Chapter 48

[ 1,024 words ]

Katia’s POV

The silence in the narrow hallway was deafening, a vacuum that sucked the oxygen out of the air and replaced it with the heavy, intoxicating scent of Julian’s cologne and the raw smell of whiskey. My back was pressed hard against the cold, industrial wall, but all I could feel was the furnace of his body. My lips were tingling, swollen, and throbbing from a kiss that had just dismantled six years of ironclad self-preservation in a matter of heartbeats.

I looked at him, really looked at him, and the gravity of the situation crashed into me with the force of a high-speed collision. This wasn’t a fleeting moment of madness in France. This was my sister’s husband standing over me with a look of such territorial, visceral hunger that it made my knees buckle. And the physical evidence of his desire was there, a hard, demanding pressure against my hip that made it impossible to ignore exactly what was happening between us.

“Julian,” I breathed, my voice sounding like a stranger’s, thin and desperate. I tried to bring my hands up to push against his chest, but it was like trying to move a marble monument. “Stop. You’re… you’re married. You’re married to my sister. You have a reputation, a family… a life p>

Julian didn’t flinch. He didn’t pull back an inch. Instead, he leaned in closer, the tip of his nose brushing against mine, his breath hot against my skin. “Is that really what you want to talk about right now, Katia? The legalities? The Kensington family tree? The woman who sleeps in a different wing of my house because I can’t stand the sound of her breathing p>

“It doesn’t matter; look, I was caught off guard,” I lied, my heart hammering so hard against my ribs that I was certain he could feel the vibration through his chest. “I’ve had too much to drink, and the music p>

“You were waiting,” he countered, his voice low and a dangerous rumble that vibrated in the small space between us. “Since the night in the boardroom when you looked at me like you wanted to tear me apart. Since the night in France when you let me hold your hand in the dark. You’ve been waiting for me to do exactly this. You’ve been daring me to take what I want p>

He moved his lower body and then slowly grind himself and that made me let out a soft, involuntary moan that escaped my throat. His hardness against my thigh sent a jolt of pure, unadulterated electricity straight to my wet pussy. It wasn’t just a move; it was a claim. He wasn’t asking for permission anymore; he was taking back territory he believed had always belonged to him.

I looked into his eyes, searching for a trace of the Julian Windsor who ran an empire, the cold, calculating man who managed billion-dollar mergers and acquisitions with a flick of his pen. But that man was gone. In his place was a man who had been pushed to his limit, a man who had spent the last few hours chasing a thrill he couldn’t name and finding it here, in the dark, with the one woman he was supposed to stay away from.

“What do you want from me, Julian?” I whispered, my resolve crumbling like dry sand. “You have the name. You have the company. You have the sister. Isn’t that enough p>

“It’s not enough; I don’t want the sister, I want you,” he growled, his hand tightening in my hair, tilting my head back so I had no choice but to witness the storm in his eyes. “None of it is enough. I’ve spent my whole life collecting things that are ’enough’ for the Windsor name. But you? You’re the only thing that’s ever felt real. And I’m tired of playing the part of the dutiful husband for a woman who doesn’t even know who I am p>

“I don’t know who you are either,” I challenged, though I was leaning into him now, my body seeking the warmth he was offering.

“Then let’s find out,” he muttered.

Before I could reply, he crashed his mouth back down onto mine, but this time it wasn’t a collision; it was an invasion. He kissed me as if he were trying to pull the very soul out of my body, and I, God help me, I let him. I opened for him, my tongue meeting his in a dance that ignored every moral, every consequence, and every memory of the last six years.

In that hallway, surrounded by the muffled beat of a city that never sleeps, the world outside ceased to exist. There was no Delia and no lingering thoughts of the racetrack. There was only the heat of his skin, the strength of his hands, and the terrifying realization that I was falling for the one man who could destroy everything I had worked so hard to build.

He broke the kiss just enough to trail his lips down my jawline to the hollow of my throat, his teeth grazing my skin. “Tell me to stop, Katia,” he rasped against my pulse point. “Tell me right now, and I’ll walk back into that club, and you’ll never have to see me again p>

I opened my mouth to say it. The word was right there, on the tip of my tongue. Stop. It was the only way to save myself. The only way to keep my secrets buried.

But as his hand slid down from my neck to the small of my back, pulling me so flush against him that I could feel every muscle in his thighs, the word died in my throat. I didn’t want him to stop. I wanted to burn in the fire he was starting.

“I can’t,” I whispered, my voice breaking.

Julian pulled back just enough to look me in the eye, a dark, triumphant smirk ghosting across his lips. He knew he had won.

“Good,” he said, his voice thick with a promise that made my blood sing. “Because I wasn’t going to listen anyway p>

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