Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 41 - Chapitre 50

Sophie’s POVI stepped into the shower and pulled the heavy glass door closed behind me with a soft click. Steam was already starting to rise as I turned the dial all the way to hot. The water came down in a thick, pulsing rain, soaking my long hair and cascading over my shoulders, my back, and the curve of my ass. I tilted my head back and let out a shaky sigh. The heat felt so good on my skin, but it did nothing to ease the deep, throbbing ache between my legs. If anything, it made it worse.I grabbed the bottle of shower gel and squeezed a generous amount into my palm. The sweet, floral scent filled the steamy air as I rubbed my hands together. Slowly, I started washing myself. My soapy palms glided over my arms, then my neck and collarbones. When I reached my full, heavy breasts, I took my time. I cupped them, lifting and squeezing the soft flesh, letting my thumbs brush over my sensitive nipples again and again.“Ohhh…” I moaned quietly. My nipples hardened into tight little pea

Sophie’s POVNot the way it had when Ares did it. When Ares had tucked my hair behind my ear, heat had run all the way down my body and I had forgotten how to breathe. When Derek did it now, I felt his hand, I felt that it was kind, but my heart just kept beating its normal, ordinary beat.And my mind went back, without me wanting it to, to the gala. To the moment I had thanked Derek for the dress and watched his face go blank for that one telling second before he took credit for something he hadn't done.He had let me thank him for a gift another man had sent.I gently pulled away. I put a little distance between us, sliding back on the stool.Something flickered across Derek's face — a hurt look, quick and real — but it disappeared almost as soon as it came. He cleared his throat."What are you going to do today?" he asked."I'm going to visit my father's grave," I said.He nodded slowly. "Okay."For a moment he just looked at me. And then, to my complete surprise, he leaned in and

Sophie’s POVI picked up the three items from the desk and put them carefully into my bag. I stood, and we shook hands across the desk the way we had last time, and then I walked back down the corridor and through the waiting room with the television still going soundlessly on the wall, and out through the automatic doors into the grey morning air.I stood on the pavement outside the hospital for a moment.I breathed in. Breathed out.Then I went to buy the flowers.A bunch of white freesias from the florist on the corner two blocks away. My father's favorite, because my mother had loved them, and everything he had loved he had loved because of her first. I paid for them and held them carefully against my chest and got on the next bus.The private cemetery sat behind a low stone wall on the edge of the city, old and quiet, with tall trees standing along its perimeter like they had always been there and had decided they always would be. Edward Callahan had insisted on having my father

Sophie’s POVThe spark was immediate. Not a metaphor — a real, physical thing, a current that moved from his palm into mine and up the inside of my arm and spread outward from there. I felt it in my shoulder. I felt it in my chest. I felt it in places that had nothing whatsoever to do with my hand.I kept my face forward and kept walking and tried very hard to breathe normally.He must have felt something too. Because I caught it from the corner of my eye — the way his head turned toward me, just slightly, and the way his hand adjusted around mine. Not loosening. Not tightening. Just — adjusting, the way hands did when they were paying attention to what they were holding.I didn't look at him. I looked at the path.His hand was warm. Large. The kind of hand that held things steadily without gripping them hard, and that quality — that steadiness — moved up through my arm along with everything else and I focused very carefully on the placement of my feet on the uneven ground.He held m

Sophie’s POVThe restaurant appeared at the end of a quiet street that the rest of the city seemed to have agreed to leave alone. No crowds. No noise bleeding out from neighboring shops. Just a narrow road of old stone buildings and a single discreet entrance with dark wood and brass fittings and the kind of understated exterior that didn't need a sign to tell you it was expensive.It told you in other ways. The valet who appeared from nowhere the moment Ares pulled up. The way the man moved — quick and professional and entirely without the slightly harried energy of someone managing too many cars at once. The small precise way he accepted the keys without a word. Places like this ran on that kind of quiet efficiency. Everything smooth. Everything attended to before you had to ask.Ares came around to my side before I had properly gathered myself and opened the door. I got out and he closed it behind me.And then his hand settled at the small of my back.I felt it immediately. Warmth