Chapter 3

KISAREL.

The silence stretched so long it felt like punishment. He didn’t blink. He wasn't even looking at me anymore. He kept looking over my head like looking at me up close would kill him.

I know this was reckless. I mean... The last time I did something this reckless was when I took a bullet for a stranger without even thinking.

“Careful,” he said finally, “You have no idea what you’re asking for.”

I drew in a shaky breath, “I know exactly what I’m asking for,” I whispered.

That was when he looked at me fully. For the first time ever, I really understood why everyone feared Ocean Stark. He didn’t even need to speak to feel like danger. All he had to do was listen.

I'd never looked at him so up close before. And my heart refused to stop racing when his eyes pinned me to the spot.

"I don't fuck my employees, Kiss."

My knees almost buckled at the way he bit off the word Fuck. Heat crawled up my neck to my cheeks. And… had he just called me Kiss?

Moisture stung the corner of my eyes. "No one would know... I swear... Just this once. Let's be like two strangers who just hooked up for the night," I swallowed, searching his eyes.

This was a stupid move, but I couldn't go back now.

His gaze flicked down, then back to my eyes. I could almost feel the war happening inside him.

"You don't get it, Kisarel." He took a step forward, closing what little space there was between us. My breath hitched as I tried to look away, but his fingers quickly caught my chin and forced my gaze to remain on his.

“I’m getting married to your cousin,” he said softly. “And I don’t do scandals. Go to bed, hug your pillow, and cry about your boyfriend, before you ruin both of us.”

The closeness made me dizzy, like stepping too close to fire. The crown of my head barely touched his lower chin.

His voice was firm, but his pulse? I could see it beating hard at the side of his neck.

"No one will ever know," I said and dared to push further, "Unless you're scared you can't match up with the man I am trying to forget... Sir?"

With those words, I saw his eyes turn a shade darker, and something dangerous swirled in their depths.

Before I could form another word, Mr. Stark wrapped his fingers around my neck and slammed my back against the nearest wall.

“Do you always play with fire this way?” His voice had changed. Whatever cold professionalism lived in it during office hours was gone. Now it was rougher, colder and more detached.

“Only when I’ve already been burned,” I whispered.

I don't know where that came from. Some part of me that had stopped calculating risk somewhere between Jace's bedroom floor and this hotel room. Some part of me that had decided that if tonight was going to hurt regardless, it may as well hurt for something I chose.

He looked at me for a long moment. Something moved in his jaw.

His thumb pressed lightly against my pulse point and I felt my own heartbeat betray me. "You know what you want. You don't know what I take."

His eyes moved over my face with no urgency at all, which was somehow more frightening than anger.

His voice dropped to a near growl, "You want to get fucked by me?" He said through clenched teeth, like a lion whose ego was just tested. "Do you know what it means to get fucked by me?"

My hands flew to his wrists, struggling against his grip. Instead, his free hand moved to the wall beside my head, and he leaned in slowly until there was almost no space left between us. I could feel the heat coming off him, and my heart was doing something embarrassing and uncontrollable that I was certain he could feel in his palm.

"That little cunt of yours will get bruised by me. I don't make love. I'll fuck you so hard you'll beg for me to stop." He pressed me harder into the wall, “When I fuck, I don’t stop because you cry. I don’t stop because you can’t take it. I stop when I’m done. I’ll bruise you. Break you open until you forget every man who ever touched you before me. You won’t walk right for days.”

His breathing turned ragged.

"I won’t just fuck you, Kisarel. I’ll get inside your head and twist until the thought of anyone else feels wrong. I’ll become the ache you can’t cure, the ghost you’ll beg to haunt you again.”

He leaned closer, his breath hot against my mouth.

"One night won't be enough. Not for me. I want you to know that before you make this decision, because I won't pretend otherwise in the morning."

My breath caught.

"So…” His teeth grazed my jaw as his fingers tightened on my throat. “You still want to fuck with me, Kiss?”

God, his threats terrified me. But right now, the rational part of me was dead. All I wanted was to forget about Jace tonight.

"I want to see you try, sir," I blurted out the dare, pushing him to his limits.

For a second, he didn't move. Then his hand slid to the back of my neck, and he crushed his lips against mine, kissing me so hard I almost lost my breath.

"You'll be sorry you made this decision."

***

OCEANS.

Fuck.

I’d been doing everything to keep the little, hot nerd-looking girl out of my line of sight, and fate kept shoving her back under it.

When the board thought she was due for promotion and deemed my office the right place to insert her, that was when I knew I was fucked.

Since the moment I set eyes on this girl, my cock forgot what dignity was. Always jerking like a damn teenager every time she walked in.

The smell of her hair brings back memories that had been tormenting me for the past six years.

I was getting married to her cousin. And she was getting married to a man whose head I could put a bullet through, just for being the one who owned her.

I fought that lust I felt toward her. I buried it. Smothered it.

Because the last time I got involved with an employee, it nearly cost me my legacy. Since then, I’d drawn a hard line. No mixing business with anything that had a pulse and a paycheck I signed.

But right now — seeing the same woman who’d pulled something wild and starving out of me — standing in front of me, desperate, trembling, asking for the one thing my body had always craved? That was a temptation straight from hell that even the finest of God's angels would fall for without looking back.

I tried to turn her down. I fucking did.

That should have been the end of it.

I tried to turn away, because that's what a man with functioning self-control does. I had work on the table. I had a flight the next day. I had a rule I shouldn't ignore, and I had exactly enough scotch in my system to drown out that rule, which meant I needed distance more than I needed to look at her.

But she pushed really hard. And my control — usually bulletproof — buckled.

"You'll do every fucking thing I say without question. Understood?" I warned her, and she nodded hesitantly, "Use your words, Kiss."

She swallowed, and my tongue darted out and licked the movement that formed in her throat.

She shuddered, "Yes, sir."

"Good girl."

I pressed into her mouth again. Harder. She tasted like heat and salt and bad decisions. Her scent and softness tried to swallow me whole.

Fuck.

I was doing all I could not to break her. She seemed so fragile, the crown of her head barely scraping my jawline.

I pulled her off the wall and broke the kiss before I lost the rest of my senses. She was panting. Her small, plump lips were red and swollen. Her eyes were blown wide behind those damn glasses.

I took them off. " Don't ever wear that shit again."

Up close, without the frames, she was lethal. Big blue, almond eyes. Innocence and naivety dancing in them.

I took her lips again, letting my hand roam all over her body — flat over ribs, curve of waist, the line of her hip - and what I felt made me curse against her lips. Those loose skirts and gowns she wore to work were lies. There was nothing shy under there. Every inch of her was pure fucking heaven.

A full, high ass in my palms, hips that filled my grip, a body cut to make a man forget his rules.

Jesus. I almost lost it.

Her fingers clutched my shirt, tugging desperately. And when she whimpered, I knew it was over.

I pulled away again, forcing a breath past my teeth. My body screamed to stay pressed to hers, but I needed space. Needed to see exactly what I was about to burn my life down for.

Her chest rose and fell in ragged little jerks.

"Strip," I growled and stepped back to the couch, pouring myself a glass of whiskey as I sat and watched her fingers shake as she reached for the hem of that oversized shirt. God. Who the hell wore something like that to bed? A shapeless tent that only made me want to rip it off.

The shirt hit the floor. The shorts followed.

She stood before me, naked, with some white cotton pants that did it's best to cover every corner of her ass like it was a secret she was trying so hard to hide.

Her bra didn't look like something I'd choose for a young girl, if asked.

But the body in those underwears...? Any man alive would kill to have that body under him, screaming his name.

I dragged a thumb across my lower lip, staring at her. My cock throbbed so hard it hurt.

“Kneel.” My voice dropped into something darker than a command.

She narrowed her brows, a thousand questions probably swirling in her head, but one look from me, and she dropped all that hesitation. And the moment her knees hit the floor, something in me went feral. That submission. Fuck.

Her hands were at her sides. Head bowed, hair sliding forward like a curtain.

Christ. Seeing her like that — trembling, skin goose-pimpled, chest rising and falling as she tried to breathe — made my restraint splinter.

I set the whiskey down without looking away from her. My palms flattened on my knees as I leaned forward.

"Now, crawl to me."