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His hand cupped my breast, thumb circling the hardened tip, while his mouth claimed mine with bruising hunger. My back pressed against the leather seat, my legs tangled with his, and I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think—couldn’t care.
The warmth of his tongue dragged over my nipple through silk, teasing, tasting, until I whimpered against his lips. One hand kneaded me slowly, deliberately, while the other squeezed my waist, anchoring me in place like I belonged to him.I didn’t push him away. I pulled him closer.
“Damon…” My voice broke on his name, shaky, pleading.
He groaned into my mouth, deep and guttural, like he’d been starving for me since the moment he saw me. His lips left a trail of fire down my throat. His teeth grazed my skin, and my thighs squeezed together helplessly.
I knew it was wrong.
I knew it could destroy us both.
But in the backseat of that car, with rain pelting the tinted glass and my father’s empire only streets away, wrong had never felt so intoxicating.
This wasn’t how a bodyguard should touch his boss’s daughter.
This wasn’t how Marcus Kingsley’s perfect heiress should behave.
Yet Damon Cross didn’t kiss me like an employee.
He kissed me like a man who had already decided I was his.
⸻
Six Weeks Earlier
I should have known trouble the moment I saw him.
The gala was suffocating. Champagne, chandeliers, a hundred false smiles. My father clamped his hand around my arm as he dragged me from one shareholder to the next, showing me off like I was another glittering asset in his collection.
And then, in the corner of the ballroom, I saw him.
Damon Cross.
He didn’t mingle. He didn’t smile. He didn’t sip champagne. He stood at the edge of the light, tall and broad, his black suit stretched across a body built for war, not waltzes. His eyes swept the room with sharp calculation—until they landed on me.
And stayed.
Everyone else saw “Aria Kingsley, the billionaire’s daughter.”
Damon looked at me like he saw the girl beneath the diamonds.
And that was infinitely more dangerous.
⸻
The danger came quickly.
A crash outside. Shouts. The glittering crowd froze, panic rippling like a wave.
Before I could even gasp, Damon’s arm locked around me, pulling me against his chest, shielding me completely.
“Down,” he growled in my ear, his voice rough, commanding, leaving no room for argument.
I should have been terrified of the noise.
Instead, all I felt was the strength of his body caging mine.
When the chaos turned out to be nothing more than a drunken paparazzo, Damon still didn’t let go right away. His hand lingered at my waist, strong, possessive, unyielding. Too long. Too deliberate.
And when he finally released me, I knew something irreversible had begun.
⸻
Now
Six weeks later, my body was proof of it.
His mouth was hot on my breast, his hand pushing the fabric aside now, tongue swirling over bare skin until my back arched off the seat. His fingers rolled the other nipple, slow and relentless, wringing sounds from me I never knew I could make.
My nails dug into his shoulders. My legs trembled around him.
I was falling.
Falling into Damon Cross.
Falling into fire.
Then, suddenly—he stopped.
He pulled back, his breath ragged, his hand still clutching my waist like he couldn’t quite let go. His eyes, when they met mine, were darker than I’d ever seen, torn between hunger and restraint.
For one heartbeat, I thought he’d keep going.
That he’d ruin me completely right here.
Instead, his voice cut like ice.
“This can never happen again.”
The words shattered me harder than any rejection. His lips were swollen, his chest heaving, his body still betraying just how much he wanted me. But his tone was lethal, final, the voice of a man who’d drawn a line in blood.
I swallowed, my pulse screaming in protest.
“But Damon—”
He leaned closer, his mouth brushing the shell of my ear, and whispered:
“If you tempt me again, Aria, I won’t stop next time. And that will destroy us both.”
Then he pulled away, leaving me trembling in the silence, my body still burning with the imprint of his touch.
And for the first time, I realized Damon Cross might not just be my father’s protector.
He might be my downfall.
The house had never been this loud.Not even at Christmas. Not even when Father used to throw his grand charity balls just to remind the city that the Kingsleys still ruled its air.Every hallway pulsed with footsteps, with florists and decorators and the hollow chatter of people who didn’t know they were helping bury me alive.Tomorrow, I would become Mrs. Carl Sterling.Tonight, I was still me. Barely.Evelyn Sterling arrived again at dusk, her presence swallowing the room before she even spoke. She was beautiful in that untouchable, practiced way—skin too smooth for her age, voice calm enough to make you forget she was dangerous.“My dear,” she said, reaching for my hands as though she’d always known me. “You’ll make a stunning bride. The papers will adore you.”I smiled because that was what good daughters did. Damon stood in the corner, half-shadowed, his expression unreadable. Evelyn’s eyes caught him, lingered—just long enough for me to know she noticed the tension.“You’ve kep
The announcement came sooner than anyone expected.By morning, Father’s assistant was already making calls, arranging fittings, contacting florists and caterers. The air in the house shifted — heavy with perfume, gossip, and forced celebration.“Carl Sterling has agreed,” Father told me over breakfast, his tone almost triumphant. “You’ll be married before the season ends.”I didn’t answer. My fingers trembled around the cup of tea that had long gone cold.He went on as if I weren’t there. “This is a blessing, Aria. His family is powerful. The papers will write of legacy, not scandal. The world will forget what happened to Edward.”Forget.As if Edward’s death — his murder — were a stain that could be polished away with diamonds.Damon stood by the window, silent as always, but I could feel the storm building in him. He didn’t look at me once during that conversation, and that hurt worse than Father’s indifference.When I rose to leave the table, Father added, “Carl will be arriving at
By the third day after Edward’s death, the house had begun to breathe again — not with peace, but with purpose.Servants polished every surface. New flowers arrived. Father’s voice could be heard in the study, clipped and firm, arranging meetings, silencing gossip.To the outside world, we were a family in mourning.Inside, we were preparing for the next transaction.When the doorbell rang that afternoon, I already knew who it was.Father had been expecting him — Carl Sterling, Edward’s younger brother.The man who would arrive as condolence, but stay as strategy.He stepped through the doorway like he owned it.Tall. Broad-shouldered. Impeccably dressed in charcoal and silk. His features were almost too perfect — sharp jaw, sculpted cheekbones, eyes the color of whiskey poured in candlelight. He smiled, and it felt like the world exhaled for him.Even the maids paused to stare.“Carl,” Father said, rising to shake his hand. “I can’t tell you how sorry we are. Edward’s death was… sudd
Twenty-four hours after the first whisper, the household woke to a different kind of hush.The phone on Father’s desk had not stopped ringing all night. When a message came through, it slid across the room like a blade — Edward Harrington was dead; he had been found in his study alone, collapsed over his papers.The silence that followed wasn’t grief. It was calculation.Father stood at the window, his hand gripping the edge of the curtain, watching nothing and everything at once.“He was fine yesterday,” he muttered, “perfectly fine.”Mother would’ve crossed herself, whispered a prayer. But she wasn’t here. The thought of her absence ached like a reopened scar.I sat in the chair opp
He arrived like a bad thought come to life.By the time the guest was announced, the house smelled of cut roses and starch, as if the staff tried to bleach away the truth with floral perfume. I smoothed my palms over my skirt until my fingers went numb. Every mirror on the corridor reflected a pale face I didn’t recognize — the same eyes, the same mouth, only harder now.He arrived in a town car that looked too shiny for the drizzle. They brought him straight into the east wing like a royal guest. I was told to appear in the drawing room, to show gratitude and grace, like a painted animal at a show. Father had that look again—flat, rehearsed—when he introduced me.“Aria, meet Edward Sterling,” he said. “A fine man. A pillar.”If pillars could leer, he was one.Edward was the kind of man whose looks lived in the shadow of his money. He had a face that would have been handsome in another life; instead it looked worn, like a painting left too long in the sun.A thick mouth, small expecta
The palace felt colder the next morning. Not because of the weather, but because of the silence — the kind that follows after something breaks but no one dares admit it.Breakfast was served in the east hall, a place that smelled faintly of polished silver and dread. I sat at the long table, hands folded in my lap, eyes fixed on the empty plate before me. Father sat across from me, reading the day’s paper as though the world were perfectly ordinary. Damon stood by the door, silent and composed, though his jaw flexed once — a twitch only I would notice.“Eat,” Father said finally, without looking up.“I’m not hungry.”He folded the paper, placed it neatly beside his plate, and met my eyes. “That’s not a request.”The weight of his tone pressed me down. I picked up the fork, pushing food around until it no longer looked edible. Damon’s gaze flickered toward me once — just once — before Father spoke again.“I spoke with the minister last night,” he began. “And with Mr. Sterling.”The for







