 4

NADIA.

Thank God I made it to the lounge before my legs gave out.

It irked me to know that I still had to sleep here, despite fearing that Jeremy would barge in, shove me into the wall, and finish what he started, because going home at this hour wasn't a thing a sane person did, and I was clearly not, tonight, a sane person.

'Run, Nadia. While I'm still letting you.'

I sat on the edge of that bed, shaking as his words still echoed in my head, running down my ribcage, and all the way to my lower abdomen, pulling warmth that had no business being there right now.

I pressed the heels of my palms into my eyes until I saw sparks. And there he was anyway, behind my own eyelids, where he had no right to be.

The image of him rising off that couch slow and bare and enormous, all that carved muscle in the lamplight.

His hand wrapped around his cock. The thickness of it. The way it stood upright, flushed at the tip, bobbing as he walked toward me.

Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.

I was not going to.

But my body didn't listen. It never listened. My thighs pressed together, and I felt that familiar, shameful ache bloom between them.

That man had hundreds of pictures of me, photographs from inside my own bedroom!

He'd been collecting me like I was art, and my body — my stupid, traitor body — kept betraying me. Some rotten, hungry thing under my ribs had stood in that doorway and wanted... Wanted the worst man I'd ever met because he was the only one in two — three — God, how long — who'd looked at me like that.

The sound he made and the way he'd looked at the video of me falling apart would haunt me forever.

I dug my nails into my own arm so hard like pain could scrub it out.

It didn't.

God, it didn't.

I was disgusting. Fine. Noted. Moving on.

Because I couldn't sit here being disgusting all night. I had to think.

The police were out of the question. Already ruled that out.

Liam? He already called me paranoid. How would he believe my story without a single proof? I hadn't even been smart enough to take photos of those folders.

Shit.

And, confronting Jeremy again? It already felt like a death sentence. That man, as much as Liam, holds my mother's life in his hands. One wrong move and I won't just lose a fight; I’ll lose her. So, how can I offend such a man?

I couldn't go to the police. I couldn't go to Liam. I couldn't quit, couldn't run, couldn't even let Jeremy see that my hands were still shaking — because that was the thing he wanted. Men like Jeremy thrived on fear. And I wasn't willing to give him that.

So, if warm arithmetic wasn't working, then maybe I'd stick to cold arithmetic.

The one move that gave Jeremy nothing was to give him nothing. To walk in tomorrow with my face arranged and my coffee in my hand and be exactly as unbothered as I could be.

I could do that. I was good at that. Arranging my face was the one skill no one could take from me.

Those photos were still on his laptop. All I had to do was get proof that they existed, and that'll be a great start to being free from the trap he thinks he had me in.

It was a terrible plan. It put me back in his orbit on purpose, which was the exact opposite of 'run-while-I'm-letting-you.'

But I had no choice.

I changed into my pajamas, and I lay there for fifteen minutes. My heart drummed so hard I could feel it in my throat.

Sleep wasn't coming.

That little, traitorous bitch between my legs wouldn't stop aching. Every time I shifted, the pressure built, and every time I closed my eyes, he was there.

God, I was so sensitive to the point of madness.

I'd missed my man. I was dying to have him touch me. Instead, the image of Jeremy clouded my imagination.

I hated him.

I hated my body even more for responding.

And I hated that I was already sliding my hand down my stomach, past my waistband, because I couldn't fight it anymore.

I was soaking wet. So embarrassingly wet it made my throat close.

I shut my eyes and forced Liam into my head, as that's the least I could do in order not to feel like I was betraying him.

I ground my palm down hard against my clit, fingers driving in and out of myself in a rhythm gone filthy and desperate, soaked to the wrist.

I pictured Liam’s hands, if I could even remember what they felt like without making something up.

Safe Liam. Boring Liam. The man I was supposed to marry.

But no matter how hard I tried, the image dissolved into silver-gray eyes. A flat, unblinking stare that had looked at me like it was dissecting every shameful thought I'd ever had.

“No,” I whispered, furious now. “No, not him.”

Two fingers eased inside my wetness while I pictured Liam's hands in me. I worked them deeper, moaning his name. But it didn't fall in line.

What rose up instead, uninvited, was Jeremy's hand wrapped around his thick cock, fisting himself in those hard, punishing strokes, making me wonder what such thick length would feel like in a woman.

I picture myself in that room — being bent over that low table, him shoving inside me from behind with the same brutal lack of apology he'd worn standing there naked.

I imagined him not stopping at his hand on my throat. I imagined him ripping my blouse open, biting down on my shoulder hard enough to leave teeth marks I'd have to explain to no one because no one would ever know, fucking me against that wall the way he'd promised — like a beast — while I sobbed and clawed and came anyway, came because of how little say I had in it.

God help me, I wanted that. I wanted to be made to take it instead of choosing it, because choosing it made me filthy in a way I couldn't survive, but being taken—

God.

'Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.'

My finger curled up, finding the place that made my spine arch off the mattress, and I let two fingers sink in, fucking myself harder than I intended to, my hips canting up to meet my own hand because some traitor part of me had already decided who this was for.

I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood just to keep myself from moaning. It was shameful enough that I was chasing my climax with another man's image in my head. I couldn't let myself moan for him.

No.

No. I couldn't.

"Ah... Oh, god." The moan slipped as images of Jeremy's veined hand braced against the wall came replaying in my head.

I clasped my mouth with my palm as I arched off the bed, stifling the moan. I was so sensitive. Every nerve felt raw and exposed, like he'd peeled back my skin and left me open.

"Jesus. No. Please." The shame was too much. But so was the pleasure that came with it.

I was close. My thighs were shaking so hard they ached, and my free hand fisted tightly into the sheet that my knuckles ached.

His voice when he said:

'You wanted my attention, Nadia. You've got it. Now lie in it.'

It broke me utterly, making my orgasm rip through me, so hot and shameful, that I saw stars.

I came with my teeth sunk into my own forearm to keep the sound trapped where it belonged, hips jerking in helpless little pulses against my own hand, my whole body wrung out and shaking by the time it finally let me go, leaving me gasping and trembling and disgusted with myself as I came undone.

I pressed both hands over my face like I could physically shove the last ten minutes back inside myself.

I sat up quickly, breathing hard and staring at my fingers like they belonged to someone else as I made my way to the bathroom.

I washed my hands until they stung. “Oh, my God,” I whispered.

Shame, guilt, betrayal, all threatened to swallow me whole.

I gripped the edge of the sink and stared at my reflection. “No one knows,” I told my reflection. "He doesn't know. And he doesn't have to know."

I shoved those words into my subconscious and hoped against all odds that by the time I faced my boss tomorrow, my guilt and shame would know better than to betray me.

Because he could never know the shameful truth that my body had already given him everything he hadn't even asked for.