Chapter Eight: Aftershocks

Sarah’s breath was ragged, uneven, her chest rising and falling in frantic waves as she pulled back, lips glistening, trembling all over.

She had done it.

God help her, she had actually done it.

Her hands shook as she clutched the sheets to her chest, body pressed against the side of the bed as though distance could erase what just happened. Her tongue burned with the taste of him, her lips swollen from worship, her knees sore from kneeling too long.

And yet the ache between her thighs was fiercer than ever.

Her body hummed with a wild, dangerous electricity, but her mind screamed. She had crossed a line no one even knew existed. She had opened a door she swore she would never touch.

Her ex-husband’s voice echoed again. Disgusting. Dirty. Sick.

Sarah pressed her trembling hand against her mouth as if to hold the shame in.

But then, “Sarah…”

Her name. Spoken in that low, hoarse, broken voice that wrapped around her like smoke.

Her eyes shot up. He was watching her, eyes half-lidded, chest heaving, his arms stretched above his head still bound to the headboard. Sweat glistened down his body, muscles taut, legs trembling from everything she had just done to him.

He looked wrecked. Absolutely wrecked. And yet he still held that maddening air of control, as though even bound and undone, he was the one who owned the moment.

His voice came again, softer, rawer. “Untie me.”

Sarah’s stomach clenched.

Her throat closed up, panic rising like a tide. She staggered to her feet, clutching the sheets tighter, shaking her head. “I—I can’t. I don’t even know who you are.”

Her words cracked through the heavy silence.

The truth of it hit her like a slap. She didn’t know him. Not his name, not his life, not why fate had thrown him into her drunken orbit last night. She had worshiped him like a goddess, tasted him like he belonged to her, yet he was a stranger.

His gray-blue eyes flickered, sharp even through the haze of pleasure still lingering in them. “That doesn’t matter.”

“It does,” she snapped, voice trembling. “God, it matters! I can’t—” She cut herself off, pressing a hand to her temple. Her head throbbed with the lingering edge of her hangover, with the pounding rhythm of guilt and want colliding inside her skull.

She wanted to scream. To laugh. To cry.

“I don’t even know your name,” she whispered, broken.

For the first time since she’d woken up to find him in her bed, cuffed and impossibly gorgeous, his expression shifted. Not smug. Not amused. Something else. Something unreadable.

And he didn’t answer.

Her pulse spiked. “Tell me,” she demanded, though her voice shook. “Tell me who you are.”

His jaw clenched, the muscle ticking. His eyes pinned her in place, unblinking, burning with an intensity that made her knees weak.

But his lips stayed sealed.

The silence was worse than any name he could have spoken.

Sarah’s heart thudded violently. Her fingers trembled as she gripped the sheet tighter, as if the thin cotton could protect her from the gravity of what she had just done.

“You can’t just—” Her voice cracked. She dragged her gaze away from him, staring at the floor, the dresser, anywhere but those molten gray-blue eyes. “I don’t know what this was. I don’t know what came over me. But it’s not me. It’s not—”

Her throat closed. She couldn’t even finish the lie.

Because it was her. Maybe the truest part of her she’d ever dared to touch.

And he knew it.

“You wanted it,” he said finally, voice low, steady.

Her eyes snapped to him. His chest still heaved, his wrists strained against the cuffs, but his gaze was sharp, unyielding. “Don’t deny it, Sarah. You wanted me.”

Her breath hitched violently.

Her knees trembled as if the truth in his words could physically shake her apart. She turned away, covering her face with both hands.

“I don’t know what I want,” she whispered into her palms.

The lie tasted bitter.

From the bed, the sound of metal rattling cut through the silence as he tugged at the restraints again. The clink, clink, clink was maddening, dragging her focus back to him whether she wanted it or not.

“You’re shaking,” he murmured. “Because you’re scared.”

Her eyes burned. She dropped her hands, glaring at him through her tears. “Of course I’m scared! I just—” She faltered, chest heaving. “I just did something insane with a man I don’t even know. And you… you’re not even asking. You’re not—” Her voice broke. “You’re not disgusted.”

His gaze softened, only slightly. Enough to undo her.

“I told you,” he said, voice a rough whisper. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting.”

Her lips parted, but no words came. Because deep down, she wanted to believe him.

Her heart ached, her body ached, her soul torn between the shame drilled into her and the forbidden freedom of what she had just tasted.

Silence stretched. Heavy. Fragile.

Sarah stepped back, clutching the sheet around her. She couldn’t look at him anymore, not when her own reflection in his eyes showed her something too raw, too terrifying.

And then, a knock.

The sound sliced through the air like a blade. Sarah froze. Her breath caught in her throat.

Another knock. Louder this time. Slow. Deliberate.

Her heart pounded so hard it hurt.

Her eyes shot to the man cuffed in her bed. His head had tilted toward the door, expression unreadable, body tense despite the wrecked state she had left him in.

“Sarah, untie me.” he said, voice low, warning.

The sheet slipped from her trembling fingers. Her legs felt rooted to the floor, her lungs refusing to work.

Another knock.

And then, a complete silence.