Page 98 of Filthy Promises

My release crashes through me with such violence that it feels like dying. My body convulses around him, pulse after pulse of ecstasy tearing sounds from my throat I didn’t know I could make.

He follows me over the edge with a guttural groan, his body going rigid against mine, his face transformed by pleasure into something almost beautiful.

For a moment afterward, we lie together, sweat-slicked and panting, the anger andwrongnessthat fueled us temporarily sated.

His weight crushes me into the cushions, but I don’t care. I want to be crushed by him, consumed, obliterated.

Because in this moment of perfect annihilation, I don’t have to think about what comes next.

I don’t have to face the truth that I’ve just fucked my boss.

That I’ve just fucked a killer.

That I’ve just fucked a man who’s already promised to someone else.

I don’t have to face the truth that I’ve never felt more alive than I do right now, lying beneath the most dangerous man I’ve ever known.

A man who’s watching me with eyes that have gone cold and calculating again, the iron of the ruthless businessman sliding back into place even as he’s still inside me.

“We need to talk,” he says.

And just like that, reality comes crashing back.

Along with the sickening realization of what I’ve done.

29

ROWAN

The morning after is supposed to be soft light streaming through curtains, whispered promises. Maybe breakfast in bed, if I play my cards right.

This is not that kind of morning.

I wake up alone on my couch, my body aching in places I didn’t know it could ache. The apartment is empty. No sign of Vince except the lingering scent of his cologne and the marks he left on my skin.

I touch my neck where a bruise is forming, physical evidence of my stupidity.

Like I needed a reminder of that.

“What have you done, Rowan?” I whisper to myself.

The silence offers no answers.

I drag myself to the shower and crank the water as hot as I can stand. I scrub at my skin until it’s raw, as if I could wash away the memory of his hands on me. His mouth. His words.

Tell me who owns this pussy now.

You do.

God, I actually said that. I actually let those words come out of my mouth.

I can’t decide what burns hotter: the shame or the water.

I rest my forehead against the tile wall, letting the spray pound against my shoulders. What was I thinking? He’s my boss. He’s a criminal. He killed a man in front of me.

And just in case I decided I was suddenly fine with all of that…

He’s also supposed to marry someone else.

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