Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

—Aphrodite—

The knock comes fifteen minutes after I send the text.

I don’t answer right away.

I let him wait—just long enough to make him need me more. That’s part of the game. A second of silence that feels like rejection. I know what it does to a man like Duncan Moretti. It makes him ache.

I smooth down the robe around my thighs. My skin is still flushed. Marked. Used.

He can’t know.

I check the mirror once, swipe a berry tint over my lips, brush my fingers under my eyes to smudge away the ghost of tears. I can still feel the bruising grip on my hips. The soreness between my thighs. The bite on my shoulder, hidden beneath silk.

I don’t wear perfume tonight.

Let him breathe in the truth and think it’s him.

Another knock. Sharper this time.

I open the door.

And there he is.

Tall, dark, dangerously clean-cut in a slate grey coat. His jaw clenches the moment he sees me. Those eyes—sharp enough to flay. Hungry enough to devour. He steps inside like he owns the air I’m breathing.

His scent hits me first. Clean. Expensive. Masculine. Duncan always smells like control.

But tonight, something in his expression is off.

He’s not here just to fuck.

He’s here to see me.

And I can’t let him.

“You didn’t call me back,” he says quietly.

“I’ve been… busy,” I reply, stepping back into the glow of my apartment.

“Too busy to answer one call?”

“Maybe.”

He watches me.

I turn so he can see the delicate fall of the robe down my back. I walk barefoot to the bar and pour a glass of wine. My legs ache with every step. But I don’t show it.

When I turn back, he hasn’t moved.

“You look tired,” he says.

“I’ve been working.”

“Liar.”

I smirk, sipping my wine. “Careful, Duncan. That almost sounded jealous.”

“I am.”

The words slam into me harder than I expect.

I freeze for a moment.

Then I laugh, soft and controlled. “You don’t do jealous.”

“I don’t,” he says. “But you make me want to break rules.”

God, why does that make my chest ache?

He moves toward me, slow and deliberate. There’s a tension in his shoulders tonight. A simmering energy I’ve only seen when he talks about business takeovers and people who’ve crossed him.

“I thought about you,” he murmurs, stopping just inches away.

“Did you touch yourself while you did?” I whisper.

He grabs my wrist—gentle, but firm.

“I want to know what’s going on in your head, Aphrodite.”

“I’m not that complicated.”

“That’s a lie. You’re the most complicated woman I’ve ever met.”

“I thought you liked puzzles.”

“I like breaking them apart to see what’s inside.”

His hand brushes against the tie of my robe.

For a moment, I panic.

He’s going to see. He’s going to see the bruises, the marks, the things I didn’t ask for but didn’t stop.

But I just smile, coy and challenging. “Do you want to break me, Duncan?”

“No,” he says. “I want to own you.”

My heart stutters.

Wrong words. His words. The other man. The one in the dark.

But I lean in anyway, letting the robe slide open an inch.

“You can try.”

His mouth crashes onto mine, fierce and sudden. He tastes like wine and control and something deeper—need. His tongue pushes past my lips, hungry, demanding.

I kiss him like he’s the only man who’s ever kissed me.

Even if I was fucked raw less than an hour ago.

Even if I can still feel him.

Duncan lifts me effortlessly, walking us toward the bedroom like we’re already one body. I bury my face in his neck. Not for seduction. Just to hide.

Because if he looks into my eyes, he’ll see it.

The lie.

The fracture.

He lays me on the bed like something precious. Unwraps my robe slowly, as if undressing a gift he’s waited years to open.

“You’re shaking,” he says softly, brushing a hand down my thigh.

“I’m cold.”

Another lie.

He trails kisses from my knee up my leg, soft and reverent. His fingers part me and pause.

I tense.

“Were you thinking about me?” he asks, stroking me gently.

“Always.”

His mouth replaces his hand.

And I feel nothing.

I moan anyway. Soft and desperate. A good performance. One I’ve given before.

But something strange happens.

As his tongue licks deeper, slower, with a kind of care I’m not used to—something in my chest aches. Not my body. My heart.

Tears prick my eyes, uninvited.

No one’s ever touched me like this without trying to conquer me.

He’s trying to please me.

And I don’t know what to do with that.

I grip the sheets and cry out louder, needing to drown it. To anchor myself in the lie. To feel something real, even if it’s just from his mouth.

He comes up, licking his lips, eyes dark.

“Still cold?” he asks.

“No,” I whisper.

He kisses me again—this time slow. Possessive. Like he’s trying to memorize every contour of my mouth.

He enters me slowly.

Too slowly.

I bite my lip.

I’m raw. It hurts. It shouldn’t. Not like this.

But I moan anyway.

I wrap my legs around him, arms around his neck, nails digging into his back as he moves inside me. Duncan doesn’t fuck like a man in control. He fucks like a man who wants to give something of himself. Like he thinks I’m fragile.

And maybe I am.

But not in the way he thinks.

He thinks I’m breakable.

But I’ve already been broken.

He just doesn’t know by who.

I climax with a cry that sounds too much like pain. Duncan doesn’t notice. He kisses my shoulder, my cheek, my jaw—soft murmurs against my skin as he loses himself in me.

When he finally comes, it’s with a deep groan into my throat. His weight settles over me.

And for a second, I let myself believe.

That this is normal. That this is safe. That this is mine.

But it’s not.

And I’m not his.

I’m just his obsession.

His project.

His tragedy in slow motion.

When he falls asleep beside me, I watch him for a long time. Memorizing his peace.

He sleeps like a man who doesn’t know what’s coming.

He doesn’t know the storm I’ll bring. The betrayal I’ll deliver. The strings being pulled behind the scenes.

The man in the dark isn’t finished.

And neither am I.

I slip out of bed just before dawn.

My phone buzzes the moment I step into the bathroom.

A message from a number with no name.

“You looked beautiful on your knees tonight. Make him fall harder.”

I stare at it.

Then delete it.

And return to bed.

Curling up beside Duncan like I belong there.

Like I’m not the knife at his throat.

Like I won’t be the one who ruins him.