LOGINEvelyn 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 POV"And I believed her. Not because the evidence supported it, but because believing her was simpler than admitting that I was afraid. If you were scheming, I didn't have to feel guilty for treating you badly. If you were performing, I didn't have to acknowledge that my coldness was hurting a real person. Isabella gave me a story that let me off the hook, and I held onto that story because letting go of it meant looking at myself honestly, and I wasn't ready to do that."His thumb moved slowly across my knuckles."But I can't lay all of it on Isabella. That would be too easy, and you deserve better than easy answers. The truth is, the signs were there—every sign. You cooked meals I never tasted. You helped with company reports I never thanked you for. You took care of my mother with a devotion that had nothing to do with strategy and everything to do with who you are as a person. And I ignored all of it because I was comfortable in
Gabriel POVI turned back to face him. "Are our lawyers done reviewing the Green Valley Project? Is it safe for me to invest?"Rowan nodded. "They've approved it. All the documentation checks out. All that's left is for you to reach out to Evelyn and make the offer.""Call her office tomorrow," I i
Evelyn POVI stared at the man in front of me for the longest time, gauging his expression.He looked hurt, and he clearly hasn’t been getting a lot of sleep from the way his eyes were sunken. Wasn’t it a lifetime agoI’d loved Adrian so much that the mere thought of doing life without him, even wh
Evelyn POV“Don’t talk to me like that, Evelyn, you have no right…”“Oh, are you going to bully me into silence now? In front of the entire city? I am an adult, Adrian, and I have the right to express myself however I want. Why are you trying to drag our failed relationship into everything? This is
Evelyn POV"I'm not lying," I said calmly. "And I don't need to sabotage your project. The geological data will do that all on its own. I'm just giving people the information they need to make informed decisions."I stepped away from the microphone and returned to my seat, feeling a rush of satisfa







