Amelia’s POVI shouldn’t have come here.The thought had been rattling around in my head since the moment I’d slipped out of Dominic’s penthouse at dawn, the city still cloaked in that hazy, silver-tinted darkness just before sunrise. I’d grabbed my dress off the floor, my shoes in my hand, hair a tangled mess, and bolted before I could stop myself. Before he could wake up and look at me with that guarded, unreadable expression again — like none of it meant a damn thing.Like I didn’t mean a damn thing.I told myself it was better this way. Cleaner. Easier.But sitting here now, hours later, in my small, too-quiet bedroom with the curtains drawn and my phone facedown on the nightstand, it didn’t feel easier. It felt like I was suffocating.My reflection in the mirror was a stranger. Hair mussed, cheeks flushed, lips still slightly swollen from his kisses. My neck bore the faintest ghost of his mouth — marks I could cover with makeup, but not erase. And even if I could, it wouldn’t mat
Dominic’s POVThe door closed behind her with a soft click, but it may as well have been a gunshot. The silence that followed was suffocating, the kind that settled deep in your bones and refused to let go.I stood there, leaning against the kitchen counter, staring at the empty space she’d just left like a goddamn coward. The apartment felt too quiet without her in it, every shadow stretching too long, every heartbeat loud in my ears.What the fuck have you done, Blackwood?I’d told myself this couldn’t happen. That it wouldn’t. That no matter how good it felt to lose myself in her last night, to touch her, to taste her, to hear my name on her lips like a goddamn prayer — it couldn’t mean anything. Because it wasn’t supposed to.But it did. It always had.I grabbed the glass of water from the counter and downed it in one long swallow, as if it could wash away the taste of her, the memory of her breathless moans in my ear, her nails in my skin. It didn’t.None of this should’ve happe
Amelia’s POVI should have left hours ago.That was the logical thing to do — the smart thing. To get dressed, gather what little dignity I had left, and put as much distance between myself and Dominic Blackwood as humanly possible.But logic had always failed me when it came to him.I sat on the edge of his bed, his shirt still hanging off my shoulders, the faint scent of him clinging to the fabric. The city outside his windows was coming alive now, the sound of traffic and early morning light cutting through the darkness.And still, I stayed.I could hear him in the kitchen, moving around, the faint clink of glass against marble. It was domestic in a way that felt both foreign and… dangerous. Because it was easy to imagine this being a habit. Waking up tangled in his sheets, stealing his shirts, making coffee in his kitchen while he muttered about morning meetings.But that wasn’t us. It could never be us.We lived in a world where lines existed for a reason — ones we weren’t suppo
Dominic’s POVShe was still asleep when I slipped out of bed.The sun hadn’t even started to climb over the skyline yet, the world outside my window washed in the deep gray of predawn. The kind of quiet you didn’t get in this city often. I stood at the window for a long while, watching the first hints of light bleed into the darkness, and for the first time in a long damn time, I didn’t know what came next.Amelia Carter was a complication I should’ve avoided. Every instinct I had told me to keep my distance, to push her away before she got too close — before she saw too much. But it was already too late for that.Last night had proved it.I’d let my guard down. Let her touch parts of me no one else even knew existed. Not just my body — my past, my doubts, my damage. And in the cold light of morning, it terrified the hell out of me.Because she wasn’t like the others. The women I kept at arm’s length, the ones who didn’t ask questions, who didn’t expect anything beyond what I was wi
Amelia’s POVI didn’t remember how we made it to his bedroom. One minute, his mouth was on mine, hot and claiming, the next we were tangled in sheets, the city lights washing over us in fractured pieces through the tall windows. It was reckless, it was inevitable. Every part of me had known this would happen the second I stepped foot in that penthouse.But nothing prepared me for how it would feel. Not just the way his hands felt on my skin, rough and sure, or the way his mouth dragged over my collarbone like a man starved. It was deeper than that. It was the way he looked at me — like I wasn’t just a woman in his bed, like I wasn’t just Noah’s sister, like I was something that had always been his and he’d finally stopped fighting it.And God, I wanted to be that. Even if it broke us both.The room was quiet now. His body half-draped over mine, my fingers absently tracing the line of his shoulder where a faded scar cut through his skin. I hadn’t asked about it. I didn’t need to. I co
Dominic’s POVI stood by the floor-to-ceiling window of my penthouse, a glass of whiskey in hand, watching the city flicker beneath me like a living thing. The sky was dark now, streaked with clouds threatening rain, and for once, I welcomed the storm. It suited my mood.I wasn’t a man who second-guessed myself. Every decision I made was calculated, ruthless, necessary. I didn’t hesitate. Not in boardrooms, not in deals, not in anything that mattered.Except when it came to her.Amelia fucking Carter.I took a long, slow sip of the whiskey, the burn sharp and grounding as it slid down my throat. The message I’d sent her hours ago sat like a weight in my chest. I hadn’t even let myself think about what I’d say if she came. If she didn’t.And yet, here I was — pacing my own goddamn apartment like some restless idiot, waiting for a woman who should’ve been off-limits the moment she walked back into my life.It was never supposed to be this. Not with Amelia.She was Noah’s little sister.