And I know it, right down to my bones.
I’ve proven something.
He needs me.
Not just the drug.
Me.
His thumb drags slowly along my lower lip, dark eyes tracking my face with something raw slipping beneath his usual control. “You look entirely too pleased with yourself, Kitten.”
I lick my lips, deliberately, watching the way his jaw tightens like it costs him something not to react. “I am.”
When he pulls out of me, it’s slow—reluctant—a sharp inhale barely escaping him as if his body resents the separation. He tucks himself back into his pants with movements that feel heavy, like he’s fighting the urge to stay right where he is. His shirt is still gone,discarded somewhere in the chaos of the lab, and his bare chest glows red where my nails dragged, marked, and claimed.
He looks wrecked.
Just not the way I am.
Even like this—disheveled, skin flushed, and breath still uneven—he carries himself with effortless authority. Muscles taut. Jaw locked. Like he could walk straight into a boardroom and make men twice his size fold without raising his voice.
Me?
I’m a mess. Skin hot. Hair tangled. My body still trembling from the way he ruined me—how thoroughly, how unapologetically. From the way I ruined him too.
And that’s the best part.
Tonight wasn’t just sex.
It was leverage.
I can make him lose control. I can make him unravel. I can pull him apart just as easily as he thinks he can cage me.
That makes me dangerous.
Dangerous—and addicting.
Then—
A cough.
We turn at the same time.
A glass wall separates the lab from the adjoining room, and his team is standing there, staring straight at us. Wide-eyed. Frozen. Horrified. One of them looks like he might actually faint.
A slow grin curls across my mouth. “Guess they learned something new today.”
Asher is fucking livid. I can tell by the way his jaw ticks and he stares down the glass like it might shatter by just his look alone.
He moves before I can blink, covering me with his body on instinct alone, and shielding me from their gaze like it’s muscle memory. His skin is still warm, breath still uneven, but his body locks down tight—coiled, lethal, and ready.
I can feel the rage vibrating through him, barely contained.
He grabs the nearest thing—a metal tray—and hurls it at the glass. The clang is violent, echoing through the lab as his team scatters like startled animals, tripping over themselves to get the fuck out.
“Out,” he snarls, voice low and murderous. “Now.”
They don’t hesitate. The last one barely clears the doorway before Asher storms forward and locks it with a sharp, final click.
