LOGINEvelyn POVAdrian's face turned white as he stared at me. I saw the impact register behind his eyes, a flinch he couldn't quite suppress."You didn't want this," he repeated slowly."No. I didn't come here to sleep with you, Adrian. I came here because I was lonely and tired and you offered me a warm house and a fire and I was too exhausted to say no. And then the wine, and the terrace, and the stars, and you saying all the right things at all the right moments, but that is not enough for me to want to sleep with you.""What are you saying, Evelyn? Am I now undesirable?""It was not supposed to lead to sex, Adrian!" The words burst out louder than I intended, fuelled by the panic and the headache and the image of Margaret standing in the doorway seeing me half-dressed beside her naked son. "We have a painful history, Adrian. One that cannot just be erased because we have become friendly. I have spent the past year rebuilding myself, Adrian. You don't know what you did to me. You, Isab
Evelyn POVThe first thing I felt was sunlight. Warm, bright, pressing against my closed eyelids with the insistence of a morning that didn’t want to be ignored. The second thing I felt was skin. Warm skin against my back, an arm draped across my waist, and the slow, heavy rhythm of someone else's breathing against the nape of my neck.The third thing I felt was wrong.My eyes opened.I was lying on the love seat on the Whitmore rooftop terrace, wrapped in a blanket, completely naked, with Adrian Whitmore's body curved around mine. His arm was heavy across my waist. His chest rose and fell against my back. His legs were tangled with mine beneath the blanket, and I could feel every point of contact between his bare skin and my bare skin with a clarity that made my stomach drop.For three seconds, I lay perfectly still, my brain cycling through the fragments of the previous night like a projector with a jammed reel. The wine. The conversation. The heat that had come on so suddenly. Adri
Evelyn POVI shifted my hips beneath him, a small, rolling motion, and the friction made us both gasp. He opened his eyes and looked down at me, and whatever he saw in my face set him free.He pulled back slowly, nearly all the way out, and then drove forward in one deep, fluid stroke that made me cry out and grab the arm of the love seat above my head. He did it again, establishing a rhythm that was unhurried but powerful, each thrust reaching deep enough to make me feel it in my entire body.I wrapped my legs around his waist, locking my ankles against the small of his back, and pulled him into me with every forward stroke. The angle changed, and he hit a spot inside me that sent shockwaves through my core, and I moaned against his mouth, my fingers scraping across his back, leaving red trails on his skin that I could feel rising under my nails.He responded by driving harder. The love seat creaked beneath us. His hand found my thigh and pushed it higher, opening me wider, and the n
Evelyn POVThe sudden absence made me gasp, my hips lifting as I reached for contact that was no longer there. But before I could protest, his mouth was moving down my body. Not slowly this time. With purpose. His lips crossed my ribs, my stomach, the hollow of my hip bone, and then lower, his breath hot against the inside of my thigh.He settled between my legs, his hands pressing my thighs apart, and looked up at me. One last check. One last question in his eyes."Please," I whispered. It was the only word I had left.His mouth found me.The first stroke of his tongue was slow, a long, flat pressure that dragged through my folds from bottom to top, and the sensation ripped through me so sharply that my hand shot down and grabbed a fistful of his hair. He groaned against me and the vibration made my hips buck, but his hands held me steady, pinning my thighs open as he repeated the stroke. Again. And again. Each pass unhurried, tho
Evelyn POVThe night air hit me, and I gasped, the contrast sharp and sweet, cool air against overheated flesh. My nipples hardened instantly, and I felt myself fully exposed, bare from the waist up under the open sky, but the vulnerability didn't make me want to cover myself. It made me want him to look.And he was looking.His eyes moved over me with a slowness that felt like a touch, tracing the lines of my collarbones, the swell of my breasts, the peaks that had tightened in the cool air. He took me in as though he were committing every detail to a memory he never wanted to lose."You're beautiful," he said. His voice had gone hoarse, cracked at the edges. "Evelyn, you're so beautiful it hurts to look at you."He raised his hand. It hovered between us, close enough that I could feel the heat of his palm against my skin without contact."Can I touch you?" he asked.I nodded.His hand made contact with my lef
Evelyn POV"Is it just me, or is it suddenly very warm up here?"Adrian looked at me, and I noticed a sheen of perspiration along his hairline that hadn't been there five minutes ago. He tugged at the collar of his T-shirt and exhaled slowly."It's not just you," he said. "I feel it too."He leaned forward and fanned me with his hand, but the warmth was coming from inside, not outside. It spread from my chest outward through my limbs with a rhythm that matched my pulse, settling into my skin as though my body had decided to generate its own heat. The night air was cool against my bare arms and the damp ends of my hair, but underneath that coolness, something was burning.I shifted on the love seat. My clothes felt like thorns on my skin. Every thread of my t-shirt registered against my skin as though my nerve endings had been amplified. The cotton brushed across my collarbone, and I shivered, which made no sense because I was overh
Evelyn POVThree days.It had been three days since I woke up in the hospital with no memory of how I got there. Three days since I learned about the video. Three days of damage control and media spin, and trying to piece together what had actually happened to Belle and me.Now I sat in my office w
Gabriel POVI parked at the hotel and led Evelyn inside. The restaurant was visible from the entrance, and I could see Rowan sitting at a table near the window, eating lunch alone.I guided Evelyn to a position where she could see him clearly without being obvious about it. I kept my hand on the sm
Gabriel POVI arrived at my compound and immediately began preparingRowan was part of the top 10 hit men in Bangria. If he showed up at my house, then I would take it as a sign that he wanted to do two things. Number one: kill me and take over. Number two: make peace, and things would go back to n
Adrian POVI turned to the manager, who was eyeing us warily. “You see, turns out I wasn’t the only one who got the call. He did, too, and I’m sensing the last person coming towards us also received the call. Evelyn is in the VIP room. Take us there, or else…”The words were barely out of my mouth







