All Chapters of Claimed By My CEO Stepdad: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

Aria Pov“I hope you are coming home tonight, because tomorrow you are going to work with your stepdad in his company.”My mother’s voice carried down the short hallway of our apartment, bright and full of that particular pride she only used when she spoke about him. I stood by the front door with my bag already on my shoulder, one hand still resting on the cool metal of the knob.“Yes, Mom,” I answered.I didn’t turn around. I already knew the expression Victoria would be wearing—the soft, satisfied curve of her mouth, the way her eyes lit up whenever she mentioned the man she had married three months ago. The man I had never met. The man whose face I couldn’t even picture. Victoria never stopped talking about him. How successful he was. How respected. How generous. Every month, without fail, money arrived in her account. Enough to cover the rent, the bills, the little extras she had gone without for years. Enough for both of us. She said his name like it was a promise. She said the

Aria Pov He just stared at me.The white towel sat low on his hips, held by a single tight knot. Water still clung to his skin, tracing slow paths down the hard lines of his chest and stomach. His hair was damp, pushed back from a face that looked carved from something expensive and cold. He didn’t move. He didn’t speak. He only watched me the way a man watches something he has already decided belongs to him.My heart slammed against my ribs.“Who are you?” My voice came out thinner than I wanted. “What are you doing here?”He still didn’t answer. His eyes moved over my face, lingering on the darkening bruise along my cheekbone, then lower, taking in the wrinkled clothes I had fallen asleep in, the way I had pushed myself up on my elbows. The silence stretched until it felt like another presence in the room.I swallowed. “How did you get in here?”That finally pulled a response from him. His voice was low, rough around the edges, the kind of voice that didn’t need to raise itself to

Aria Pov I am already getting wet.The words stayed locked behind my teeth, but my body had already confessed. His hand slid higher under my shirt, palm warm and sure, thumb brushing the underside of my breast until my back arched off the bed. He kissed me again, slower this time, tasting the residual bourbon on my tongue, and I opened for him without hesitation.He pulled back just far enough to look at me.“What’s your name?”The question was quiet, almost conversational, as if we were not already tangled together, as if his towel was not the only thing left between us.I shook my head. “Does it matter?”“It matters.” His fingers traced the edge of my bra, then slipped beneath it, finding the tight peak of my nipple and rolling it once. A soft, broken sound left my throat. “Tell me.”“Aria,” I whispered.He repeated it once, low, like he was testing the shape of it in his mouth. Then his hand left my breast, traveled down my stomach, and stopped at the button of my pants.“Who hurt

Aria Pov Morning light slipped through the heavy curtains in thin gold lines across the bed.I woke slowly, body heavy, limbs tangled in expensive sheets that smelled of sex and the faint remaining scent of his skin. For a few seconds I simply lay there, staring at the ceiling, trying to remember where I was. The suite was quiet except for the low hum of the air conditioning. My mouth felt dry. My throat was faintly sore. Then the deep, insistent ache between my legs and the dull throb in my inner thighs brought everything back in a rush—the hotel key mix-up, the stranger stepping out of the bathroom in nothing but a white towel, the way I had begged him not to stop, the way I had taken him into my mouth until he came down my throat in thick, hot pulses.I turned my head.He was already dressed.The man from last night stood near the window, fastening the last button of a crisp black shirt with precise, unhurried movements. His suit jacket hung neatly over the back of a chair. The tr

Aria Pov The silence that followed our eyes meeting lasted only a second, but it felt much longer.Victoria stood between us, smiling with complete, oblivious warmth, and the first question that left her mouth cut straight through the air.“Did you two know each other?”The words hung there, simple and dangerous.“No,” I said.“No,” Alexander answered at the same time.Our voices overlapped, too quick, too identical in their refusal. Victoria laughed softly, as if the shared denial was nothing more than coincidence.“Well, that settles it then. Aria, greet your stepdad properly.”I forced my feet to carry me the rest of the way down the short steps. Every movement reminded me of the night before—the stretch of him inside me, the way my throat had taken him, the blank cheque I had filled with a number large enough to buy silence. Now the same man stood in my mother’s kitchen wearing a perfectly tailored shirt, looking as if he had never touched me at all.“Good morning, sir,” I said.