Chapter four

Aria

The lock clicked.

Loudest sound I’d ever heard in my life.

I stepped back from the door, heart slamming so hard I could feel it in my throat, and waited. One second. Two. The towel was wrapped tight around my chest and my hair was dripping onto my shoulders and every single nerve ending I had was standing at full attention.

The door opened.

Caden filled the doorway the way he filled every space he walked into completely, like the room had no choice but to reorganize itself around him. He’d taken his jacket off at some point, shirt still on but open at the collar, sleeves pushed up. His eyes found me immediately and stayed.

The look on his face.

Oh God, the look on his face.

Not the controlled, unreadable mask from dinner. Not the cold boardroom stillness. This was something stripped back and raw and barely leashed, dark eyes moving over me in a way that made the air leave my lungs completely.

Nobody had ever looked at me like that.

Like I was something he’d been starving for.

“I told you to lock the door,” he said. Low. Quiet.

“I know,” I said.

“Aria.”

“I know, Caden.”

He stepped inside and pulled the door shut behind him and I backed up until my legs hit the edge of the bathtub and stopped. He crossed the distance between us slowly, unhurried, like he had all the time in the world and I wasn’t standing here barely covered and absolutely losing my mind.

He stopped close enough that I had to tilt my head back to look at him.

His hand came up.

Slowly. Deliberately. And tucked a wet strand of hair back from my face with a gentleness that was somehow more devastating than anything rough could have been. His fingers grazed my cheek and I felt it everywhere, every nerve ending lighting up like I’d grabbed a livewire.

“Tell me to leave,” he said.

His voice was wrecked. Barely holding.

“Tell me to walk out of here and I will. I’ll go downstairs and pour a drink and we never speak of this again.” His eyes dropped to my mouth and came back up. “But you have to say it. Right now.”

My mouth opened.

Nothing came out.

His jaw tightened. “Aria.”

“I can’t,” I whispered.

Something broke open in his expression.

His hand slid from my cheek to the back of my neck and he pulled me in and kissed me and fuck me, honestly, fuck me hard and sideways because nothing, nothing prepared me for what Caden Voss kissing me actually felt like.

It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t the soft, testing kind of first kiss. It was deep and certain and consuming, his mouth moving over mine like he already knew exactly how I tasted and had been waiting too long to get back to it. His hand tightened in my hair and I gasped against his lips and he swallowed the sound and pulled me closer.

My hands found his chest. I could feel his heartbeat under my palms fast, not as composed as he looked, and something about that cracked me wide open.

He walked me backward until my back met the wall and pressed into me and the towel was the only thing between us and I was suddenly, acutely aware of every place our bodies were touching.

“Caden” I breathed against his mouth.

“I know.” He said it like it hurt. Like he was fully aware of everything wrong with this moment and was choosing it anyway. His mouth moved to my jaw, my throat, and I tipped my head back against the wall and stared at the ceiling thinking omg, omg, I am going to die in this bathroom and I genuinely do not care.

His hands were at my waist over the towel, grip firm, not moving further, holding himself in check with what felt like considerable effort.

“Your mother is asleep down the hall,” he said against my throat.

“I know.”

“This is”

“I know, Caden. I know.” I pulled back enough to look at him. His hair was slightly disheveled from my hands when had my hands gotten in his hair, I had no memory of deciding that and his mouth was kiss-swollen and his eyes were dark and completely wrecked and he looked like the most beautiful devastation I’d ever seen up close.

He pressed his forehead to mine.

Breathing hard. Both of us.

“We can’t do this here,” he said.

“Okay.”

“Not like this. Not in this house, not tonight.”

“Okay,” I said again, even though every part of me was screaming in protest.

He pulled back. Put an inch of space between us and then another, like he was peeling himself away by force. His hands left my waist. He straightened, ran a hand through his hair, and looked at me with that raw, barely-there control trying to reassemble itself across his features.

“Go to bed,” he said.

“You keep saying that.”

“Because you keep making it necessary.”

I almost laughed. Almost. The situation was too insane for laughter but the alternative was crying and I refused.

He stepped back. Reached past me without touching me and opened the bathroom door and stood aside. His eyes on me the whole time, jaw tight, hands deliberately at his sides.

I walked past him.

Into my room.

I didn’t look back.

I heard the bathroom door click shut behind me and then his footsteps, slow and steady, moving down the corridor away from me.

I sat on the edge of my bed in my towel and pressed both hands to my mouth and just breathed for a minute.

He kissed me.

Caden Voss kissed me like he meant it and then walked away and I was sitting here in a towel at nine thirty on a Tuesday and my mother was sleeping thirty feet away and this was my actual life now.

I got dressed. Climbed into bed. Pulled the duvet up to my chin and stared at the ceiling and told myself very firmly to get some sleep.

My phone buzzed.

The gala tomorrow night. Wear something that covers you.

I stared at the message.

Typed back: And if I don’t?

The response came fast. Faster than any of his others.

Then I won’t be responsible for what I do to you in front of everyone.

I put the phone down.

Opened my wardrobe.

Pulled out the shortest dress I owned.