Chapter Four: Dangerous Conversations

"Wait." His voice cut through the haze of desire, and suddenly his hands were on my shoulders, gently but firmly pushing me back against the pillows.

I blinked up at him, confused and aching, my body screaming in protest at the loss of contact. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong." He sat back on his heels, his chest rising and falling rapidly beneath his partially unbuttoned shirt, his hair disheveled from my fingers. "I just realized I'm about to devour you like a starving man, and I don't even know what you're running from."

The words hung between us, intimate and dangerous. This was supposed to be simple—anonymous, physical, uncomplicated. Talking made it real. Talking meant connection beyond the physical.

Talking was far more dangerous than sex.

"I thought we agreed," I said, trying to keep my voice steady despite my thundering heart. "No past, no future. Just now."

He traced a finger down my arm, raising goosebumps in its wake. "Indulge me. We have all night. What's the rush?" His lips curved into a smile that was pure wickedness. "Unless you're afraid that talking to me will be more dangerous than letting me fuck you."

Heat flooded my face at his crude words, but he wasn't wrong. There was something terrifying about the way he looked at me—not just with desire, but with genuine curiosity, as if he actually wanted to know me.

"You first," I countered, pulling myself up to sitting, acutely aware that my shirt was still bunched above my stomach, my jeans unbuttoned. "What are you running from, L?"

His expression shifted, something dark and pained flickering across his features before he locked it down. "Expectations," he said finally. "The weight of a name I never asked for. Responsibilities I never wanted."

"Sounds like we have that in common."

"Do we?" He leaned closer, his hand coming to rest on my thigh. "Tell me, E. What's waiting for you in the real world that made you desperate enough to leave with a stranger?"

I should have deflected. Should have kept it vague. But there was something about the shadows in his eyes that made me want to share my own darkness.

"Tomorrow," I heard myself say, "my parents are introducing me to the man they've chosen for me to marry."

His hand tightened on my thigh, his jaw clenching. "Chosen for you."

"Richard Pemberton III. Harvard Law, excellent portfolio, first wife didn't understand the demands of his position." I recited my mother's words with bitter precision. "Apparently, I've been raised properly enough to be the wife he needs."

"And what about what you need?" His voice was dangerously soft.

"What I need has never been particularly relevant." I laughed, but it came out broken. "I'm twenty-four years old, and I've never made a single decision about my own life. Where I went to school, what I studied, how I dressed, who I spoke to—all of it predetermined, controlled, decided by people who think they own me."

"No one owns you." His hand moved to cup my face, forcing me to meet his intense gaze. "You're not property."

"Tell that to my parents. Tell that to Richard Pemberton III, who's probably already planning our wedding while I'm here with you." I closed my eyes against the sting of tears. "This is my last night. Tomorrow, I become someone else's possession. Tonight, I just wanted to be mine."

Silence stretched between us, heavy with understanding. When I opened my eyes, I found him watching me with an expression I couldn't quite read—anger and empathy and something darker.

"So you came to a bar," he said slowly, "picked up a stranger, and decided to lose yourself for one night before you're forced into a life you don't want."

"That about sums it up." I tried to smile. "Very self-destructive of me. My therapist would have a field day."

"You have a therapist?"

"Had. My mother fired her when she suggested I might benefit from having opinions of my own." I shook my head. "Your turn. Why is someone who lives in a penthouse and has a private driver drowning in a bar on a Wednesday night?"

He was quiet for a long moment, his thumb tracing patterns on my cheek. "Because tomorrow, I have to finalize a deal that will change everything. And tonight, I wanted to forget who I'm supposed to be."

"What kind of deal?"

"The kind that will make me richer and more powerful and more trapped." His voice was bitter. "The kind my father spent his entire life building toward, and now expects me to complete."

"You don't want it."

"I don't want any of it." He laughed, but there was no humor in it. "The money, the power, the empire built on other people's backs. But refusing isn't an option. Not when hundreds of people depend on me, when my family's legacy hangs in the balance."

I reached up, my fingers tracing the sharp line of his jaw. "So we're both prisoners in gilded cages."

"Apparently." He caught my hand, pressing a kiss to my palm that sent shivers down my spine. "Though yours sounds significantly worse. At least I'm not being forced into marriage with some cold-blooded bastard old enough to be my father."

"He's forty-two, not ancient."

"He's eighteen years older than you, which is predatory as hell." His eyes flashed with anger. "Let me guess—your parents are drowning in debt, and this Richard has the money to save them."

I stared at him, shocked. "How did you—"

"Because that's how people like your parents operate. Everything's a transaction. Everyone's for sale." His hand moved to my neck, his thumb finding my racing pulse. "Tell me something, E. If you could do anything with your life, what would you choose?"

No one had ever asked me that before. No one had ever cared what I wanted.

"I don't know," I admitted, the words feeling like failure. "I've spent so long being what everyone else needed that I don't even know who I am anymore."

"Then let's find out." He shifted, pulling me into his lap so I was straddling him, my hands automatically going to his shoulders for balance. "Right now, in this moment, what do you want?"

"I want..." I looked into his storm-gray eyes, seeing my own desperation reflected back at me. "I want to feel alive. I want to make one choice that's entirely mine. I want to be someone other than the obedient daughter for a few hours."

"And after tonight?" His hands settled on my hips, holding me in place. "When you go back to your cage and meet your forty-two-year-old future husband?"

The thought sent ice through my veins. "I don't want to think about after."

"Smart." He leaned forward, his lips brushing my ear. "Because thinking about you belonging to someone else makes me want to do very violent things."

"We just met," I breathed, even as my body responded to his words, to the possessive edge in his voice.

"Doesn't matter." His teeth grazed my earlobe, and I gasped. "For tonight, you're mine. And I take care of what's mine."

"This is insane." But I was tilting my head, giving him better access to my neck, my fingers tangling in his hair.

"The best things usually are." His mouth traced a burning path down my throat. "Tell me, E. Have you ever been touched by a man who actually wanted you? Not your name, not your connections, not what you could do for him—just you?"

"No," I admitted, my voice breaking on the word.

"Good." He pulled back to look at me, and what I saw in his eyes stole my breath—pure, predatory hunger mixed with something almost tender. "Because I'm going to ruin you for anyone else. When you're lying in bed next to your proper husband, you're going to remember me. Remember this night. Remember what it feels like to be wanted for exactly who you are."

"That's cruel," I whispered.

"I never claimed to be kind." His hands moved under my shirt, fingers splaying across my bare skin, and I shivered. "But I am honest. And honestly? I want to know everything about you. What makes you laugh, what makes you scream, what you dream about when you let yourself dream. I want to memorize every inch of your body, every sound you make, so that when tomorrow comes and we go back to being strangers, I'll have something real to remember."

Tears pricked my eyes because it was everything I wanted and everything I couldn't have—someone who saw me, wanted me, chose me. Just for one night.

"Why are you being so nice to me?" I asked, my voice small.

"Nice?" He laughed, the sound dark and rough. "E, I'm being selfish. I want you completely present when I take you. I want you thinking about me, remembering me, choosing me—even if it's only for tonight."

"I already chose you," I said. "The moment I left the bar with you."

"Then let me make it worth it." He stood suddenly, lifting me with him, and I wrapped my legs around his waist instinctively. "Let me give you one night where you make every choice. Where you control everything. Where you're free."

He carried me toward the floor-to-ceiling windows, and I gasped as the city spread out before us, a million lights glittering in the darkness.

"What are you doing?"

"Giving you freedom." He set me down, my back against the cool glass, the city sprawling behind me. "Tell me what you want, E. Every fantasy, every forbidden thought. Tonight, you're in control."

I stared up at him, this beautiful stranger who somehow understood exactly what I needed—not just passion, but power. Not just to be wanted, but to be seen.

"I want..." I took a shaky breath. "I want you to make me forget my own name."

His smile was devastating. "Consider it done."

But as he reached for me, his phone buzzed insistently on the nearby table. He ignored it, his attention focused entirely on me, but it kept buzzing, over and over, demanding attention.

"You should get that," I said reluctantly.

"It can wait."

"L—"

"Nothing is more important than this moment." His hands framed my face. "Nothing is more important than you."

But the phone continued its insistent buzzing, and finally, with a muttered curse, he grabbed it. I watched his expression change as he read the screen—from irritation to shock to something that looked almost like fear.

"What is it?" I asked.

He stared at the phone for a long moment, then looked up at me, and I saw the exact moment reality crashed back into our fantasy.

"I have to go," he said, his voice rough. "There's an emergency. Something I can't ignore."

My heart sank. "Oh."

"Come with me." The words burst out of him, urgent and unexpected. "Come with me. Whatever this is, we'll deal with it together, and then we'll come back here and finish what we started."

"L, I don't even know you. I can't just—"

"Please." He stepped closer, desperation in his eyes. "Don't let this night end. Not yet."

And standing there, looking into his storm-gray eyes, seeing the same fear I felt reflected back—the fear that this magic between us would disappear if we let the real world intrude—I made a choice.

"Okay," I whispered. "I'll come with you."

I didn't know then that this single decision would change everything.

That the emergency he was racing toward would expose both our secrets.

That by morning, our carefully maintained anonymity would shatter, revealing identities that would make tonight's connection impossible to forget—and impossible to continue.

I just knew that I wasn't ready to let him go.

Not yet.