Chapter 4

Two weeks turned into three, and three turned into a month.

Avery stopped counting the nights she spent in Drake's penthouse because counting implied an end, and she had stopped believing in endings somewhere around the tenth time he made her cry out his name against the silk sheets. Her own apartment became a place she visited only to change clothes and water the single dying plant on her windowsill. Everything she needed lived on the other side of the city, behind a private elevator that required a key card she now carried in her wallet like a secret badge of honor.

She was drowning in him. And she had never felt more alive.

---

"You're late."

Drake's voice greeted her the moment she stepped into the suite. He stood by the window overlooking the city, dressed in charcoal slacks and a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows. A glass of whiskey dangled from his fingers, barely touched.

Avery set her bag down on the marble console table. "Traffic was terrible."

"You could have taken my car."

"I wanted to drive myself."

He turned to face her, and the look in his eyes made her pulse spike. That look never got easier. It was hunger and impatience and something softer underneath, something he tried to hide but never quite managed.

"You're stubborn," he said.

"You're controlling."

"We both have our flaws." He crossed the room toward her, setting his whiskey aside. "Come here."

She went to him without hesitation. That was the most terrifying part. Not that he demanded her obedience, but that she gave it freely. Willingly. Eagerly.

His hands found her waist as soon as she was close enough, pulling her against his chest. He smelled like expensive cologne and something darker, something uniquely him. She pressed her face into his neck and breathed him in.

"I missed you," he murmured into her hair.

"You saw me twelve hours ago."

"Twelve hours too long."

She smiled against his skin. "You're ridiculous."

"You love it."

She did. God help her, she did.

---

Dinner was served in the suite that night. A private chef he employed for occasions like this, though Avery suspected every occasion qualified in Drake's mind. They ate at a small table by the windows, the city glittering below them like scattered diamonds. He watched her throughout the meal with an intensity that made her forget what she was eating.

"Stop staring," she said, spearing a piece of asparagus.

"I can't."

"Yes, you can. Look at the view. Look at your food. Look anywhere else."

He leaned back in his chair, swirling the wine in his glass. "Nothing else is worth looking at."

Avery's cheeks warmed. A month of this, and he still made her blush like a teenager. "You're going to give me a complex."

"Good. Then you'll never leave."

The words landed somewhere deep in her chest. He said things like that often, always wrapped in a tone that sounded like a joke but felt like a confession. She never knew how to respond. So she didn't. She just smiled and took another bite of her dinner and pretended her heart wasn't racing.

---

After dinner, he led her to the bedroom without asking.

Not that he needed to ask anymore. They had developed a rhythm over the past weeks, a wordless understanding that passed between them in glances and touches. She knew when he wanted her because his jaw would tighten and his eyes would darken and his hand would find the small of her back with quiet possessiveness.

Tonight, he was patient.

He undressed her slowly, peeling away her clothes like he was unwrapping a gift he had waited months to receive. Each button of her blouse earned a kiss to the newly exposed skin. Each inch of her skirt sliding down her thighs earned a murmured approval against her hip. By the time she stood before him in nothing but her lace underwear, she was trembling.

"You're so beautiful," he said, and his voice cracked on the last word.

Avery reached for him. "You're still dressed."

"Then fix it."

She did. Her fingers worked the buttons of his shirt with shaking hands, pushing the fabric off his shoulders to reveal the hard planes of his chest. He was all muscle and restraint, every inch of him built for control. She traced the lines of his collarbone, the ridges of his abdomen, the trail of dark hair that disappeared beneath his belt.

"You're staring now," he said, echoing her words from dinner.

"Nothing else is worth looking at."

His laugh was low and rough. Then he kissed her.

The kiss swallowed them both. His tongue swept into her mouth, demanding and deep, and she met him with equal hunger. Her fingers found his belt, then his zipper, then the heat of him beneath her palm. He groaned against her lips when she touched him, a sound of pure need that made her ache between her thighs.

"Bed," he ordered.

She walked backward toward the mattress, pulling him with her. When her knees hit the edge, she fell onto the silk sheets and reached for him. He followed her down, covering her body with his, and the weight of him pressed her into the mattress in the best possible way.

"I want to feel you," she whispered. "All of you. No barriers. Just us."

His forehead dropped to hers. "Are you sure?"

"I've never been more sure of anything."

He kissed her again, softer this time, and reached for the drawer of the nightstand.

---

What followed was not quick.

Drake made love to her like they had all the time in the world. He entered her slowly, inch by inch, watching her face as he filled her. Her back arched off the bed. Her fingernails dug into his shoulders. She felt everything. Every pulse. Every breath. Every moment of connection that went far beyond the physical.

"Look at me," he commanded softly.

She opened her eyes.

"Don't look away," he said. "Not tonight. I want to see you when you fall."

He began to move, and she obeyed. She kept her eyes locked on his, watching the way his jaw slackened with pleasure, the way his pupils blew wide and dark, the way his control frayed at the edges with every thrust. She saw him. Not the businessman. Not the monster the tabloids wrote about. Just a man who wanted her more than he wanted air.

"Avery." Her name came out strangled. "God, Avery."

She wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled him deeper. "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."

His pace quickened. His breathing turned ragged. She felt herself climbing toward something enormous, something that would shatter her completely, and she held his gaze through all of it. When she finally broke, crying out his name, he followed her over the edge with a groan that sounded almost pained.

They stayed tangled together for a long time afterward.

His face was buried in her neck. His heart pounded against her chest. Their legs were intertwined, sweaty and warm and perfect. She ran her fingers through his dark hair and pressed a kiss to his temple.

"I love when you stay," he mumbled against her skin.

"I love staying."

He lifted his head to look at her. His eyes were soft in a way she had never seen before, vulnerable and open and entirely unguarded.

"You could stay forever," he said quietly. "You know that, don't you?"

Her heart stopped. "Drake."

"I'm not joking." He brushed a strand of hair from her face. "I don't want you to leave anymore. I want you here. In my bed. In my life. Every morning when I wake up and every night when I come home."

Avery's eyes burned with unexpected tears. "You don't mean that."

"I told you before. I don't say things I don't mean."

"But we barely know each other."

"I know that you take your coffee black but you secretly add sugar when no one is watching. I know that you hum when you read something you love. I know that you bite your lip when you're nervous and you lie when you're scared and you laugh with your whole body when something is truly funny." He cupped her face in his hands. "I know that you are the first thought in my head every morning and the last thought before I sleep. What else is there to know?"

A tear slipped down her cheek. She didn't bother wiping it away.

"I'm scared," she admitted.

"I know."

"You're dangerous."

"I know that too."

"And I'm falling for you. Really falling. The kind of falling that doesn't have a bottom."

Drake's expression shifted into something fierce and tender all at once. He pressed his forehead to hers and closed his eyes.

"Then fall," he whispered. "I'll catch you. Every single time."

She kissed him then, soft and slow and full of every word she couldn't say.

And when she finally fell asleep in his arms, wrapped in silk sheets and the warmth of his body, she let herself believe that maybe, just maybe, falling wasn't something to be afraid of.

Maybe it was exactly where she belonged.