Lahat ng Kabanata ng Craving Forbidden Pleasures : Kabanata 171 - Kabanata 180

The moment she opened the door to her small chamber, she knew he was already there. The air felt charged, thick with anticipation, as if the room itself had been waiting for his presence. The memory of her public surrender—the tremors, the blush, the near-shattering climax—still pulsed through her veins, making her shiver violently even now.“You’re thinking about them,” he murmured from the shadows, voice low, teasing, threading through her mind like silk. “The villagers. Their whispers. The way they might sense your… transformation.”Elara froze, cheeks flushing, pulse quickening. “I… I try not to…” she stammered, but he cut her off with a laugh, low and dark.“Try?” he mocked gently, stepping closer, each movement measured, deliberate. “My sweet… you do not try. The bond controls you, yes, but so do I. And your thoughts betray you even now. Every glance, every memory of that fountain, every pulse of your need—it is all mine to command.”Her knees went weak. She pressed her hands to

The festival was alive with color, sound, and movement. Flags fluttered overhead, children darted between the stalls, and music carried through the air in lilting, intoxicating waves. For most, it was a celebration—a momentary escape from the mundane—but for Elara, every detail was sharpened by anticipation, by fear, and by the bond that pulsed beneath her skin like a living thing.He appeared beside her without a sound, as if conjured from the shadows themselves, his presence immediately commanding, intoxicating, and impossible to ignore. His dark eyes glinted with mischief. “Today,” he murmured, lips brushing her ear, “we push the games to a new edge. You will ache in public, tremble under observation, and yet obey without hesitation. Do you understand?”Her knees went weak at the thought, cheeks flushing, pulse racing. “Yes,” she whispered, voice trembling. “I… I understand.”“Good,” he said, and with a casual hand on her back, he guided her through the bustling crowds. Every step

Elodie's POVThey called him The Beast of Ravensgate.Ciaran Wolfe.CEO. Mercenary. Enforcer for a billion-dollar empire built on sin. His empire fed on black markets, silent wars, and bodies buried where no one dared look. No one saw his face—not since the fire that ruined half of it. No one dared touch him.Except me.I was the therapist hired to break through his trauma. The board claimed he needed to function, to “stabilize” if the empire was to keep growing. But that was only the cover story. The truth? I was sent to spy. To pry open the cracks in his armor and report back to the people who wanted his throne.I told myself I wouldn’t let it get personal. But the first moment I walked into his private wing, with its walls of glass and shadows that seemed alive, I knew I was already drowning in him.He sat in a leather chair, broad shoulders caged in a tailored black shirt. The steel mask covered half his face, glinting like a scar made permanent. His voice was smoke and gravel, a

I told myself I wouldn’t look at him while he slept.But I did.The man they called the Beast lay sprawled beside me, scars thrown into relief by the first touch of morning. One arm was flung over his head, the other resting heavy across my waist as if even in sleep he needed to stake a claim. The steel mask was back on the nightstand. His face, bare and brutal, was into my memory now—the twisted mcarvedap of fire and ruin, the beauty he refused to believe he still carried.And I couldn’t stop staring.I should have gotten up. Slipped out, showered, composed myself. Reported. That was my job. But my body ached with reminders of the night, and my chest ached with something worse: the truth clawing its way into me.I was supposed to be spying on him. Instead, I wanted to crawl deeper into his ruin.The secure line was buried inside my room—behind a false panel in the bookshelf, disguised as part of the fortress walls. I checked twice to make sure the cameras in my quarters weren’t activ

The storm that Ciaran had unleashed still lived beneath Elodie’s skin.She felt it in the ache of her wrists where his grip had bruised, in the way her thighs pressed together as though to trap the last heat of him. Sleep had been a stranger—her body heavy with exhaustion, her mind frayed, and yet every time she closed her eyes she saw him. The mask. The scars. The eyes that had stared through her like she was already his.She told herself she should write notes, keep her cover intact, document his volatility in the detached language of psychology. But her journal lay blank on the desk beside her untouched glass of water. What could she write? That she wanted her patient more than she feared him? That the man she was supposed to observe had already mapped the rhythm of her pulse?By morning, her composure was a costume stitched together with trembling hands. She slipped it on anyway and crossed the private wing. The staff avoided her gaze—they always did after a night when the Beast p