The yacht’s cabin is warmer than the ocean, but I’m still shivering. My hair is wet and splayed out across the pillow, but it’s Stefan’s touch on my bare hip that’s making me feel like temperature no longer has any meaning.
“You’re cold,” Stefan says, reaching for another blanket from the built-in cabinet.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re shaking.”
“That’s not from the cold.”
He pauses, blanket in hand, and really looks at me. His brown-and-blue eyes search my face. Water still clings to his eyelashes, and a droplet traces the scar along his jaw before disappearing into the dark stubble there.
“Olivia—”
“Please, if you care about me at all, don’t overthink this. Not tonight.”
“I’m not the one overthinking.”
He’s right, of course. My brain is spinning out a thousand different scenarios, calculating risks and consequences. What happens after tonight? What happens when the sun comes up and we have to face all the lies and secrets still festering between us? What happens when—
Stefan’s hand cups my cheek, his thumb brushing away a water droplet I pretend is from the ocean. “Like that. Stop. I can practically hear the gears in your head grinding.”
“Sorry my brain doesn’t come with an off switch.”
“You’re wrong about that. It does, and I know a few ways to flip it.”
He’s about me being wrong, and he’s right about him having his hands on my controls—literally, metaphorically, sexually, emotionally, all the “-allys.” And that’s going to be the death of me.
Because I understand exactly what he’s offering, and damn my soul to hell, I crave it. Crave him. Crave the obliteration of thought, the sweet annihilation of finally surrendering to sensation instead of drowning in the relentless torture of my own mind.
“Then do it,” I whisper. “Make me stop thinking.”
That’s all the invitation a man like him needs. He drops the blanket and hauls me against him, skin to skin, and the shock of warmth makes me gasp.
His mouth finds mine, and this kiss is nothing like the playful ones during our truth-or-dare game. This is fucking savage.
His hands tangle in my wet hair, angling my head to deepen the kiss. I taste champagne and ocean salt, feel the lightning-bolt tremor in his muscles as he struggles to hold himself back. Always holding back, even now.
“Stefan,” I breathe against his mouth, “I’m not made of glass.”
“No,” he agrees, crawling on top of me. “You’re made of something much more dangerous.”
The weight of him, the solid reality of his body covering mine, makes everything else fade away. Down here, there are no basement mysteries, no criminal empires, no stolen clinics. Just this—just us, skin and breath and the desperate need to get closer, closer, always closer.
His mouth travels down my throat, nipping and sucking. “Tell me what you want,” he murmurs against my collarbone.
“You know what I want.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“You. I want you.”
He pulls back to look at me. “You have me.”
We both know it’s not true—not really. I have pieces of him, fragments he’s chosen to share, but never the whole truth. Never all of him.
But for tonight, I’ll take what I can get.
I pull him back down, kissing him with all the frustration and longing I’ve been carrying for weeks. He responds immediately, his control finally, blessedly cracking. His hands are everywhere—tracing the curve of my waist, the inside of my thigh, the sensitive spot behind my knee that makes me shiver.
“You’re so beautiful,” he murmurs, like he’s talking to himself. “So fucking beautiful it hurts to look at you sometimes.”
“Stefan—”
“Do you know what you’ve done to me?” he snarls, almost as if he’s angry at me for it. “Do you have any idea what you’ve turned me into?”
“What have I turned you into?”
“Someone who gives a damn.” He kisses me again, harder this time. “I can’t sleep without knowing you’re safe. I’m starting to think I lo—”
He cuts himself off, but I hear the unfinished words anyway.
Starting to think I love you.
I freeze beneath him. I should let that little slip go. It won’t do any of us any good to start dragging that truly unhinged shit out into the open. We’re both too broken to make it work, to fix what’s wrong with us. But on the other hand…
“Say it,” I whisper.
“No.” His jaw tightens as he realizes what he did and what I’m asking. “Not like this. Not when you still don’t trust me.”
“I’m naked in your bed on a yacht in the middle of the ocean. How much more trust do you need?”
“All of it.” His thumb traces my bottom lip. “Every last piece of you.”
“Then maybe you should work harder to earn it.”
“Is that a challenge, Dr. Aster?”
“Maybe.”
“Dangerous game.” His hand skims down my throat. “You sure you want to play?”
“I’m sure I want you to stop talking and start—”
He silences me with a kiss that steals every thought from my head. His tongue traces the seam of my lips, demanding entry, and I open for him immediately. The taste of him—dark and intoxicating, champagne and sea salt—floods my senses.
“Tell me,” he murmurs against my mouth. “Tell me exactly how you want me to touch you. I want to know everything. Every secret spot that makes you gasp. Every way you’ve ever imagined my hands on you.”
“We’d be here all night,” I confess breathily.
His fingers trail down my sternum, light as butterfly wings. “Start simple. Here?”
He circles my breast, not quite touching where I need him most. The anticipation is killing me. “Higher,” I breathe.
His thumb brushes over my nipple, and I arch into his touch. “Like this?”
“Harder.”
He pinches gently, rolling the peak between his fingers, and a moan escapes before I can stop it.
“Good girl,” he purrs. “See how easy that was? Now, tell me more.”
“I can’t just—”
“Yes, you can.” His mouth replaces his fingers, and the wet heat of his tongue makes me forget why I was protesting. “You’re a doctor. You know bodies. Tell me about yours.”
I do know bodies—the mechanics, the nerve endings, the physiological responses. But translating that clinical knowledge into words while he’s doing absolutely sinful things with his mouth is something else entirely.
“I like…” I swallow hard as he switches to my other breast. “I like when you use your teeth.”
He immediately complies, grazing the sensitive flesh with just enough pressure to make me gasp. “Where else?”
“My neck. That spot right behind my ear.”
He moves up, finding the spot instantly, and the sensation shoots straight to my core. His stubble scrapes against my skin as he sucks gently, then harder when I thread my fingers through his hair and hold him there.
“What else?” he asks. “Tell me what you think about when you touch yourself.”
“Stefan—”
“Tell me, Olivia.” His hand slides down my stomach, stopping just short of where I’m aching for him. “Do you think about my hands? My mouth?”
“Both,” I admit, shame pinking my cheeks. “I think about that first time in your office. How you put me on your desk and—”
“And what?” His fingers trace maddening circles on my inner thigh. “How I tasted you? How you came apart on my tongue?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want that now?”
“I want everything.”
He groans, pressing his forehead against mine. “Goddammit, Olivia, you can’t say things like that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m trying to go slow. To make this last.”
“I don’t want slow.” I shift my hips, trying to guide his hand where I need it. “I want you to touch me like you did that night. As if you couldn’t help yourself.”
“That’s exactly the problem.” But his fingers finally, blessedly slide through my wetness, finding my clit. “I can never help myself with you.”
The first stroke makes me cry out, my back bowing off the bed. He watches my face intently and adjusts to make my moans grow louder and louder.
“Here?” He circles slowly. “Or here?” A direct stroke that makes me see stars.
“Both. Either. Just don’t stop.”
“Never.” He slides two fingers inside me, curling them just right, and my vision whites out. “God, you’re perfect. So wet for me. So responsive.”
“Only for you,” I gasp, and feel him shudder against me.
“Say that again.”
“Only for you, Stefan. Only ever for you.”
He kisses me hard, swallowing my moans as his fingers work me higher. But just as I’m about to tip over the edge, he stops.
“No!” I practically sob. “Why—”
“Because I want to be inside you when you come.” He positions himself between my thighs, the hard length of him pressing against my entrance.
“Then what are you waiting for?”
“For you to tell me exactly how you want it.”
I meet his eyes, seeing my own desperate need reflected in those impossible blue-brown depths. “I want you deep. I want to feel you everywhere. I want you to make me forget everything but your name.”
“Such a good, good girl.” He pushes inside me slowly, stretching me, filling me completely. “Look at me while I fuck you.”
I force my eyes open, meeting his intense gaze as he starts to move. The connection—physical and emotional—is almost too much to bear.
“God, it’s perfect,” I gasp. “You feel perfect. Like you were made for me.”
“I was.” He hooks my leg over his shoulder, changing the angle, going impossibly deeper. “Every broken piece of me was shaped to fit your broken pieces.”
The poetry of it, the raw honesty, breaks something open in my chest. “Stefan, I—”
“I know,” he says, reading everything I can’t say in my eyes. “Me, too.”
He reaches between us, his thumb finding my clit again, and the dual sensation is overwhelming. My orgasm builds, inevitable and all-consuming.
“That’s it,” he encourages, his rhythm becoming erratic. “Let go for me. Let me see you fall apart.”
And I do. I shatter completely, crying out his name as waves of pleasure crash over me.
Stefan’s hands grip my hips as he rolls us, pulling me on top of him in one fluid motion. The shift in position makes me gasp—he’s somehow even deeper this way, and the sudden control makes me freeze.
“What’s wrong?” He runs his palms up my sides, thumbs brushing the undersides of my breasts. “Shy now?”
“I just… I don’t know what to do.”
“Yes, you do.” His hands settle on my hips, guiding me into a slow roll that makes us both groan. “Your body knows exactly what it wants. Stop thinking and just move.”
I plant my hands on his chest for balance, feeling the rapid beat of his heart under my palm. The scars are rough and unforgiving, raised lines and puckered marks that illustrate a violent history. I trace one that curves around his ribs, and he shudders.
“The way you touch me…” he breathes, watching me with those mismatched eyes. “Like you’re trying to read my past through my skin.”
“Maybe I am.”
“You want to know all my secrets?” His hands guide my hips into a rhythm that has me biting my lip to keep from crying out. “Then ride me properly and I’ll tell you anything you want.”
I start to move, tentatively at first, finding the angle that makes sparks shoot up my spine. Stefan’s hands are everywhere—my thighs, my waist, my breasts—but his eyes never leave my face.
“That’s it,” he encourages. “God, look at you. The way your hair falls over your shoulder when you tilt your head back like that. Like dark silk I want to wrap around my fist.”
His words make me bold. I increase my pace, rolling my hips in a way that makes his jaw clench.
“Fuck, Olivia.” His fingers dig into my hips hard enough to bruise. “The way you bite your bottom lip when something feels good—it drives me insane. I think about that lip when I’m supposed to be running numbers. In board meetings. When I’m trying to sleep.”
“Stefan—”
“No, let me say this.” He sits up suddenly, wrapping an arm around my waist to keep us connected. The new position has him hitting a spot inside me that makes me see stars. “The little crease you get between your eyebrows when you’re concentrating. You tap your ring finger against your thumb when you’re nervous, did you know that? You’re doing it right now against my chest.”
I look down and realize he’s right. I hadn’t even noticed.
“How do you know all that?”
“Because I memorize everything about you.” He rocks up into me, and I have to grab his shoulders to stay upright. “I can’t get enough. I’m fucking insatiable, Olivia.”
“You’ve been watching me that closely?”
“I can’t stop watching you.” His mouth finds my throat and clamps down. “Your breath catches right before you come and you make this delicious little whimper when I hit just the right spot—yes, that one. Christ, that sound.”
His thumb finds my clit, circling in time with our movements, and I’m suddenly right on the edge again.
“Your thighs tremble when you’re close,” he continues, his voice rough with his own approaching climax. “Your nails dig into my shoulders. You moan my name and it’s—”
“Stefan, I’m—”
“I know, baby. I can feel you clenching around me. So tight, so perfect.”
“Stefan, I’m almost—”
“My perfect girl. Come for me, Olivia. Let me watch you fall apart on top of me.”
And then the world dissolves into beautiful, sparkling snowflakes as I come so hard my vision goes haywire.
I collapse against Stefan’s chest, my body still trembling with aftershocks. His arms wrap around me, holding me close as we both struggle to catch our breath. The yacht rocks gently beneath us, and somewhere above deck, I can hear the distant cry of seabirds.
This is when it hits me—the full weight of what we’ve just done, what we keep doing to each other. The physical pleasure fades and something uglier takes its place. My throat tightens.
“Hey, hey,” Stefan murmurs, feeling the shift in my body. “What’s wrong?”
Everything. Nothing. The fact that I’m falling in love with a man who cannot ever love me back. The fact that I’m carrying his child while his maybe-dead mother plays mind games and his empire crumbles around us. The fact that, despite all of it—the lies, the violence, the impossibility of us—I can’t imagine my life without him anymore.
The tears come before I can stop them, hot and sudden against his chest.
“Olivia?” Real alarm creeps into his voice now. He tries to pull back to look at my face, but I burrow deeper into his neck, hiding.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re crying.” His hands frame my face. “What’s wrong? Did I hurt you?”
I shake my head, but the tears keep coming, hot and unstoppable. “No, you didn’t… I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m—”
“Talk to me.” His thumbs wipe at my cheeks, but it’s useless. The tears just keep flowing. “Please. Tell me what’s happening.”
“I’ve never…” I take a shuddering breath, trying to find words for this feeling that’s too big for my body. “I’ve never felt this way before.”
“What way?”
“Like I’m drowning and flying at the same time. My skin can’t contain what I feel for you.” I press my palms against my eyes, embarrassed by the admission. “God, I sound insane.”
“You don’t.” He gently pulls my hands away from my face, forcing me to look at him. “Keep going.”
“I’m scared, okay? I’m fucking terrified.” The words pour out now, unstoppable as the tears. “Because this thing between us… it’s too much. It’s too intense. I feel like it’s going to destroy me.”
“Olivia—”
“No, let me finish.” I need to get this out before I lose my nerve. “I’ve built my whole life on control. On keeping everything neat and organized and safe. But with you, there’s no control. There’s just this… this wildfire that consumes everything in its path. And I want it—God help me, I want to burn—but I’m so scared of what’ll be left when the fire dies out.”
Stefan shifts, pulling me against his chest. His heartbeat thunders against my ear, faster than I expected. When he speaks, his voice is soft and sad. “You think you’re the only one terrified here?”
I pull back to look at him. His eyes are bright, almost fevered in the moonlight streaming through the cabin window.
“You walked into my life and demolished everything I thought I knew about myself,” he continues. “Every wall, every defense, every fucking rule I lived by—gone. You want to talk about destruction? You’ve already destroyed me, Olivia. Completely.”
“That’s not—”
“But here’s the difference.” His hand cups my jaw, thumb stroking my cheekbone. “I’m not afraid of the ashes. Because whatever gets rebuilt from them will be better. Stronger. Real.”
“How can you know that?”
“I don’t. But I know this.” He leans down, pressing his forehead to mine, and swears, “I will never let anything hurt you. Not my mother, not my enemies, not even me. And definitely not this thing between us.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“Watch me.” His grip tightens slightly. “I promise you, Olivia Aster, that I will guard you with my life. From everything. Including myself if necessary.”
