Page 58 of The Heart of Winter

I was risking everything. My entire career. My reputation.

If Jacob ever found out that his own son was the object of my daydreams, I’d be kicked out of this company so fast my head would spin.

That was something Jacob would never forgive me for, no matter how many years of friendship we had between us.

I knew, whatever was happening between me and Sariel, it couldn’t go any further.

One more step, and it would be a disaster.

I’d have to start over. Look for a new job.

Maybe D-Project? The thought crossed my mind, but then I immediately remembered why that wasn’t an option. I hated their CEO. The guy was an alpha, the worst kind. The insecure type who got off on making his employees’ lives miserable.

I had plenty of colleagues working at D-Project, and I actually had good connections with their upper management. But the idea of switching jobs, uprooting my career over this—

Wait. Stop. What the hell was I even thinking?!

Quitting my job? Over this? This was getting ridiculous. I didn’t even know what Sariel thought about any of it. And for God’s sake, he was twenty-two years old. There was a twelve-year age gap between us. This was too insane.

Then, like a switch flipping in my mind, I suddenly remembered the way he’d touched me in that meeting.

Something had happened to me then, something physical. The sensation had been intoxicating, almost euphoric. It sent delicate waves through my body, pleasurable shivers, making me crave more.

I wanted to sink into him. Into his scent, fresh and minty (which, honestly, wasn’t surprising). That invigorating aura of his wrapped around me, pulled me in, and it felt… incredible.

But those were just fantasies, and they needed to stay locked inside my head forever. I had already let this go way too far.

And then there was that figurine.

My gaze shifted to the small crystal statue now sitting on my nightstand.

An ice elf prince, carved from glass. Sariel had said it reminded him of me, though I was apparently ‘even more beautiful’. A ridiculous joke. Maybe his idea of a weird compliment. But he had no clue what really lay beneath my surface.

I was nothing like an ice prince. Inside, I wasn’t cold, I was burning.

With anger, bitterness, frustration.

And hunger, for more.

More out of my fucking life!

Without thinking, my hand drifted downward, grazing over my body.

For a beta, I had always been very satisfied with my size, eight and a half inches, thick and heavy in my palm.

Now, my thoughts drifted back to that moment by the elevator when he had grabbed my hand. I had been this close, so damn close, to pulling him against me, to feeling him right there, pressed tightly to my chest.

There wasn’t a huge height difference between us. I was six foot one and a half, and he was six foot four—a perfect height for kissing. Almost too perfect. He’d only have to lean down a little. And if I raised my arms, wrapped them around his neck…

We would have kissed right there in the hallway, forgetting everything. Forgetting the consequences. I could have let go. Let myself surrender to something I had never allowed in my life: absolute chaos.

To give in. To lose.

It would have been beautiful, the feeling of falling after spending my entire life climbing, scaling a vertical wall, every movement precise, controlled, clinging to every rule, every responsibility, every damn expectation. No more ‘you have to do this’, or ‘you can’t do that’.

I would have been free.

So what if I really… let go?

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