Page 54 of The CEO

“But what I need, baby,” I almost choke, struggling to keep myself in this chair, “what Ineedis to fuck you so thoroughly, so hard and rough and deep, that every fucking ounce of you is spent and begging me to stop. But I know that, feeling the way I do right now, I will hurt you, because I won’t be able to stop even if you ask me to. I won’t stop, Eve . . . not until I’ve spent every last ounce of energy I have making myself feel so fucking good using your cunt that I forget every last horrible thought of that piece of shit threatening you in the alley tonight.”

“Oh.”

“Is that what youwant, Eve?” I smile. “To hear that the things I want to do to you are purely selfish, driven by nothing more than my base desire to derive every ounce of pleasure I can from your body?”

“And what if it is?”

“Don’t play with me, Eve.” I make no effort to hide my distaste for any type of teasing in this moment. “My restraint is hanging by a fucking thread.” My knuckles throb with pain, my fingers squeezed together so tightly, they’re growing numb.

“Tell me then.” Her arms slowly unfold from around her. “If you’re trying to scare me or warn me, then just tell me the selfish things you want to do to me.”

The seconds tick by as I think, my thumb dragging slowly across my bottom lip as I analyze the consequences of being honest with her. I’ve already exposed myself to her—shown her what I am, what I’m capable of. I’ve made no pretense about the devil that lives inside me, so why disappoint her now?

“You frustrate me,” I confess. “I’m not used to this level of questioned compliance. You tend to bring that side out in others as well,” I say, referencing Foster, although she won’t understand. “But every time I’m near you,” my mouth begins to water, “I have to deprive myself of the one pleasure I can’t stop myself from wanting every fucking time I see you, or think about you, or imagine your body writhing beneath mine while I fuck you mercilessly for hours.”

“Why deprive yourself?” Her demeanor shifts with each question, her desire more evident by the second. I lean back in the chair, gripping the armrest to keep myself in place.

“Eve,” I warn, my voice growing weary, “I’m not teasing you or trying to persuade you to let me have you. I’mwarningyou—I want you in ways you aren’t prepared to give me. So unless you want to surrender yourself to me tonight without so much as a fucking safe word, I wouldn’t test my limits.”

Her eyes shift away from mine, her false bravado quickly crumbling when she realizes I’m not offering idle threats. This isn’t just an attempt to scare her with the reality of the thoughts that run through my head every time I look at her. What she doesn’t realize is that I’m not offering her a quick fuck on my couch after an emotional evening . . . I’m going to demand her soul.

“So, back to my question: What do you want to happen next?”

“I’m not sure I know anymore.” She takes a sip of whiskey, her throat working as she swallows. “Everything I thought I knew about myself, about justice, about right and wrong—it’s all shifting.”

“That’s natural,” I assure her. “Your worldview is expanding to accommodate new realities.”

“Is that what happened to you?” Her eyes meet mine with unexpected directness. “Did your worldview ‘expand,’ or did you always know you were capable of this?”

The question hits me harder than she realizes. For the first time in our interactions, I consider telling her the truth about my beginning—the young boy with his mother’s blood on his hands when he failed to protect her, the calculated vengeance that shaped me long before Victor Messini took me under his wing.

“I was nine when I discovered what I was capable of,” I say finally, the admission surprising even me. “I’ve never looked back.”

She studies me, her expression unreadable. “And you’ve never regretted it? Any of it?”

I think of her parents, of the accident I covered up, of the grief she’s carried for eight years because of my actions. It’s the only regret in my meticulously controlled existence.

“Almost never,” I answer truthfully.

She nods, accepting this without pressing further. Another surprise. The journalist in her would normally seize such an opening, dig deeper, pursue the story. Instead, she simply absorbs the information, adding it to her evolving understanding of who I am.

“I should be horrified by you,” she says softly. “By what happened tonight. By what you’ve done. By whatI’vedone.”

“But you’re not.”

“No.” She looks into her glass, swirling the liquor. “And that terrifies me more than anything else.”

I reach out, tilting her chin up with my finger until our eyes meet. “It shouldn’t. You’re simply recognizing a truth most people spend their lives denying: the fact that justice and legality aren’t always the same thing.”

“Is that what you offer? Justice?”

“Among other things.” My thumb traces the curve of her jaw, the contact sending electricity through my fingertips. “The Shadows exists to balance scales traditional systems can’t or won’t address.”

She doesn’t pull away from my touch. If anything, she leans into it slightly, her pulse visibly quickening at the base of her throat.

“And what role do you see for me in all this?” she asks, her voice barely above a whisper.

The question brings me back to my original plan—to cultivate her, to mold her into an asset for The Shadows. To use her investigative skills and her innate sense of justice to further our cause. But looking at her now, vulnerable yet strong in the aftermath of violence, I find myself wanting more from her than simple utility.

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