LOGINEricStevan had already come out of the bathroom. He was wearing a light pair of shorts and a pale T-shirt that seemed a little too large for his slender frame, accentuating that air of untouched youth even more. He sat on the edge of the bed, brown hair slightly mussed, staring at his own hands.I placed the ice bucket and the bottle on the nightstand. I poured two generous measures of the dark liquid and walked over to him, holding out one of the glasses.“Drink,” I said, keeping my tone low, almost like a magnetic whisper. “It’s not to get you drunk like at the club, Stevan. It’s just to help your mind stop running in circles.”He took the glass, his fingers brushing mine for a fraction of a second. The touch of his skin was cold. He took a long sip, closing his eyes as the strong flavor of the wine slid down his throat.I moved away to the closet in the room and retrieved a strip of soft, opaque black silk. I returned to the bed and stood right in front of him. When Stevan saw the
EricThe display on my watch showed a little past ten in the morning, but my mind had never left that wooden door in the hallway of the apartment where Stevan had been living since the night before.I wasn’t used to retreating. I never had been. In my life—whether in every corporate merger or in each of my previous sexual contracts—the dynamic had always been surgical: I proposed, the amount was transferred, and the delivery happened. No noise. No hesitation.But what Stevan had done the night before… that scene kept repeating itself in an uncomfortable loop inside my head. Him standing in front of me, vulnerable in that cotton robe, green eyes shining with a torturous mixture of guilt and crushing gratitude, offering himself halfway.I ran a hand over my face, feeling the knuckles still slightly sore from the punch I had thrown at his former boss.If I were the pragmatic monster the media usually painted me as, I would have accepted. I would have pushed that robe off his shoulders ri
StevanChanging My MindThe selfishness of my own morality choked me. I couldn’t keep acting like a victim when he was saving my mother’s life.“Eric, wait,” I called, my voice coming out louder and more urgent than I had planned.He stopped, releasing the doorknob. His brown eyes narrowed slightly, assessing the drastic change in my posture.“What is it, Stevan?”I took a step forward, closing the distance between us until I could feel the heat radiating from his body. My hands clenched the fabric of the robe so tightly that my knuckles turned white.“I… I spent the entire dinner thinking about what happened in the office,” I began, feeling my heart hammer against my ribs like a caged animal. I swallowed the pride, the shame, and the fear, forcing myself to look at him directly. “I know what you did for us. I know how much you’re spending on my mother’s hospital, on this house, on the transfer… and I know you have a signed contract. I felt guilty. I felt like I’m being unfair to you
StevanThe selfishness of my own morality choked me. I couldn’t keep acting like a victim when he was saving my mother’s life.“Eric, wait,” I called, my voice coming out louder and more urgent than I had planned.He stopped, releasing the doorknob. His brown eyes narrowed slightly, assessing the drastic change in my posture.“What is it, Stevan?”I took a step forward, closing the distance between us until I could feel the heat radiating from his body. My hands clenched the fabric of the robe so tightly that my knuckles turned white.“I… I spent the entire dinner thinking about what happened in the office,” I began, feeling my heart hammer against my ribs like a caged animal. I swallowed the pride, the shame, and the fear, forcing myself to look at him directly. “I know what you did for us. I know how much you’re spending on my mother’s hospital, on this house, on the transfer… and I know you have a signed contract. I felt guilty. I felt like I was being unfair to you by asking for m
Stevan He didn’t say a single word about my hesitation in the office. And that absence of direct pressure only made me more tense. It felt like walking through a minefield, waiting for the next click.“Shall we move to the table?” Eric suggested picking up the plates and nodding toward the dark wooden dining table just beside us.“Of course.”We sat across from each other. The distance was safe, but the silence that settled for a few moments seemed filled by my own anxiety. I chewed the food almost without tasting it, even though it was delicious. My eyes kept drifting up, watching the way he ate, the way he held the cutlery with knuckles still lightly scraped from the punches he had thrown at my former boss.Noticing that I was studying him openly, Eric set his utensils aside for a moment, picked up his wine glass, and leaned back slightly in the chair. Those brown eyes fixed on me with surgical precision.“You’re very quiet, Stevan,” he commented, swirling the liquid in the glass w
StevanThe name slipped past my lips before I could process the surprise of that scene. If someone had told me two days ago that the most powerful and feared man at Winter Corp would be standing at the door of my apartment at night, I probably would have laughed at the joke. But there he was.And God, he looked absurdly handsome.I was used to seeing him armored in dark, custom-made suits with impeccable cuts that radiated an almost untouchable authority at the company. The impact of his casual version caught me completely off guard.He wore perfectly fitted dark pants and a charcoal-gray button-down shirt with the sleeves neatly rolled up to his strong forearms, revealing pale skin where an expensive watch gleamed under the dim hallway light. His hair, always meticulously styled, had a few slightly out-of-place strands, giving him a dangerously relaxed look.In one hand, he carried his jacket with the usual elegance; in the other, a thick paper bag bearing the discreet logo of a rest
I grabbed my things and stood up. I needed to clear my head, and Diego, as always, had a way of making that easier.I headed downstairs and spotted him leaning against a shiny new BMW. I never understood how he pulled it off. He wasn’t rich—at least, not on paper—but he’d always lived surrounded by
Stevan“Your mother is going to need additional dialysis sessions.”The doctor said it with the same detached tone someone might use to confirm an appointment time, not like he’d just split my life open. He kept talking after that. Kidney function. Test results. Percentages. Numbers.None of it rea
I glanced at Diego. For a split second, I had the uncomfortable feeling that he’d read every silent word I hadn’t dared to say out loud.“If you were up for it, we could straight-up auction off your virginity,” he blurted, nudging my shoulder with a grin, clearly amused by his own idea.I nearly di
We pulled up in front of a private club.The place instantly set off every warning bell I had.Diego greeted the bouncers at the door like old friends—too comfortable, too familiar—and we walked straight in. The club wasn’t open yet. A few staff members moved around the main floor, adjusting lights







