I finally turn to him, all excuses gone, left with only the raw, desperate truth. “West, please,” I whisper, my voice cracking. “I just want to go home.”
He walks over to me, his expression serious as he tilts my chin up, forcing me to meet his intense gaze. “No,” he says, the word soft but absolute. He reaches into the pocket of the suit pants he discarded last night and pulls out a single, sleek black key card. He presses it into my hand, his fingers closing mine around it.
“This is home now, Kinsley. At least for the weekend.” He looks at the key card in my hand. “This is for my building. The elevator, my floor, my door. You’re not a guest, you’re not a prisoner you need to escape from.” He leans in, his voice dropping to a possessive whisper. “You live here now. With me.”
He kisses me, a hard, possessive kiss that is not for show, but a statement of fact. A reminder, a brand, a promise.
When he pulls away I’m left standing in the middle of his room, wearing his shirt, holding the key to my cage. The entire weekend stretches out before me, an eternity under his roof, under his control.
I lost my virginity last night. I lost the war, and he didn’t just take me home for a night. He moved me in for the weekend.
Thirty
West
She thinks she hates me.
The thought, sharp and exhilarating, is the first thing that comes to mind as I watch her. She's sitting on the edge of the bed, wrapped in my shirt, her back to me, but I can feel the tension in her small frame. The fight is still in her. Good. I wouldn’t want it any other way.
She thinks I’m just another jock with a pretty face and a dirty reputation. She thinks I’m simple. Predictable. She doesn’tunderstand the game I’m playing. The game I’ve been playing since the moment I saw her, a flash of emerald in a sea of grey, her eyes burning with a defiance that called to the darkest parts of me.
I trace the curve of her hip beneath the shirt, a possessive, territorial touch. She flinches, a soft, involuntary protest. I smile.
She kissed me like she was drowning then tried to pretend it didn’t mean anything, but I felt it. The way her body gave in, the way her mouth trembled, the way she wanted me to take more. Last night, she finally stopped pretending. She finally admitted the truth.
The truth of her body, yes. But more importantly, the truth of her mind. That raw, untamed brilliance, that internal chaos she fights so hard to contain.My storm. The name fits her perfectly. It’s not just her Bipolar II, the way her emotions rage and recede. It’s the storm of her intellect, her defiance, her passion. And I want to be the eye of that storm. The calm in her chaos. The one thing she can’t live without.
Asher saw it too. The old man, for all his cold calculations, recognized the fire in her. He saw that she was a match, not a distraction. That dinner was a masterstroke. It solidified our fake relationship in his eyes, giving me the cover I needed to integrate her into my life. He thinks she’s an alliance, he thinks she’s a strategic asset. He has no idea she’s my obsession.
Her phone had rung this morning, a shrill intrusion into the quiet aftermath. Chloe. Her best friend. Predictable. Excited. Blind. She sees what I want her to see: a whirlwind romance, a fairy tale. She’ll be no threat.
Then Blair. Her brother’s wife. More perceptive. She knows about the storm, the real one, the one Kinsley hides from the world. She knows about the fragile balance of Kinsley’s mind. What she doesn’t know is that I’m not trying to protect Kinsleyfrom her storm; I’m trying to harness it. I’m trying to be the only one who can ride it out.
She says no, but her eyes saytry harder. This morning, her lips said“I need to go home,”but her body, her every instinct screamed something else. She fought, she argued. She tried to escape, and I enjoyed every second of it. That’s what I want. Not a docile, broken thing. I want the fight, I want the fire. Because when that fire finally burns for me, when that fight finally surrenders to me, it will be so much sweeter.
I’ll break her rules. Her pride. Her name. I’m already doing it. Her rules about her body, her virginity, were shattered. Her pride was bruised and battered by her own involuntary responses. Her name, now inextricably linked with mine, is a public declaration of ownership.
I’ll make her mine—not just for a night, or a season.Forever.This weekend is just the beginning. The key card I gave her is more than just access to my penthouse. It’s a key to her new life. A life where I am central. A life where her independence slowly, irrevocably, erodes.
Because I don’t want her love, love is messy. Love is conditional. I want her obsession. Her surrender. Her silence when I tell her she belongs to me. And last night, she gave me both. Her silence, her cries, her desperate pleas, they were all a testament to her surrender.
I’ll wrap her in my jersey and watch her forget who she was before I touched her. I already have. She’s wearing my shirt now, a constant reminder of whose territory she’s in. Every part of her, every thought, every sensation will eventually be filtered through me. I will be her past, her present, her future.
I watch her as she finally turns, her eyes still holding that defiant spark, even as she clutches the key card to her chest. She’s still mine, and she will be. The storm is just beginning, and I intend to enjoy every single moment of it.
“Breakfast is ready,” I say, my voice low. “And then we study. You have an exam, remember?”
She glares up at me, her chin still tilted defiantly. “You think you’ve won.”
I smile, a slow, predatory curve of my lips. “I think the game has just begun, Kinsley, and I’ve already secured the first piece.” I reach out, my fingers gently brushing the hair from her face, then tracing the delicate curve of her ear. “Now, come eat. You’ll need your strength. It’s going to be a long weekend.”
Thirty One
Kinsley
“Now, come eat. You’ll need your strength. It’s going to be a long weekend.”
His words, a promise and a threat, hang in the air. I stare at him, my mind a battlefield. He wants me to fight, he thrives on it. But every ounce of my being screams for a moment of peace, a reprieve from the constant, grinding battle. The key card in my hand feels like a lead weight.
