Page 92 of The Contract

“Elena,” I press gently, tightening my hold just slightly.

She exhales, her lashes lowering before she speaks.

“I just don’t want to cause a scene,” she admits, her voice quieter now. Then, after a beat, she adds, “But . . . Adrian makes me uncomfortable.”

Those words are all it takes.

A slow, simmering protectiveness flares inside me, raging in an instant to a boil, and I look for him.

My mind immediately rewinds—to the yacht, to the way Adrian looked at her in that bikini, his eyes lingering too long, like he had any fucking right.

To his hands on her just now, holding her too tightly, too familiarly.

To the way she tried to lean away, her shoulders stiff, every muscle locked in discomfort.

The thought of it burns through me like gasoline on an open flame.

I clench my jaw, forcing my grip to remain steady, controlled, even as my blood simmers with something dangerously close to rage.

I want to go find him, smash his smug face into a brick wall.

Elena must sense it because her hands come up, palms pressing gently against the sides of my face.

“Hey, eyes on me, Wolfe.”

It stops me cold.

My focus shifts, locking onto hers as my heart stutters in my chest.

“That’s it. It’s just you and me.”

They’re the same words I said to her when I scared the shit out of her on the yacht.

Her calm, sweet voice is a soothing balm, cooling the heat threatening to explode within me.

“He’s not worth it,” she whispers.

But you are.

She’s calming me, her thumbs barely brushing against my skin in quiet reassurance, grounding me in a way nothing else could.

And in return, my hands move against the smooth, bare expanse of her back, stroking up and down, a silent promise that she is safe.

That no one will ever hurt her while she is in my arms.

Something about the moment shifts everything in my mind.

She isn’t just my contract.

She isn’t just part of the game we’re playing.

She’s Elena.

And I would burn the fucking world down before I let anyone make her feel unsafe.

I lean in, lowering my voice so only she can hear.

“No one will hurt you,” I vow. “Not him. Not anyone. Not as long as I’m here.”

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