Chapter Four

I didn’t knock.

I just pushed the door open and stepped inside like I had every right to be there.

He was standing by the window, city lights bleeding red and gold through half-open blinds. A black silk robe hung loose on his frame, the belt knotted low on his hips, and when he turned, the lamplight caught the sharp cut of his jaw, the hollow beneath his cheekbone, the glint of pale eyes making him look so deliciously dangerous—or was it dangerously delicious?

My lungs stopped working.

Cora hadn’t been exaggerating. This man was stupidly, unfairly hot.

“Hi,” I said, and my voice cracked like I was thirteen. Heat flooded my face. “So, um. I’ve never actually done this before.”

He tilted his head, “Done what, exactly?”

Was that surprise I saw on his face?

“Fucked a stranger in a sex club.” The words tumbled out too fast. “But at least you’re ridiculously attractive, so… small mercies, right?” I swallowed hard. “Look, I don’t need romance or sweet talk or any of that. I just need my virginity gone before they drag me down the aisle in three days to marry some Alpha I’ve never even met.”

Something flickered across his expression—surprise? Anger? It was gone too fast to name.

“Is that so?” His voice was low and rough, like smoke over gravel, and it did something dangerous to my stomach.

“Yes. That’s exactly so.” I was rambling now, couldn’t stop myself. “I don’t even know what the Alpha looks like. Could be hideous. Could have three heads and breath like a sewer. Doesn’t matter. I have dreams that don’t include being a crippled man’s glorified incubator, so here we are. Here I am. Talking too much because I’m nervous and—”

I realized I was still clutching my little black purse like it could shield me from what was about to happen. I dropped it on the floor with a soft thud.

“I talk when I’m nervous,” I muttered, forcing myself to meet his eyes through the mask. “We can start whenever you’re ready.”

He stepped closer. Slowly. Deliberately.

“Are you sure about this?” he asked, and there was something careful in his tone. Almost gentle.

I nodded. “Positive. Completely sure. Let’s do this before I lose my nerve.”

I reached for the hem of my dress, fingers fumbling with the zipper—and then his hands were on my wrists, stopping me.

Before I could process what was happening, his mouth was on mine.

Not in a soft way I had imagined my first kiss to be like.

Hungry.

His lips were warm and firm, tasting faintly of whiskey and something darker, more dangerous. One large hand slid to the back of my neck, thumb pressing just beneath the edge of my mask, tilting my head exactly where he wanted it. The kiss ignited something inside me—sparks racing down my spine, heat pooling liquid and urgent between my thighs.

I made a helpless, needy sound against his tongue.

Dearest goddess, this feels good.

He feels so good.

He broke the kiss only to lift me like I weighed absolutely nothing, and my legs wrapped around his waist on pure instinct. The robe parted and I felt bare, scorching skin against my thighs and realized with a jolt that he was completely naked underneath.

Oh Goddess.

He carried me to the bed and laid me down like I was something precious, something worth savoring. The silk sheets were cool against my overheated back. He followed me down, mouth never leaving mine, kissing me until I was dizzy and breathless, until the only thing that existed was the heat of his body hovering over me and the taste of him on my tongue.

His hands started slow—palms gliding up my calves, behind my knees, pushing my dress higher inch by agonizing inch.

Every bit of skin he uncovered, he kissed—open-mouthed and deliberate, like he was memorizing the geography of my body. When he reached the tops of my thighs, he paused, breath ghosting hot over the lace of my panties.

I was trembling and shaking like a leaf.

“Tell me if you want to stop,” he murmured against my inner thigh. “At any point. I mean it.”

“Don’t you dare stop,” I gasped.

A dark, pleased chuckle rumbled through his chest. Then his fingers hooked into the lace and dragged my panties down my legs in one smooth motion, tossing them somewhere across the room.

I tried to close my knees—old habit, shame I didn’t know I still carried after Elias’s cruel words—but he caught my thighs in firm hands and spread them wide, settling between them like he belonged there. Like he’d been made to fit there.

The first swipe of his tongue was soft, exploratory, and testing. The second was firmer, parting me, tasting me like I was something sweet and rare he’d been craving for years.

My back arched clean off the bed.

He didn’t rush. He licked me slow and thorough—long, dragging strokes that made my toes curl into the sheets, little focused flicks against my clit that had me fisting handfuls of black silk. Every time I got close to the edge, he backed off, kissing the sensitive inside of my thigh, letting the ache build and build until I was writhing, begging in broken whispers that didn’t sound like me at all.

“Please… Goddess, please, I can’t—”

Only then did he slide one thick finger inside me.

The stretch burned for a second, sharp and foreign, then melted into something so overwhelmingly good I actually sobbed. He crooked that finger, found some devastating spot inside me that turned my bones to liquid, and sucked my clit into his mouth at the exact same moment.

I came so hard I saw stars.

My thighs clamped around his head, a cry ripping out of me that sounded wild and inhuman. He didn’t stop—kept licking me through it, softer now but relentless, drawing out every last pulse of pleasure until I was shaking and oversensitive and tugging weakly at his hair.

Only then did he lift his head.

His lips were swollen and glistening. His eyes behind the mask were absolutely feral.

“Still sure about this?” he asked, voice completely wrecked.

I couldn’t form words. Could barely remember my own name. I just nodded frantically.

He rose up over me and the robe fell completely open. I got my first full look at him—broad shoulders, a chest marked with old scars that looked like battle wounds, abs cut deep and defined, and lower…

Goddess have mercy.

He was thick and hard and beautiful, a bead of moisture already gleaming at the tip.

I should have been terrified. I wasn’t.

He rolled on protection with steady, practiced hands, then settled back between my thighs. The blunt head of him nudged my entrance, hot and insistent.

“Breathe,” he whispered, forehead pressed to mine, giving me his weight. “Just breathe through it.”

I exhaled shakily.

He pushed in—slow but relentless, giving me nowhere to run. The stretch was intense, a burn that blurred the line between pain and pleasure until I couldn’t tell them apart. I whimpered, nails digging crescents into his shoulders. He stilled immediately, letting me adjust, kissing my jaw, my throat, my temple, murmuring soft reassurances I couldn’t quite hear over the roar of blood in my ears.

When he was fully seated—when I could feel him everywhere, filling me completely—he paused. We stayed like that, joined and trembling, breathing each other’s air.

Then he started to move.

Slow, deep strokes that dragged over every sensitive nerve inside me. Each thrust sent electricity shooting up my spine. I wrapped my legs high around his waist, heels digging into the small of his back, urging him deeper, harder, more.

He groaned—a broken, animalistic sound—and the rhythm changed. Harder. Faster. More desperate. The headboard slammed against the wall in a steady, primal beat that would’ve embarrassed me if I could think clearly enough to care.

I felt it building again, bigger this time, tighter, something massive gathering low in my belly. His hand slid between our bodies, thumb finding my clit and circling in perfect time with his thrusts.

“Come for me,” he growled against my ear, voice raw. “Come on my dick, baby. Let me feel it.”

I shattered.

The orgasm crashed over me like a tidal wave, dragging me under, lights exploding behind my closed eyes. I clenched around him involuntarily, heard him curse viciously, and felt his rhythm stutter and break as he followed me over the edge, burying himself as deep as physically possible and staying there, pulsing hot inside me.

For a long moment, the only sound was our ragged breathing.

He dropped his forehead to mine, both of us shaking and spent.

Eventually he pulled out carefully, disposed of the condom, and disappeared into the bathroom. I heard water running. Then he was back, sliding into bed beside me, pulling the sheet up over both of us like this was normal. Like we did this every night.

I was sore everywhere. Floating. Raw in places I didn’t know existed.

He brushed a strand of sweat-damp hair from my cheek, his thumb lingering on my jaw.

I turned my face into his palm without thinking, seeking comfort I had no right to ask for.

I fell asleep to the steady beat of his heart under my ear.

I didn’t know that the heart I was listening to belonged to the very man I was running from.