Page 111 of The CEO

“You didn’t think,” I interrupt, my voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. “You didn’t obey. You didn’t consider the consequences of your actions.” My hand shoots out, gripping her jaw, forcing her to meet my gaze. “Three years as my wife, as my partner in The Shadows, and you still can’t follow the one rule that matters above all others.”

“No unnecessary risks,” she whispers the words we established when we learned she was pregnant.

“No unnecessary risks,” I confirm, my thumb pressing against the pulse point in her neck. I can feel her heart racing beneath my touch—fear, adrenaline, and something darker mingling in her bloodstream. “A rule you’ve now broken twice.”

Her eyes flash with renewed defiance. “I am not some fragile object to be locked away, Damien. Pregnant or not, I’m still The Shadows’ lead strategist. I still have a job to do.”

“A job that doesn’t include field operations.” My grip tightens fractionally. “A job that can be performed from the security of Eden while you carry my child.”

“Ourchild,” she corrects, her hand closing around my wrist. “And I refuse to be sidelined completely while The Shadows continues its operations. I wasn’t in danger. I was in a secure vehicle two blocks from the extraction point, monitoring communications.”

“Until you weren’t.” My other hand slides into her hair, gripping the ponytail and pulling her head back to expose the elegant column of her throat. “Until you decided The Vigilante needed direct assistance and left your position. Don’t lie to me, Eve. I saw you leaving the building with my own eyes.”

Something shifts in her expression: the realization that I witnessed her disobedience firsthand. Without warning, she twists in my grip, ducking under my arm in a move The Vigilante taught her, and darts toward the bedroom door.

I let her get halfway across the room before I move. Three long strides and I have her pinned against the wall, my body pressing hers into the unyielding surface. Her breathing comes in short gasps, the slight swell of her belly the only thing keeping me from crushing her completely against me.

“Running from me?” I ask, lips brushing her ear. “That was your plan?”

“Getting space to think clearly,” she counters, still struggling despite the futility. “You’re too angry to have this conversation rationally.”

“I’m too angry to let you out of my sight,” I correct, hand sliding up to encircle her throat—not squeezing, just asserting control. “Do you have any idea what went through my mind when I saw you emerging from that building? When I realized you’d deliberately placed yourself—and our son—in the path of people who wouldn’t hesitate to kill you both?”

Her pulse thrums wildly beneath my palm, but her voice remains steady. “I took a calculated risk.”

“No.” My lips graze the shell of her ear. “You took my control from me. My choice. My ability to protect what’s mine.” I press closer, letting her feel the hard evidence of how her defiance affects me. “And now you’ll face the consequences.”

Her body responds instinctively, pressing back against mine despite her verbal resistance. This has always been our dynamic—the eternal push and pull of control, of dominance and submission, of punishment and reward.

“And what consequences would those be?” she challenges, voice dropping to that husky register that tells me she’s as aroused by this confrontation as I am. “Another lecture on proper protocol for The Shadows? Restricted access to operational systems? Or perhaps?—”

I silence her with my mouth, crushing my lips against hers with bruising force. The kiss is an invasion, a punishment, a claiming, all teeth and tongue and barely leashed violence. She responds immediately, matching my aggression with her own, nails digging into my shoulders as she pushes against my greater strength.

I tear my mouth away, and both of us are breathing heavily. “You need to be reminded of who you belong to,” I growl, hands already working at the fasteners of her tactical gear. “Who protects you. Who controls you.”

“I belong to myself first,” she counters, even as she helps me strip away the layers between us. “Always have. Always will.”

“Such beautiful lies you tell yourself.” The tactical vest hits the floor, followed by the thin compression shirt beneath it, leaving her in just a black sports bra that strains against her pregnancy-swollen breasts. “Your body knows the truth even when your mind resists it.”

I lift her with ease, carrying her to our bed, where I deposit her with more force than necessary. She bounces slightly upon impact, hair splaying across the dark sheets like spilled ink. Before she can move, I’m straddling her thighs, pinning her to the mattress with my weight.

“You think you can challenge me without consequences?” I lean down, capturing her wrists and pinning them above her head with one hand. “That you can defy my direct orders and simply walk away?”

Her eyes gleam with that defiant fire I’ve come to crave. “I think you forget sometimes that I’m not one of your operatives to command. I’m your equal, Damien. Your partner.”

“My wife,” I correct, my free hand trailing down her exposed torso, feeling her shiver beneath my touch. “My responsibility. Mine to protect by whatever means necessary—including from her own recklessness.”

I release her wrists long enough to rid her of the sports bra, exposing her breasts to my hungry gaze. Pregnancy has made them fuller, more sensitive—a fact I exploit mercilessly as I lower my head to take one peaked nipple between my teeth. She arches beneath me, a gasp escaping her lips as I bite down just hard enough to skirt the edge between pleasure and pain.

“Damien,”she breathes, fingers tangling in my hair. The anger between us transforms, as it always does, into something hotter, darker, more primal.

I raise my head, meeting her gaze. “If you ever put yourself in danger like that again, the consequences will be severe. Do you understand me?”

Her chin lifts in that stubborn gesture I’ve come to both love and hate. “Are you threatening me?”

“I’m promising you,” I correct, hands moving to unfasten her tactical pants, dragging them down along with her underwear in one efficient motion, “that my patience has limits, even for you.”

Once she’s completely naked beneath me, I take a moment to drink in the sight. Her body has changed with pregnancy—softened curves, the pronounced swell of her belly where our child grows—but the underlying strength remains. I still see the dangerous grace, the coiled power that mirrors my own. Even in submission, Eve radiates potential violence, like a weapon temporarily sheathed.

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