Her cries echo off the wood and glass, heat and need blurring into something wild. I slide two fingers into her, stretching her, curling deep. She’s so tight it nearly breaks me.
She comes for me, clenching around my fingers, sobbing my name. But I’m not done.
I stand, undoing my belt with shaking hands, letting her see what she does to me—how hard, how desperate I am for her. I push inside her in one smooth thrust, burying myself to the hilt, hips grinding against her ass until she gasps, back arching.
Her nails rake down my back, her legs wrap around me, and I lose all sense of restraint. I fuck her hard, rough, each thrust driving her higher.
My desk shakes with our movements, papers sliding, a mug toppling to the floor. She matches me—thrust for thrust, kiss for kiss, her mouth hungry on mine.
I whisper her name, threats and promises tangled on my tongue. “You’re mine, Eden. No one will ever have you but me.”
She comes again, body shuddering, tears streaking her cheeks. I hold her through it, lips at her ear, growling filth and devotion until I break, spilling inside her, marking her as mine.
Afterward, I cradle her against me, chest heaving, mouth pressed to her hair.
In this office—my kingdom, my cage—I let her see every piece of me. And she doesn’t look away.
***
The nights are the worst. When the apartment goes quiet, when the city’s pulse slows to a murmur beneath our windows, that’s when I feel the tension threaten to pull me apart. It simmers in the silence—thick, relentless.
Every brush of her hand, every sigh she tries to muffle beneath her breath, every quick glance she steals at my mouth when she thinks I’m not looking. There’s a hunger in her, a need she tries to hide, and it drives me mad.
I try to control it. I keep my distance during the day, keep my voice calm and my hands steady as I guide her through this life I’ve forced her into.
It’s never enough. When she walks past me, the scent of her skin, the sight of her hair tumbling loose down her back—every detail is a provocation. The way her clothes stretch over the gentle curve of her belly, the unconscious way she rests her hand there, the way her body has begun to change in ways only I notice. It makes me want her with a desperation that borders on violence.
She doesn’t see it, not the way I do. She doesn’t realize how every inch of her has become sacred to me, how the small, mundane movements—her yawn in the morning, her little smile when she catches the cat watching her from the window, the soft sounds she makes in her sleep—are all carved into my memory.
Maybe Eden thinks I’m distant because I’m busy, or cold because I’m lost in my work, but the truth is, if I gave in to the urge to touch her every time I wanted, I’d never let her go.
Tonight is worse than most. The house is shadowed and silent, the world reduced to lamplight in the hall. I stand in her doorway, unseen, watching her sleep.
The covers are tangled around her hips, one arm curled beneath her head, the other draped protectively over her stomach.
The faint swell there catches in the lamplight, soft and new, but undeniable. My child. Our child. The thought reverberates through me, equal parts pride and terror.
I don’t move. I watch her breathe, slow and steady, lost in dreams she’ll never tell me. She stirs, shifting closer to the pillow, mouth slack, hair scattered like gold across the sheets.
The sight should calm me, but instead, it sets something deep inside me alight—a craving that isn’t just for her body, but for everything she is. I want to own her, to carve my place into every part of her life until she can’t remember who she was without me.
I slip into the room, quiet as a shadow. She doesn’t wake. I stand at the edge of the bed, watching the rise and fall of her chest, the gentle movement of her fingers as they flex in sleep.
My hand aches to touch her. I want to run my palm over her stomach, to feel the proof of what we’ve made, but I hold myself back, hovering in that unbearable space between restraint and need.
My gaze traces the lines of her body—the curve of her hip, the delicate arch of her neck, the soft part of her lips. I want to bend down, bury my face in the hollow of her shoulder, breathe her in until the rest of the world disappears.
I want to wake her with my hands, with my mouth, with every hungry inch of me.
Instead, I kneel beside the bed, elbows resting on the mattress, letting my hand hover just above her skin. She stirs, lashes fluttering, and turns toward me, eyes half lidded with sleep. For a moment, neither of us moves.
“Simon,” she whispers, voice rough with dreaming.
I swallow. “Go back to sleep.”
Her hand finds mine beneath the blanket, small and warm, threading our fingers together. I feel her heartbeat against my wrist—racing, unsteady, mirroring my own.
She shifts, making space, and the invitation is there—unspoken, fragile, impossible to resist. I slide onto the bed, pulling her against my chest, one hand curling around her belly, the other tracing slow circles along her spine.
