Chapter 13 Raphael #2
I shouldn’t want to go back. Shouldn’t feel this pull, this need, this desperate hunger to be in the same room with a woman who was supposed to be nothing more than a means to an end.
I’d had beautiful women before. I’d had willing women, eager women, women who would have done anything I asked.
None of them had made me watch clocks. None of them had made me forget my own business dealings.
None of them had played piano in the dark and seen straight through me.
But I did want to go back. God help me, I did.
I grabbed my coat before I could think better of it and headed for the parking garage.
The drive to the manor felt endless.
Sunday traffic on the mountain roads, tourists crawling along in rental cars, stopping to take photographs of scenery I’d stopped noticing years ago.
Everything conspiring to keep me from her for another minute, another hour.
The wolf paced and snarled and demanded I drive faster, take risks, do whatever was necessary to get back to her.
I gripped the steering wheel hard enough to feel the leather creak under my fingers.
This was weakness. This hunger, this need, this inability to think about anything but the woman waiting in my house.
I’d built my empire on discipline. On the ability to compartmentalize, to separate desire from decision, to never let want override strategy.
Now I was counting minutes like a lovesick boy.
No. Not lovesick. The wolf wanted what was his. That was all. Biology. Instinct. The primal drive to claim what belonged to me. Nothing more complicated than that.
The lies I told myself were getting harder to believe.
By the time I pulled through the gates, the sky had faded to deep purple.
The manor rose against it, windows glowing with warm light.
Welcoming me home in a way that felt different now that she was inside.
The wolf settled slightly at the sight, some of his restless energy smoothing into anticipation.
Alice met me at the door. Her expression was carefully neutral, but I’d known her long enough to read the subtle warmth in her eyes. The quiet approval she tried to hide.
“Miss Hughes has been quiet today,” she said, taking my coat. “Stayed in the library most of the afternoon. I brought her tea and sandwiches at noon, but she barely touched them.”
The library. My library, with its thousands of books and leather chairs and the piano I’d had tuned the day after she signed the contract.
I imagined her there, surrounded by my things, making herself at home in my space.
Reading my books. Sitting at the piano. Breathing the same air I’d breathed for years.
She’s nesting. Making a place for herself. Ours.
The wolf’s satisfaction was almost smug.
I found her exactly where Alice said she’d be.
Not playing the piano, just sitting on the bench with her back to the door, her fingers resting on the closed fallboard.
The firelight caught the honey tones in her hair and painted her in gold.
She’d changed into her own clothes at some point.
Soft gray sweater, dark jeans, bare feet tucked beneath her on the bench.
She heard me enter. I saw it in the slight tension of her shoulders, the way her spine straightened. But she didn’t turn around.
“I didn’t think you’d come back tonight.”
There was an edge to her voice. Not soft. Guarded. Like she’d spent the day reinforcing her defenses.
“I said I would.”
“You say a lot of things.” She turned then, and I caught the flash of defiance in her eyes before she smoothed it away. The careful guard was back in place. Whatever vulnerability she’d shown last night had been locked away again. Good. This was easier when she fought back.
“You’ve been in my library all day.” I crossed the room toward her, letting the wolf set the pace. Slow. Predatory. “Making yourself comfortable.”
“You moved all my belongings here without asking. I assumed comfort was the point.”
The tartness in her voice made my chest tighten. I preferred this version of her. The one with claws. The soft, yielding woman from last night had been too easy to want.
I stopped in front of the piano bench. Close enough to smell her. Apples and cream, sweet and warm, filling my lungs whether I wanted it or not. The wolf purred with satisfaction. Mine. In my house. In my territory.
“Stand up.”
Her chin lifted. “Why?”
“Because I told you to.”
For a moment I thought she’d refuse. Part of me wanted her to. Wanted the excuse to remind her who held the power here, to push back against the strange pull that had been dragging at me all day.
But she rose. Slow and unhurried. Making it clear this was her choice, not my command.
We stood close enough that I could see the pulse jumping in her throat. Could smell the spike of her arousal underneath the defiance. Her body knew what it wanted, even if she wouldn’t admit it.
The wolf pushed forward before I could stop him.
I cupped the back of her neck and pulled her mouth to mine.
Not gentle. Not questioning. Hard and demanding, taking what I’d been thinking about all day whether I wanted to admit it or not. She gasped against my lips, and I swallowed the sound, tasting chamomile and honey and something sweeter underneath.
For a moment she went rigid. Then her hands fisted in my shirt and she kissed me back with a fury that matched my own.
This wasn’t tenderness. This was war. Her teeth caught my bottom lip, sharp enough to sting, and I growled into her mouth as I pulled her closer. The wolf howled triumph. Mine. Finally. MINE.
I deepened the kiss, my tongue stroking against hers, and she made a sound in her throat that went straight to my cock.
Her body arched into mine, her breasts crushed against my chest, her hips pressing forward until she could feel exactly what she was doing to me.
Her heartbeat raced under my hands, blood rushing hot beneath her skin.
More. The wolf demanded more. Push her down on the bench. Claim what belongs to us. Make her scream our name.
I broke the kiss before I could lose control completely.
We stood there, both breathing hard. Her lips were swollen, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright with something between anger and arousal. Her hands were still fisted in my shirt.
“What the hell was that?” Her voice came out rough.
I didn’t have an answer. That wasn’t supposed to happen. The contract gave me her body on my terms, under my control. This hadn’t been controlled. This had been the wolf taking what he wanted, and I’d let him.
I stepped back. Put distance between us.
“Tonight,” I started, but the word felt wrong. Tonight was supposed to be about strip inspections and denied pleasure. About maintaining the power dynamic that kept this arrangement manageable. Not about kissing her like I was drowning and she was air.
The wolf snarled at my retreat. Go back. She’s OURS.
But I’d lost control. For one moment, the wolf had been driving and I’d been a passenger, and that couldn’t happen again. That was how people got hurt. That was how things fell apart.
“I should go.” My voice came out rough.
“You’re leaving?” Anger flashed in her eyes. “You come in here, you kiss me like that, and now you’re leaving?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Because I didn’t plan that. Because the wolf pushed too hard. Because for thirty seconds I wasn’t in control of my own body, and that scares me more than you ever could.
“Tomorrow,” I said instead. Then I left before she could demand answers I didn’t have.
In the hallway I pressed my palm to the wall and fought to steady my breathing.
My heart was still pounding. My cock was still hard, aching with a need that had nothing to do with strategy and everything to do with the taste of her still lingering on my tongue.
And underneath it all, a cold thread of unease was coiling through my gut.
I’d lost control.
The thought sat like ice in my chest. Control was everything. Control was how I’d survived the boarding school, the years of rebuilding, the climb from nothing to everything. Control was what separated men from monsters, strategy from chaos, power from weakness.
One kiss, and the careful distance I’d been maintaining had cracked. The wolf had pushed through, taken what he wanted, and I’d let him. Worse, I’d wanted to let him. Had wanted to push her down and claim her right there on the piano bench, consequences be damned.
That wasn’t the plan. She was a means to an end, a possession, a pawn in a game that had nothing to do with soft lips and defiant eyes and the way she’d kissed me back like she was trying to devour me.
I couldn’t afford to lose control. Not with her. Not with anyone.
I’d be colder in the morning. I’d remember why she was here, what she was for, what I needed her to be. The wolf would stay leashed where he belonged.
But tonight, alone in the dark hallway with her taste still on my lips, I wasn’t sure I believed it.