Page 68 of The CEO

Her second orgasm is more powerful than the first, her entire body shaking as she cries out my name. The sensation of her muscles clenching around me, combined with the sound of my name on her lips, shatters the last of my control. I drive into her one final time, holding her hips punishingly tight as I empty myself inside her.

For several long moments, we remain frozen in that position, my body covering hers against the desk, both of us panting with exertion. Rain continues to pound against the small window, providing rhythmic accompaniment to our slowing heartbeats.

Slowly, carefully, I withdraw from her body, giving her space to straighten. She turns to face me, her expression unreadable as she takes in the aftermath of what we’ve done. Her clothing is torn, her skin marked with evidence of my passion, her hair wild from my grip.

“You’re bleeding,” she says, reaching up to touch my lip, where her teeth caught me earlier.

“So are you,” I respond, noting the marks I’ve left on her pale skin: bruises beginning to form on her throat, her hips, her wrists.

Instead of regret or shame, I see something else in her eyes. She reaches for my shirt, fingers working at the remaining buttons. “I want to see you.”

I allow it, watching as she peels the wet fabric away from my skin. Her breath catches as she fully exposes my chest, her eyes fixing on the tattoo inked over my heart. Her name, in elegant script, permanently marked into my flesh.

“Eve,”she reads aloud, fingers tracing the letters with stunned incredulity. “My name. On your chest. Over your heart.”

I don’t stop her exploration—don’t try to hide the evidence of my obsession. “Yes.”

“Why?” she asks, looking up at me, confusion mingling with the lingering desire in her eyes. “When did you?—”

“Eight years ago,” I tell her, the truth easier to admit now that I’ve claimed her completely. “Not long after your parents’ funeral.”

She freezes with her hand still pressed against my chest, directly over her name. “My parents’ funeral? You were there?”

“I’ve been watching you for eight years, Eve,” I confess, reaching up to tuck a strand of damp hair behind her ear. “Long before you knew I existed.”

Confusion clouds her expression, the implications of my words slowly registering. “Eight years? But why? How? I don’t understand.”

“That,” I say, pulling away slightly to begin reassembling my appearance, “is a much longer conversation. One we should have somewhere more private than a warehouse where I just interrogated and killed a man.”

She follows my lead, gathering her torn clothing as best she can, wincing slightly as she moves. I’ve been rough with her—rougher than I intended—though clearly not rougher than she wanted. The evidence of our encounter is written on both our bodies.

“You can’t just drop something like that and expect me to wait for answers,” she protests, struggling to close her ruined blouse. “Eight years, Damien. You’ve been watching me for eight years. Why?”

I retrieve my phone, typing a quick message to Foster to bring the car around. “Because you fascinated me,” I tell her, offering a partial truth. “Because I saw something in you that day that I recognized. Something that called to the darkness in me.”

She absorbs this, still clearly unsatisfied with the explanation but recognizing that this isn’t the place for the full truth. “Where are we going?”

“Eden,” I answer, guiding her toward the door. “Where we can talk properly. Where I can show you everything you want to know about me—about us—with no distractions.”

She hesitates only briefly before nodding. “Everything? The full truth?”

“The complete truth,” I promise, knowing that once she hears it, everything between us will change yet again. “About your parents. About Victor Messini. About why I’ve been watching you all these years.”

Recognition flashes in her eyes at the mention of her parents . . . questions forming that I’m not yet ready to answer. But I will. Tonight, I will give her everything she demands, lay my entire history at her feet, and watch as she makes the final choice that will bind us together or tear us apart forever.

As we leave the warehouse, with the rain still falling around us, I’m acutely aware that we’re crossing a threshold from which there can be no return. The obsession that began years ago, the manipulation that brought her into my orbit, the desire that culminated in our violent fucking—all of it leads to this moment of truth.

And for the first time in decades, I cannot calculate the outcome.

Chapter13

Eve

Eden looms before us as Damien’s Bentley glides through wrought iron gates, its Gothic silhouette imposing against the night sky. My body still trembles—not just from the cold rain that soaked through my clothes, but from what I witnessed tonight.

The silent drive from the warehouse has given me too much time to replay those images in my mind: Damien methodically torturing that man, the calculated precision in his movements, the complete lack of emotion in his eyes as he delivered pain.

And then our encounter afterward—his hand around my throat, his body pressing me against the wall, the way he took me with such violent need. My skin still burns where his fingers gripped me, where his teeth marked me.

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