Chapter 1: Midnight Delivery

SAESHA POV

It’s midnight when I step onto his porch. The house is quiet in that rich-man way. Big, expensive silence. Marble that eats sound. Tall doors that belong in some glossy magazines. I shouldn’t be here at this hour, but my heels have already clicked across the path, and my father’s file is warm in my hand. Too late to pretend I didn’t mean it.

I press the bell. A soft chime echoes inside, and for a second I see myself in the glass: short black dress hugging my hips, gloss on my mouth, hair not trying to be good. I know what I look like. I did it on purpose. Don’t judge. I’m twenty-one, I know my body is hot, and yes, I know exactly what my legs do with these heels.

The lock turns automatically and the door opens with a slow creak and that scent hits me first leather, something woody, and the bite of cold air. I step in because I want to. Because my father said “drop the papers with Veeraj Kapoor and come back,” but he didn’t say I couldn’t look.

“Saesha Roy.”

His voice slides down the staircase before he does. I look up at him. He’s at the top landing, hand on the rail, dark shirt rolled at the forearms, veins visible. A watch that looks heavy. Those eyes that always make men step out of his way. He moves down with that unhurried power that says this is his house and I am currently trespassing in every way that matters.

“Unexpected,” he says, and his mouth tips like he’s already laughing at me.

I lift the file. “My dad asked me to bring these.”

“Important?”

“Important enough to wake you.”

“I wasn’t sleeping.”

Of course he wasn’t. He reaches the last step and stops close enough that I smell his cologne. I swear it sticks to my skin. He doesn’t take the file yet. He takes me in, my dress, my legs and my mouth. The way his gaze travels is obscene and I love the heat it sends through my stomach.

“Quite the outfit for a delivery,” he says.

“I wanted to be memorable.”

He finally takes the file, and when his fingers brush mine there’s a clean, brutal spark. I don’t flinch. I tilt my chin and meet his eyes like I can handle it.

“Bold,” he murmurs. “For a neighbor.”

“For a neighbor’s neighbor,” I say, and I step forward into his space so my perfume climbs up between us too. “Do I make you uncomfortable, Mr. Kapoor?”

He laughs under his breath. “No.”

That’s the problem. He doesn’t look uncomfortable. He looks interested. And I’m not here to be sweet. I’m here because I wanted to see if the stories were true. The ruthless deals he makes. The way he never needed to raise his voice, always staying calm and professional. The women who try and fail to make him stay.

He turns, and I follow without him asking. We move through a hall of soft lamps and framed art I don’t stop to study. His office door is open. There’s a leather chair, a wide desk, a city view that eats the night. It smells like cedar and ink and a man who spends late hours winning. He drops the file on the desk, then faces me again.

“You could have left that with security.”

“I could have.”

“You didn’t.”

“I didn’t.”

We stand there like the air just thickened. I’m not nervous. My heart is loud, yes, but it’s not fear. It’s the throb of doing something I shouldn’t and liking it. He comes closer, slow, like he enjoys the way my breath changes.

“Your father trusts me,” he says.

“My father thinks you’re useful.”

“And you?”

“I think you’re dangerous.”

“And yet you’re here.”

“I wanted to see if you’d play.”

His eyes flicker, the kind of spark that says I said the right wrong thing. “You think this is a game?”

“I think I know how to light a match.”

He takes one more step. Close enough that his heat brushes my thighs. Close enough that if I tip forward the dress will kiss his shirt. I hold my ground because I didn’t dress like sin to back down now.

“Girls who play with fire get burned,” he says in my ear his voice low and sinful.

“I don’t mind a little burn.”

He looks at my mouth, and I look at his. The minute stretches between us. Something in me surges up and dares him to try. I want to see if the control is real or if he’s just good at pretending. I want to see if that mouth feels as cruel as it looks.

He lifts a hand and touches my jaw with two fingers. Not gentle, but not rough also. Just a command to look at him while he looks at me. I meet his eyes and he smiles like I passed some private test.

“What did your father tell you?” he asks.

“Drop the file and leave.”

“And what did you hear?”

“Come and make trouble.”

That earns me a real smile. It hits like a win in my chest. He slides the pad of his thumb to my bottom lip. “You know what happens if I kiss you.”

“Yes.”

“Tell me.”

“You’ll take it further.”

“And you’ll let me.”

“I’ll let you exactly as far as I want.”

His gaze darkens in a way that makes my thighs tense. “You think you decide?”

“I know I do.”

He leans in. “Brave little Roy.”

“I’m not little.”

“No,” he says, and his eyes roam me again like a hand. “You’re not.”

The words sit between us, heavy. My skin hums. I can feel my pulse in places I shouldn’t mention. If I move, I’ll brush him. If I speak, I’ll break something I want to keep.

“You should go,” he says, but he doesn’t step back.

“I should.”

“Will you?”

“No.”

There it is. The truth is sitting pretty and shameless. I feel the thrill of it in my tongue. He hears it and accepts it like it was always going to happen this way.

“You know I don’t believe in love,” he says.

“Good,” I answer. “Me neither.”

“What do you believe in?”

“Power,” I say. “And wanting.”

His hand drops to my waist. Heat shoots through me. He doesn’t drag me in. He just holds. Testing me. Feeling the way my breath stutters, the way my body leans half an inch before I catch it. I’m aware of everything. The slick of my lip gloss. The press of my dress. The ache between my thighs that showed up the second I stepped inside.

“You came at midnight,” he says. “In that dress.”

“I came because I knew you’d be awake.”

“And watching.”

“And wanting.”

He laughs again, quiet and deadly. “You think I didn’t see you watching me last week?”

“At the gate?”

“At the gate. Black jeans. Red mouth. Pretending you didn’t want me to notice.”

“I wanted you to notice.”

“I noticed.”

Silence folds over us, softer this time, hotter. He traces a slow line at my hip, not moving higher, not moving lower, just letting my skin learn his touch. It’s deliberate torture and it makes my breathing shallow. I let him see that. I want him to see that.

“You’re twenty-one,” he says.

“Yes.”

“You say yes like you want me to cross lines.”

“I want you to cross the right ones.”

“And the wrong ones?”

I tip my head. “We’ll see.”

His fingers tighten on my waist. Just a little. The message lands and my pulse spikes with the room suddenly feeling smaller. I lick my lips without meaning to and his gaze drops there like a magnet.

“You know I always take what I want,” he says.

“Then take it.”

He studies me for a heartbeat. Two. My chest lifts and he leans in, close enough that I feel the heat of his mouth at my cheek. He doesn’t kiss me, not yet. He breathes me in like he’s cataloging the scent for later, and the restraint in it makes me shiver.

“You smell like trouble,” he says.

“You taste like it,” I whisper back, and his grip flexes.

“Do I?”

“Maybe you should find out.”

I slide my hands up his chest. Solid and warm. Expensive cotton over muscle, when my fingers reach the open collar, I hook a nail against his skin and smile when his breath shortens. His control is real, but so is mine.

“Saesha,” he warns, but his voice is not a warning. It’s a promise wrapped in patience.

“Yes?”

“Last chance to leave.”

“I’m not leaving.”

“Say it.”

“I’m not leaving.”

He nods once like we just signed something we can’t unsign.

“Then listen,” he says, and his mouth lowers an inch. “You don’t touch yourself in my house unless I say so.”

Heat flares through me. “Who said I would?”

“You would.” His eyes say he’s right. “Hands where I put them. Mouth where I put it. You understand?”

“Yes.”

“Good girl.”

The words hit me low and hard and I feel them spread like warm sugar and sin throughout my body . I don’t say a thing, I just stand there and let him see exactly what that did to me.

He slides one hand to the back of my neck, slow, like he’s giving me time to think. I don’t need time, I need his mouth and I need the answer to the question that’s been scraping at my bones since the first time he looked at me like I wasn’t a child.

He leans in and my lashes lower instantly with the world narrowing to breath and heat and the inch between us that’s about to disappear.

“Girls who play with fire,” he murmurs, his lips a breath from mine, “don’t get to cry about the burn.”

“I won’t cry,” I whisper. “I’ll beg.”

Something flashes in his eyes. And then his mouth catches mine.

End of Chapter 1