Isla
For a brief moment after the door closed behind us, the outside world sized to exist. No press. No contract. No cameras. No damn rules. Just him.
The silence between us crackled like live wire. My back hit the wood with a soft thud. He didn't speak. Didn't ask. Just pressed into me like he was claiming the air between us like he needed to brand it with his body before I could change my mind. But I didn't.
I didn't want to. I didn't want sanity, or logic, or the version of myself that usually weighed consequences. I wanted the version of me that had stood in front of Roth without flinching. The version that had told Damien I was his and had meant it, even if I hated how much I did.
His lips were on my neck before I could take another breath. Hot. Heavy. Relentless.
"Damien—" I barely managed his name.
He pulled back just enough to meet my eyes. "Too late to stop this now."
I didn't respond. Didn't need to. My hands moved before my mind caught up fingers tangled in his tie, dragging him closer. Our mouths met with brutal heat. No softness. No gentleness. Just the sound of lips colliding and breath hitching and two people too far gone to pretend anymore.
He tasted like coffee and control like midnight in a city that never slept. And I drank him in like I'd been starved for it. His hands found the robe I still hadn't taken off. Silk slipped from my shoulder in one clean motion, baring skin to the open air. I expected him to rush. To tear the rest away. But he didn't.
He paused and looked at me. Not a passing glance. Not the quick, predatory scan I'd seen from every powerful man before him. Damien looked at me like I was a secret only he had the right to unlock.
"You're not what I expected," he said lowly.
"Neither are you."
He chuckled that dark, under-his-breath kind of laugh that lived between pleasure and punishment. "If you're trying to wrestle control from me, sweetheart, don't waste your time."
"I'm not," I whispered, stepping out of the robe completely. "I'm giving it to you."
And just like that the last thread of tension snapped. He moved. I was lifted easily, effortlessly and my back met the wall again as he pinned my wrists above my head with one hand. His mouth crashed against mine, deeper this time, his teeth grazing my bottom lip before sucking it between his.
My legs wrapped around his waist like instinct. He pressed into me hard enough that I felt the thickness of his arousal through the fine fabric of his suit.
"Say it again," he growled, voice ragged. "Tell me who you belong to."
I didn't hesitate.
"You."
He let out a strangled breath and kissed me again rougher, needier.
Then suddenly I was in his arms, being carried through the villa. I couldn't even process the space around me. It was all dark wood and glass and heat. Modern, sleek, and masculine like him. We didn't make it to the bed.
He set me down on a long velvet chaise in front of a fire that was already roaring. The heat licked at my skin, but it wasn't nearly as hot as his eyes as they drank in the sight of me.
"Spread your legs," he said.
I did.
He sank to his knees. And for the first time, Damien Valerius looked like a man who had found something he couldn't buy, control, or crush. Something he craved.
He kissed the inside of my thigh like it was sacred. Worshipped with his mouth. Bit with just enough pressure to make me whimper, then soothed the sting with his tongue.
I wasn't prepared for that kind of attention. Wasn't ready for the way his lips moved over every inch of me like he was learning me memorizing me just to destroy me with it later. His mouth reached my centre and I gasped. No teasing. No waiting. He devoured.
Slow, measured licks that turned into something feral as I arched into him, my fingers tangling in his thick hair.
"Damien oh God—"
"Louder," he said against me.
I moaned. He growled. My body trembled beneath him. He held my hips down with one strong arm, the other teasing a nipple between his fingers like he wanted every inch of me overwhelmed. And I was. I came with a cry I didn't recognize as my own legs shaking, voice breaking, heart thudding.
He didn't stop until I begged. When he finally rose, his mouth was wet with me. His eyes were darker than I'd ever seen them. He undid his belt slowly watching me the entire time. Then the rest came off. Jacket. Shirt. Pants. All peeled away with ruthless control until Damien stood over me, fully bare, fully hard.
And Jesus Christ, he was—
"Speechless?" he asked, cocking a brow.
"Momentarily."
He smirked. "Don't worry. You'll be screaming soon."
He guided himself to my entrance thick and pulsing and already leaking. Then paused.
"Safe word?"
I blinked. Of all the things I thought he'd say—
"Paris."
"Of course it is."
Then he thrust into me in one long, devastating stroke, Paris was the last word on my mind. The thrust stole my breath. Not just from the size of him which, God, was enough to make my eyes blur but from the sheer force of it. Damien didn't ease in. He possessed.
One long, brutal slide that had my body arching, mind scrambling. He didn't move at first. Just stayed there, fully seated inside me, his chest pressed against mine as we both gasped one breath, shared like a secret too sacred for the outside world.
"Still with me?" he asked, voice a low rumble against my ear.
I nodded or tried to. "Yes."
"That's not a word, sweetheart."
"Yes. Damien. I'm—fuck—I'm with you."
"Good," he growled, and then he moved.
A slow withdrawal. A punishing thrust. I cried out. He didn't stop. Thrust after thrust, harder, deeper, like he was carving himself into me. Like his name would be branded on the inside of my thighs if I ever dared let another man between them. And maybe it would.
His control was terrifying not just the precision of his rhythm or the strength behind every motion, but the restraint. As if he could shatter me… and chose not to. As if this we meant something more than lust. But it couldn't. I wouldn't let it. Still, the way he looked at me when I cried his name made the world tilt. Like he wanted to memorize my face mid-ruin. Like he needed to prove to himself I was real and here and his.
"Mine," he whispered, like it hurt to say. "Say it again."
"You," I breathed. "I'm yours."
And just like that, he lost it. One of his hands fisted in my hair, tilting my head back as his mouth descended hungry, brutal, claiming. He kissed like a storm overwhelming, wet, and wild. I kissed back. Matched him.
Clawed at his back, at his ass, anything to pull him closer as he drove into me again and again. Our bodies slammed against each other in chaotic rhythm, the sound of flesh on flesh rising above the crackle of the fire. His name spilled from my lips like a litany. Damien. Damien. Damien.
"More," I gasped.
His jaw clenched. "You'll get more. You'll take everything I give you."
He flipped me effortlessly, my knees pressed into the velvet of the chaise, his chest heavy on my back. Then he slid back in. Deeper this time. Angled to wreck. I screamed. His hand pressed to the back of my neck, holding me there while the other slid between my legs, teasing my clit with cruel, perfect circles. I was shaking. So close. Too close.
"You gonna come for me again, Isla?" he asked, voice thick with control and heat. "Gonna let me feel you fall apart around me?"
"Yes," I sobbed.
And I did. I shattered full-body, mind-numbing, leg-trembling release that had me convulsing around him, his name ripped from my throat like prayer and curse all at once. He didn't stop. His rhythm became punishing, ruthless, and just when I thought I couldn't take more just when my body begged for mercy he came.
With a low, broken sound, he spilled inside me, holding me to him like I'd vanish if he let go. It was messy. Violent. Divine. The aftermath was silence and firelight and the soft rasp of our breathing tangled together. He pulled me against him, chest to my back, arms banded around my waist like armour.
No words. Just touch. For a moment, in that flickering dark, I let myself believe I was safe. But I wasn't. I knew better. Damien Alexander Valerius didn't play fair. He didn't do casual and he sure as hell didn't fuck without a purpose. So the question clawed through my dazed thoughts as I lay against his bare chest, skin flushed, thighs aching, heart confused.
What the hell had I just signed up for?
Sleep didn't come. Not even as his breathing slowed behind me, steady and deep like waves lapping at a jagged shore. I lay there, eyes open, staring into the firelight as it flickered over the walls like restless ghosts.
I should've gotten up. Should've dressed, slipped out, put some physical distance between me and the man who had just rearranged my body and my sanity. But I didn't move. I was afraid. Not of him. Of myself.
Of what I'd let happen. Of how easily I'd let him in literally and figuratively. I couldn't even blame the wine or the setting or the sheer heat of the moment. It had been him. Just him. The gravity of his presence. The sheer, raw intensity of Damien Valerius. He hadn't asked. He'd taken.
And I'd given in like I'd been waiting for it all my life. I hated that. But God… some twisted part of me loved it.
"You're not sleeping," he said quietly behind me.
His voice was hoarse with sleep. Deep. Still sharp.
I didn't turn around. "Neither are you."
He exhaled. I felt the motion more than heard it his breath grazing the nape of my neck.
"I shouldn't have taken you here."
"No," I said. "You shouldn't have."
His fingers traced my hip under the blanket, light and slow. "But I did."
I finally turned to face him. His face was half in shadow, eyes unreadable, jaw clenched like he regretted something but wasn't ready to admit it.
"Was this part of the contract?" I asked.
A pause.
"Do you want it to be?"
I hated how my stomach flipped at that. "That's not an answer."
"Because I don't have one."
"Bullshit. You always have an answer."
He leaned in, brushing his mouth against mine barely a kiss, more like a claim. "Then here it is: No, Isla. This wasn't in the contract. This was me. Wanting you."
I flinched at that word. Wanting. It felt dangerous. Sharp. Real.
"You don't even know me."
"I know enough."
"No," I whispered. "You know what you see. What I let you see."
His fingers wrapped gently around my chin. "And I know when someone is lying to themselves."
I shoved the blanket off and sat up, naked and defiant.
"You don't know me," I said again, this time stronger. "You know how to control people. How to own them. How to break them apart and use their pieces for your own ends. That's not the same as knowing someone."
His silence was deafening. I turned away, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed.
"I need a shower," I muttered.
I padded across the floor, refusing to look back, though I felt his eyes burn into my spine the whole way. The villa's bathroom was sleek and cold, a sharp contrast to the firelight bedroom. I turned on the water, waited until steam fogged the mirror, then stepped inside. I didn't wash him off. I Couldn't.
I stood under the spray, head bowed, his touch still ghosting along my skin like a brand I couldn't scrub away. My thighs ached. My lips were still swollen from his kiss. My body was still humming, a hollow ache left in the wake of being ruined and worse than that… I wanted more.
What the hell was wrong with me? I barely heard the door open but I felt him. His heat behind me. His hand on the fogged glass. Then the shower curtain pulled back and he stepped inside. Naked. Wet from the neck down. Hard already.
"You don't get to leave like that," he said, stepping closer.
I braced myself against the tile. "I wasn't leaving. I was thinking."
"Dangerous habit," he echoed, mouth curving.
I turned, glaring up at him. "Don't mock me."
"I'm not." His hand caught mine, pinned it to the tile. "But I'm not done with you either."
I should've pushed him away. I should've told him this was a mistake. Again. But I didn't. His mouth was already on mine. My body was already betraying me. I was already lifting one leg to wrap around his hip like a goddamn invitation. He took it.
With one thrust, he was inside me again wet, slick, desperate. The water didn't matter. Nothing did. Except him.
I gasped as he filled me again, one hand still pinning mine to the wall, the other gripping my thigh as if to anchor us both. The water pounded around us, steam curling in every crevice, blurring the lines between control and surrender, dominance and ruin.
He didn't ease into it this time. There was no tenderness. No hesitation. Just pure, unfiltered want and I matched it. Thrust for thrust. Breath for breath.
I clung to him with a desperation I didn't understand, fingers digging into his back, nails scraping down muscle and bone as he fucked me like he was trying to forget every part of me and couldn't.
Our lips crashed again, open mouths and bared teeth, biting and consuming like it wasn't enough to touch I needed to taste. To devour. To leave something behind he couldn't get rid of, no matter how hard he tried.
The water masked the sounds but not the feeling. The slap of skin. The guttural grunts. The strangled moans I tried to bite back and failed. He grabbed both my wrists, slammed them above my head, pinning me to the tile with his body, his breath harsh in my ear.
"You don't get to run," he growled.
"Then don't give me a reason to," I shot back.
His eyes darkened. Something in him snapped and he fucked me harder. Deeper. Relentless. My head fell back with a cry, the edge blinding as it hit me like a freight train. My entire body trembled, legs locking around him, pulling him tighter even as I shattered around him again, this time so violently I saw stars.
He wasn't far behind. With a sharp curse, he stilled, buried deep, his body tense as he came with a raw sound that echoed off the stone.
We didn't move for a long moment. Just stood there. Breathing. Steaming. Shaking. Held together by nothing more than sweat and sex and the kind of tension that didn't vanish once the pleasure did. He finally let my wrists go, and I let my arms drop slowly, boneless, water cascading down my chest in rivulets.
I leaned into the wall, trying to catch my breath. He leaned his forehead against mine, his hands braced on either side of my head like he was trying to box in the chaos between us.
"This is a mistake," I whispered.
"Then we'll keep making it."
I didn't reply because I wasn't sure if I could stop. I wasn't sure if I even wanted to.