Not Just Fun

Chapter 9

Ally POV

The rest of dinner was a blur of survival. I managed to choke down a few bites of food, nod at the appropriate times, and force out a fragile laugh whenever Hollie made a joke about high-society wedding planning. Every second felt like a drop of hot wax on my skin, I couldn't stay here any longer. 

"I'm going to head up, Mom," I said, already on my feet before the words fully registered with her. "The headache I had earlier is coming back."

"Oh, sweetie, go rest. I'll bring you some tea later," my mother said softly, her eyes full of maternal concern that made the guilt in my stomach twist into a tight knot.

I didn't wait. I practically bolted from the dining room, my heels clicking frantically against the marble floor of the grand foyer. I took the stairs two at a time, needing to get behind the safety of my bedroom door before I completely lost my mind.

Fiancée.

The word was a physical weight crushing my lungs. How could he? How could he look at me like that upstairs, press me against the door until I couldn't breathe, and then walk downstairs holding another woman’s hand?

I burst into my room, threw the door shut, and leaned my back against it, letting out a jagged, trembling breath. The room was dark, lit only by the moonlight filtering through the large windows. I kicked off my heels, letting them drop to the floor with a dull thud, and pressed my cold hands to my burning cheeks.

“Everything that happened that night was just... fun,” I had told him.

Maybe this was my punishment, the universe was throwing Julian’s engagement in my face to remind me exactly who he was—Richard Vance’s son. A man who belonged to a world of corporate mergers, arranged marriages, and ruthless ambition. I was just the stepsister. An inconvenient complication.

A sharp, sudden knock on the wood behind me made me jump out of my skin.

My heart instantly climbed into my throat. "Who is it?" I called out, my voice shaking.

"Open the door, Allison." Julian. His voice was a low, rough growl through the thick wood.

"Go away, Julian," I hissed, pressing my weight against the door as if my meager strength could keep him out if he truly decided to force his way in. "Go back to your fiancée."

"Allison. Open the damn door before I turn the handle myself."

The sheer authority in his tone made a shiver ripple down my spine. I knew him. I knew that tone meant he was completely past the point of caring about the consequences. If I didn't open it, he would make a scene, and with my mom and Julie just downstairs, I couldn't risk it.

With trembling fingers, I turned the lock. The click sounded like a gunshot in the quiet room.

I took a step back just as the door swung open. Julian stepped inside, his large frame instantly filling the doorway, casting a long, intimidating shadow over me in the moonlight. He shut the door behind him with a soft, deliberate click, locking it immediately.

"What are you doing here?" I whispered, my anger finally bubbling over, replacing the fear. "Are you insane? Your future wife is downstairs!"

Julian didn't say a word. He closed the distance between us in two predatory strides, his eyes burning with a dangerous, dark fire. Before I could even think to back away, his hands caught my waist, his grip firm and unyielding as he pulled me hard against his chest.

"Let go of me!" I gasped, shoving at his broad chest, but it was like trying to move a brick wall.

"Look at me”, his voice low and vibrating against my skin. He reached up with one hand, his fingers gripping my jaw, forcing my head up until I had no choice but to look into his stormy eyes. 

"Do you honestly think I want this? Do you honestly think I chose her?"

"It doesn't matter what you want!" I cried out softly, tears of frustration stinging the corners of my eyes. "She’s your fiancée, Julian! You’re getting married. You belong to her now."

"I don't belong to anyone," he growled, his thumb tracing my lower lip with a rough intensity that made my breath hitch. He leaned down, his breath hot against my mouth, his gaze dropping to my swollen lips. "And I sure as hell don't belong to her. You know exactly who owns me, Allison. You've known it since the night you ran out of my bed."

"Stop it," I whimpered, my hands fisting in his shirt, but my body was betraying me. The familiar, electric heat was rushing through my veins, making my knees weak. "Please, Julian... we can't."

"Tell me again, that it was just fun," he whispered against my lips, his grip on my waist tightening until there wasn't a single inch of space left between us. "Look me in the eye right now and tell me that what we have is just a game to you. Tell me, and I'll walk out that door and never touch you again."

I opened my mouth to say the words. I wanted to say them. I needed to say them to save myself.

But as I looked into his eyes, feeling the wild, erratic thumping of his heart matching my own, the lie died in my throat. I couldn't say it. And the moment he saw the truth written all over my face, a dark, victorious growl escaped him, and his mouth slammed down onto mine.

The kiss was completely different from the one upstairs. That had been born of pent-up longing, but this—this was fueled by a desperate, territorial fury.

Julian’s tongue parted my lips with a ruthless intensity that left me completely breathless. He wasn't asking for my permission anymore; he was demanding a full surrender. His hands tangled tightly into my hair, tilting my head back to deepen the angle, anchoring me so thoroughly against his massive frame that I couldn't have pulled away even if my life depended on it.

And the terrifying truth was, I didn't want to pull away.

A quiet, broken moan escaped the back of my throat, a sound of pure defeat that only seemed to make him wilder. My fingers, which had been fisting his shirt to push him away, dragged upward of their own accord, wrapping tightly around the back of his neck. I pulled him closer, matching his desperate, frantic rhythm, tasting the bitter ash of the wine on his tongue and drowning in the familiar, intoxicating scent of his skin. Every toxic insult from my ex, Jake, about me being cold and emotionless vanished into the air. With Julian, I was a live wire, burning up from the inside out.

He backed me up ruthlessly until the edge of the mattress hit the back of my knees. We tumbled onto the bed together in a chaotic tangle of limbs and heavy breathing, the sheets twisting around us in the dark. Julian hovered over me, his large hands pinning my wrists flat against the mattress beside my head, his chest heaving as he stared down at me in the moonlight. His butterfly neck tattoos stood out darkly against his skin, his amber eyes completely dilated.

"Say it," he panted, his voice a dark, rough command as his lips brushed the sensitive skin of my jawline, sending a violent shiver down my spine. "Tell me you don't care, Red. Try to lie to me now."

"Julian... please," I whispered, my head rolling back against the pillows as his mouth tracked a burning path down to my collarbone. "This is going to destroy everything."

"Let it," he growled against my skin, his grip on my wrists tightening. "Let the whole damn world burn. I'm not letting you go again."

Suddenly, the heavy silence of the bedroom was shattered by the sharp sound of footsteps approaching the door from the hallway outside.

"Ally? Are you still awake?" Julie's voice called out from the other side of the wood, followed by the distinct jiggle of the doorknob. "Your mom asked me to bring up your tea. The door is locked—are you okay?"

The temperature in the room instantly plummeted to zero.

My eyes flew wide open in pure terror, the spell completely breaking. Julian froze above me, his body rigid as iron, his gaze snapping toward the locked door. My heart walloped violently against my ribs, the sheer panic making it impossible to breathe. If Julie called my mom up here, if they found Richard Vance's son—the newly announced fiancé of Hollie—in my bed in the dark, the fallout would be catastrophic.

"Julie," I called out, my voice sounding incredibly tight and choked as I tried to clear my throat. I desperately signaled with my eyes for Julian to get off me. 

"Yeah! I'm... I'm okay. I just took some medicine for my headache and I'm practically asleep. Just leave the tea on the table outside, okay?"

The handle jiggled one more time.

"Oh, okay. Get some rest, sweetie. See you in the morning," Julie murmured softly. Her footsteps slowly faded away down the hall.

I let out a long, shuddering sob of relief, my hands trembling as Julian finally released my wrists and sat back on the edge of the bed. The raw, suffocating reality of what we were doing flooded back into the room. He was engaged. My mom was downstairs. And I was slipping into a dangerous, forbidden abyss.

"You need to leave," I whispered into the dark, pulling the covers tightly over my chest like a shield. "Right now, Julian. Don't come back."

Julian stood up slowly, his tall frame cutting off the moonlight. He didn't smirk this time. His jaw was clenched, his expression masked in a brooding, dark frustration. He walked silently to the door, unlocking it with a quiet click, be

fore stepping out into the hallway and leaving me alone in the suffocating quiet.