All Chapters of CRAVING THE WRONG BLACKTHORNE BROTHER: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

Cut off whatever he was going to say. His mouth was warm under mine. Tasted like copper. He made a sound against my lips. Surprise or want. His hands came up to my waist and gripped. I climbed into his lap. The chair rolled back slightly. I had to catch myself. My knees on either side of his hips. Straddling him in his office chair like this was normal, like there wasn’t blood on the floor and evidence of violence everywhere. His hands tightened on my waist. He was already responding. I felt him harden underneath me. Prove it. Prove you mean it. Show him. “Ella,” he said. His voice had gone rough. “Your ribs—” “Are fine.” I kissed him harder. “I’m fine.” His hands moved up my back. One slid into my hair and gripped. Not gentle. The other stayed on my hip, fingers digging in hard enough that I’d feel it tomorrow. Good. I wanted to feel it tomorrow. I wanted proof that this was real, that I’d chosen this. I reached between us. Found his belt buckle. My fingers were shaking.

Closed the distance between us and backed her into the doorframe. She gasped but didn't push me away. Just looked up at me with wide eyes and her chest rising and falling too fast."Tell me to leave," I said quietly. "Tell me to go to my room and stay there until I leave for the delegation and I will."She opened her mouth.Nothing came out."Ella. Tell me to leave.""I can't."The words came out barely a whisper."Why not.""Because I don't want you to."Everything in me went still.She looked up at me and there were tears in her eyes and I'd never seen her cry before, not once, not even when her father had thrown her away and her ex had humiliated her and she'd been forced into a marriage with a man she barely knew."I promised him," she said. Her voice was shaking. "I looked at his face all bloody and I promised I wouldn't cheat and I meant it, Levi. I meant every word.""I know you did.""But I can't stop thinking about you." The tears spilled over. Down her cheeks. "I've been try

Laura found me the moment Vivienne cleared the gate.She didn’t say anything immediately. Just fell into step beside me, her clipboard against her chest, her eyes tracking the three women moving into my picnic.“Laura—”“Don’t,” she said quietly.“She’s already heading toward the—”“I see her.” Her voice was completely level. “And you’re going to smile. Whatever she says. Whatever she does. You smile and you let me handle the movement of this afternoon.”“She’s going to—”“Ella.” Laura stopped walking. Looked at me directly. “You have thirty women here who came today because of you. Not because of her. Not because of history or title or twenty-two years of whatever she built here. Because of you and what you built.” She held my gaze. “Don’t give her a single thing to use. Not a flinch. Not a tight jaw. Nothing.”I breathed in.“Smile,” Laura said.I smiled.We walked toward them.Vivienne opened her arms when she saw me.Actually opened them. Like we were family at a reunion. Like she

The call came at seven in the morning.Vivienne. I let it ring.She called again at seven fifteen. Then seven thirty. Then, when I still didn’t answer, she stopped calling and I knew she’d moved to the next option.Marcus knocked at eight.“The council has received a formal complaint,” he said. “From the former Luna. She’s requesting an emergency session.”I put down my coffee. “Who signed it.”“Councilmen Graves, Aldridge, and Park.” He paused. “And two others.”Five. She needed five signatures to force a session and she’d had them by eight in the morning. Twenty-two years of building alliances in this pack and she could still pull them from bed before breakfast.“Set it for noon,” I said. “My office.”Marcus hesitated. “She requested neutral ground. The council hall.”Of course she did. Her territory. Her table. The room where she’d sat beside my father for two decades and learned every corner of it.“Noon,” I said. “My office.”She arrived with Graves and Aldridge flanking her like

EllaI saw him from the east wing window.He was in the courtyard below, still in his travel clothes, bag over one shoulder, talking to Marcus with the easy posture of someone who had just arrived and hadn't yet remembered everything waiting for him here. I stopped writing. My pen stayed on the page but nothing came from it, and I stood there longer than I should have, long enough for him to feel it, because he looked up.He found the window before I could step back. His eyes on mine from two floors below, across the courtyard and three weeks of careful distance, and for one second the three weeks meant nothing at all.I stepped back from the glass and stood in the middle of the room with my pen still in my hand and my heart going at a speed that had nothing to do with the curriculum plans. I had spent three weeks being very deliberate about the shape of my days. Early mornings with the plans. Afternoons at the site. Evenings with Nate that had become something I reached for instead o