Page 8 of Accidental Alliance

She feels made for my hands, for my mouth.

The thought is possessive enough to shame me, but shame has no place left in me now. Not with her mouth opening under mine and my tongue curling against hers until she moans.

When we break apart, her cheeks are flushed, lips swollen from mine, and those amber-flecked eyes are dark with want.

“Come with me,” I tell her. The words are not a request.

She nods once, trusting in a way that should terrify me for her. It does in a way, but not enough to stop me from pulling her away from the wall and taking her hand in mine, lacing our fingers to prevent her from pulling away.

I lead her out of the small room and through a side exit of the venue, the cool night air of the city wrapping around us slowly.

My car waits in the back parking lot, it black armored exterior catching the faint moonlight overhead.

I open the door for her, watching as she slides in with that graceful ease she always carries, and then join her behind the wheel.

We drive in silence as the city lights streak past us in blurred ribbons of gold and white, the whole world outside the windshield dissolving into motion. The engine hums low in the background.

Neither of us speaks.

Everything that needed saying had already been done, so just by the single look she gave me inside that moonlit room and in the way she let me lead her out without protest and settled into the passenger seat beside me with that same maddening certainty.

My hand leaves the wheel long enough to move across the center console and find her thigh.

The moment my palm settles there, a dark satisfaction curls through me when she doesn’t push it away.

My fingers tighten once, squeezing just enough to feel the shape of her beneath them.

Her fingers wrap around mine.

There is nothing timid in the gesture as her thumb traces idle patterns over my knuckles, slow and absentminded on the surface, yet each light stroke sends another sharp current racing straight down to my cock until my grip on the wheel tightens hard enough to ache.

“Where are we going?” she finally asks.

“Somewhere no one will look for us,” I answer automatically.

Where we are going is my private apartment, a place no one knows about. I have never brought anyone there before—lover, ally, not even family.

It exists outside the usual map of my life, a place carved out in secret from the demands of the city and the endless reach of my name. It is not home, but it is the closest thing I allow myself to a reprieve.

The building itself is forgettable by design, tucked into a quiet residential pocket far from the neighborhoods my family owns.

We pull into the private garage beneath the building, my tires whispering over the well-maintained concrete before I guide the car into its designated space.

The second the engine cuts, the silence that follows is nearly deafening.

Only the faint ticking of the cooling engine and the sound of my own pulse beating too hard keep my ears from ringing.

When I look over at Isabella, she is watching me. That honey-gold gaze slides from eye to eye as she reads me.

Her lips part slightly, but whatever thought crosses her mind stays there.

I get out first and come around to open her door.

The garage light paints her in muted shadow, softening nothing about the effect she has on me.

She places her hand in mine as she steps out, and that simple trust nearly undoes me more than any flirtation could. I close my hand around her fingers and lead her toward the private elevator without a word.

The ride up is brief. The doors open directly into the apartment. Inside, it’s sparsely decorated.