Chapter Fourteen - Simon
From the moment the sun goes down, I watch her.
Not obviously. Not hovering. I give her space in the apartment, sit where the shadows fall across the wall, arms loose, posture relaxed. But every time she moves, every shift in her breathing, every flicker of emotion across her face—fear, frustration, curiosity—I track it.
Eden’s trying not to look at me, but she fails every few minutes.
Her composure fascinates me more than anything. She’s restless, tightly wound, still shaken from the last few days, but she hasn’t collapsed under it. She hasn’t begged, cried, or tried some idiotic escape attempt.
She watches her surroundings like she’s solving a puzzle.
So I keep testing the pieces.
“What are you planning now?” she asks that evening, leaning against the counter with her arms crossed. Her voice stays steadier than her heartbeat.
“Something different,” I say. “Something… clarifying.”
Her eyes narrow. “Clarifying for who?”
“Both of us.”
She straightens, suspicion and defiance sharpening her posture. “If this is another threat, I’m not in the mood.”
“If I wanted to threaten you,” I say, stepping closer, “you’d know.”
She doesn’t step back. That alone tightens something low in my chest.
I hold her gaze. “Tomorrow evening, you’re coming with me.”
Her shoulders tense. “You mean I don’t get a choice.”
“You get one,” I say. “Come willingly, or I take you anyway.”
Her breath catches, but she reins in the fear quickly. She doesn’t crumble. She doesn’t plead. Her chin lifts instead, stubborn and reckless.
“Fine,” she says. “Whatever.”
The way she says it isn’t surrender. It’s a challenge, and it earns my interest immediately.
***
The next evening, she steps into the living room wearing a simple outfit—dark jeans, a fitted top, her hair down and slightly messy from nerves. The simplicity only sharpens her presence. She looks fresh, real, unpolished in a way that makes heat coil low in my stomach.
I watch her walk toward me, the way her eyes meet mine before sliding away. She tries to hide the tremor in her fingers by keeping them busy with her jacket zipper.
“You’re not going to tell me where we’re going, are you?” she asks.
“No,” I say. “You’re going to get in the car without asking again.”
She huffs a breath, half annoyed, half nervous. Then she follows me, slipping into the passenger seat with a quick scan of the interior—dash, locks, windows. Always observing. Always assessing.
I start the engine and the car hums beneath us, low and powerful.
As we drive deeper into the city, neon signs smear across the windshield. People gather on the outskirts of a warehouse district—crowds of adrenaline junkies, mechanics, racers who live in the seconds between danger and disaster.
Engines roar, building into a thunderous vibration that hits the ribs.
Eden’s breath catches when she sees the first two cars launch off the line, tires screaming as they tear down the blocked-off industrial road. Not fear. Something tighter. Brighter.
Interest.
I glance at her out of the corner of my eye. Her posture shifts forward, shoulders tensing, eyes locked on the streaks of metal and smoke.
“You brought me to a street race?” she asks, incredulous.
“You said you were bored,” I reply.
She gives me a look—half shock, half something else. “This is insane.”
“Yes,” I say. “It is.”
She swallows, losing her words for a moment.
Good.
Her reaction tells me more than any interrogation ever could.
When it’s my turn to drive, she stiffens once, gripping her seat belt. As the engine revs, as the crowd roars, as the headlights cut through the dim haze, something in her shifts again.
I hit the gas.
The car lunges forward. The world blurs into streaks of darkness and neon. Tires squeal. The engine screams. Eden inhales sharply, bracing herself with one hand on the door.
Fear doesn’t take over.
By the third turn, her hand moves to the center console for balance, her eyes focused on the curve ahead. Her breathing evens. Her body adapts.
She thrives in chaos.
I drift through a tight turn faster than I should. The rear end kicks out. For a split second, the car tilts too hard.
Before I can correct, Eden’s hand shoots out and grips the wheel with mine—just enough pressure, just enough angle—to stabilize it.
The moment is brief, a fraction of a second. It hits me like an electric shock.
By the time I floor it again, the adrenaline rushing through me is doubled—half from the race, half from the woman sitting inches away, pulse racing, eyes bright with a mix of terror and exhilaration.
I glance at her. She looks alive.
More alive than she has since the night I dragged her into a van.
When her gaze meets mine, something burns between us—an unspoken acknowledgment that neither of us walked into this night the same person we were yesterday.
Ten minutes later, I pull into the underground garage beneath the building, the energy between us is still tight and humming. She gets out slowly, leaning back against the side of the car as if her legs need a moment to catch up with her heartbeat.
I step close. Just close enough that the heat from her body merges with mine.
She looks up at me, cheeks flushed from the cold night air and adrenaline. “What kind of captive,” she says, “gets taken on… field trips?”
Her tone is teasing—but there’s steel beneath it. A challenge pressing back against my authority, forcing me to confront the line we’re both dangerously close to crossing.
“I needed to see how you react under pressure,” I say.
“Uh-huh.” She tilts her head, eyes narrowing. “And you liked what you saw?”
My jaw tightens. The answer is immediate. Reflexive.
Yes.
She doesn’t run from the silence. She waits for me to speak like she expects a real response, not an evasion.
“You handled yourself well,” I say finally.
Her lips part slightly. Her pulse jumps in her throat.
My chest warms in a way I don’t allow.
She shifts closer without realizing it, her shoulder brushing my arm. A small contact. Barely anything. After the night we just had, it feels like a spark catching dry tinder.
The air thickens. Heat rolls through the space between us.
Her breath stutters. Her eyes flick to my mouth for a fraction of a second—tiny, unintentional, explosive.
I take half a step closer.
Eden inhales sharply.
The air between us goes tight, so tight it feels like a single breath could snap it.
She’s the first to move.
There’s a small, instinctive shift that brings her fully into my space. Her shoulder brushes my chest. Her breathing hitches. Her hand—trembling just slightly from adrenaline—lifts and rests against the car behind her, anchoring her.
She looks at me like she’s finally stopped trying to talk herself out of wanting this.
Her eyes flick to my mouth again, quick as a spark. Then she whispers, barely audible, “Are you going to kiss me, or do you want me to beg?”
My control fractures. I don’t grab her. I don’t shove her against the car. I move slow—slow enough that she can stop me, slow enough that she knows the choice is hers.
My hand comes up and skims her jaw with the back of my knuckles. Her eyelids flutter. Heat flushes across her cheeks. When my thumb catches her lower lip, she breathes a soft, helpless sound that goes straight to my spine.
“That’s not how begging works,” I murmur.
She shivers, and then she rises onto her toes and kisses me.
She fists her hands in my shirt instantly, dragging me down to her. I catch her waist, pressing her body flush to mine. Her lips part beneath mine, hot and hungry, and the taste of her hits me like I’ve been starving without knowing it.
Her mouth opens. She moans—quiet, breathy—and the sound rips through me. I slide one hand into her hair, grab a handful, and tilt her head back just enough to deepen the kiss. She gasps and presses closer, hips brushing mine.
Dangerous. This woman is dangerous.
I lift her—hands under her thighs—and she wraps her legs around my waist without hesitation. Her breath stutters against my mouth as her spine arches, pressing her chest to me. I carry her to the elevator wall and pin her there, bodies crushed together, heat grinding between us.
Her fingers claw at my jaw, then down my throat, then hook into my collar. I feel her pulse hammer under her skin. I kiss her harder. Her nails drag down my chest, and she gasps as my hips press into hers, slow and deliberate.
“Simon—” Her voice breaks, soft and frantic.
“What? Use your words.”
She swallows, eyes dark, lips swollen. “Simon, I need you.”
My restraint snaps like thread.
I kiss down her throat, open-mouthed, hungry. She tilts her head back and lets out a soft, startled cry when my teeth catch lightly at her pulse. Her thighs tighten around me, rolling her hips against mine.
“You want me this badly, huh?” I say against her skin.
Eden breathes out a laugh—shaky, aroused, defiant. “You already know I do.”
I slide a hand beneath her shirt, palm meeting warm skin. She shivers violently, her breath catching as I drag my thumb beneath the curve of her breast. Her back bows against the wall, pushing into my touch.
“More,” she whispers.
I oblige.
My hand moves higher, sliding under her bra until my palm cups her fully. She gasps—a raw, involuntary sound—as my thumb brushes her nipple. Her hips jerk against mine, her breath breaking apart in small, desperate sounds she tries to swallow.
“You’re shaking,” I murmur.
“You’re… doing that.” She digs her fingers into my shoulders. “God—”
I pull her shirt up and over her head, tossing it aside. Her bra follows, and she lets out a broken breath as the cool air hits her skin. I take her breast in my mouth, tongue circling slow around her nipple. She cries out, biting down hard on her lip, her hands flying to my hair.
“Simon, Jesus…”
I pin her tighter between my body and the wall, grinding my hips into her. She gasps at the pressure, her legs tightening around my waist as her body arches instinctively into every movement.
I kiss back up her chest, her neck, her jaw, until my lips brush her ear. “I haven’t even touched you properly yet,” I whisper.
She trembles, full-bodied, helpless, already undone just from my hands and mouth.
I slide my fingers along the inside of her thigh, slow as sin, just beneath the hem of her jeans. She sucks in a sharp breath. Her hips lift, searching for friction.
“Here?” I tease.
“Don’t be cruel,” she breathes.
“Then tell me where you want my hands.”
She swallows, cheeks flushed, voice breaking. “Between my legs.”
I unbutton her jeans one-handed, my mouth still on her throat. She moans softly as I drag the zipper down, her breath shaking in anticipation. When my fingers slide beneath the fabric and touch her through her panties, she jolts—hips arching sharply, a desperate sound ripping from her lips.
“You’re already wet.” I press my mouth to her shoulder. “Did the race do that? Or was it me?”
“Both,” she chokes out.
I slide my fingers against her—slow, steady strokes that make her breath stutter and break. She clutches at my shoulders, her entire body trembling.
“Simon, please—”
So, I give her what she’s begging for.
I slip my fingers under her panties, find her slick heat, and stroke her—firm, controlled, relentless. She gasps my name again and again, her voice high and breathless. Her thighs clamp around me, her nails digging into my back as I work her faster, deeper, until she’s shaking in my hands.
Her forehead falls against mine, lips parted, eyes half lidded. “I’m gonna—” she gasps.
“Good,” I growl. “Cum for me.”
She breaks.
Her body arches violently, a cry torn from her throat as pleasure crashes through her. She clutches me like she’s falling, trembling hard against my chest as my fingers keep her riding the edge until she’s shaking, panting, utterly undone.
When her breathing finally slows, she collapses against me, boneless and warm. I hold her there—my fingers still tracing slow patterns along her thigh—until she lifts her head, cheeks flushed, eyes dazed.
She meets my gaze.
“What now?” she whispers.
I kiss her once. “Now,” I murmur against her lips, “I’m taking you inside.”