Page 73 of Her Soul to Own

My orgasm hits like a wave snapping loose, violent and blinding. My mouth falls open in a soundless cry as my body convulses, my hips jerking uncontrollably, my fingers still deep and slick and trembling inside me. I’m burning alive from the inside out. There’s no air, no gravity, just this—the heat, the ache, and the humiliating ecstasy of coming because he told me to.

Because I wanted to.

I collapse forward, my forehead pressed to his forehead, my breath ragged, and my hair falling over my face like a curtain.

Then his fingers trace down my spine, soft and almost reverent. I shiver under his touch as he leans in, his voice brushing my ear like wind and steel. “You think that was release?” he murmurs. “That was mercy.”

I can’t speak. I can barely breathe.

But somewhere inside me, between the wreckage and the aftershocks, something sharp and thrilling twists tight in my chest.

Because I know he’s right.

He hasn’t even begun to ruin me.

Chapter 16 – Silas - The Unraveling Begins

The night is slick with humidity and secrets. I step outside the gala’s gilded hellscape, where the air is cooler but no less suffocating. I need a minute. Away from her skin, her eyes, her fucking scent. If I stay another second in that powder room, I’ll forget why I’m here, which is to protect her, not devour her.

I round a corner, my muscles tight, jaw tighter, and crash right into someone.

Someone with a big frame, tactical stance, and low center of gravity, like he’s ready to clear a room or take a hit. That posture never really goes away.

I look up, and for a second, the air just vacates my lungs like it knows better than to stick around.

It takes a hell of a lot to surprise me. I’ve walked into ambushes with steadier hands. But this one earns a pause. Because standing there, looking like he never left the battlefield, is a ghost I never expected to bump into in a place like this.

Of all the people in the world I could’ve run into tonight, it had to behim.

“Noah,” I breathe.

Noah McKnight.

He’s broader now, more grizzled than the sharp-jawed sniper I used to know. He still moves like a shadow, though. His eyes hit mine, and something shifts—recognition, maybe guilt.

“Creed.”

He just mutters my name. Flat and controlled. Like he isn’t surprised, but not exactly pleased either.

My heart knocks hard. I haven’t seen him in years. Not since France. Not sinceher.

The air between us is tight. Loaded. And just like that, I’m not in this overpriced coastal mansion anymore. I’m back in Paris.

She was the kind of woman people noticed in awe.

Isola Vane.

She moved with grace draped in restraint. The kind of woman who turned heads not because she demanded attention but because she carried the kind of sorrow people could feel in their bones.

She was Evander’s wife on paper, but never in spirit. There was a quiet rebellion in her every breath, a refusal to be tamed by money or obligation. Her red hair was always pinned in elegant coils, her flawless skin like porcelain, and her eyes so pale that they almost glowed under chandeliers. She had eyes that rarely betrayed what she felt, but when they did, it was heartbreak and misery.

Evander hired me and Noah for his private security team—two ex-military dogs meant to look sharp and shut up. We were to protect the Vane name, no matter what secrets it bled. Most of our duties involved press blocks, paparazzi deterrence, and crowd control at glitzy galas.

But Isola… she needed something different.

She didn’t say it, but it was obvious. The bruises, the soft flinches when Evander’s voice rose, or his hand hovered too close. I never saw him strike her, but I saw the aftermath. The shift in her behavior. The shadows under her eyes.

She spent most of her time traveling. Lyra, barely a teenager then, was always back at the estate with rotating nannies and elite tutors. Isola talked about her constantly and showed me pictures. She told me little stories from phone calls.“She’s stubborn like me,” she once said, a sad smile playing on her lips. “But Evander will break her if she’s not careful.”

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