Chapter Eighteen - Simon
I’ve never brought anyone in here. Not lovers, not family, not even my brother.
My office is a sanctuary, a war room, a place built on secrets and blood.
The weight of power hums in every corner—gunmetal glints from drawers, maps and files fan out across the desk, and the security feed flickers on a darkened monitor. No softness. No weakness.
Today, I let her in. Not because I need to—not for appearances, not as a ploy—but because I want her near. I want to watch the world bend around her.
She steps inside quietly, scanning the room with curious, wary eyes. Her presence fills the space with a charge that is almost unbearable—her scent, clean and lemon-bright, her hair loose down her back, her hand ghosting the edge of the velvet couch.
I watch her take it in. She doesn’t ask questions. She sits, legs curled beneath her, notebook on her lap, always observing.
“You can work here,” I say. My voice is gruffer than I intend, edged with something raw. “You’ll be safe.”
She glances up, searching my face. “Safe from what?”
I could list threats. Rivals, traitors, the city itself.
I step behind my desk and watch her settle. She belongs here more than she knows.
I change things for her—immediately, instinctively.
Her old clothes vanish, replaced by soft, custom-cut fabric that flatters her curves, makes her glow.
The room next to mine—barren, cold—becomes hers overnight.
Fresh sheets, thick blankets, plants in the windows, books she’ll like, small luxuries she never asks for but always notices.
Eden tries to protest, sometimes, but I see the way she melts into comfort despite herself.
Meals become rituals. My chef learns her aversions, caters to her cravings—sour things, bland crackers, the occasional urge for something rich.
She resists my interference, tries to regain some independence, bristles when I order too much, plan too far ahead.
But the resistance stirs something primal in me.
Her fight doesn’t push me away. It makes me want to claim her harder, brand her with pleasure until there’s no part of her untouched by me.
She doesn’t see how much I’m holding back.
The world creeps in anyway. My men come and go, reporting quietly—coded language for threats, deliveries, jobs that turn violent. Weapons rest in plain sight: a pistol beside the monitor, a knife glinting atop paperwork. I expect her to flinch, to shy away from the monster she’s always known I am.
She doesn’t run. She sits on my couch, calm, legs tucked up, and reads while I carve order out of chaos.
When I bark orders, my voice cold and final, her eyes track every word. She never interrupts, never recoils. If anything, she looks at me with something close to understanding.
That steadiness undoes me.
At the end of a day heavy with tension, the air between us tightens into something electric. I send my last man away, close the door with a finality that echoes in my blood. Eden looks up, catches my gaze, and I see a question flicker across her face—a dare.
I don’t say a word. I stalk toward her, loosening my tie, rolling up my sleeves. She sits straighter, pulse fluttering at her throat. There’s heat in her eyes, sharp and wary and wanting. I want to devour her.
I pull her to her feet in a single smooth motion. Her hands go to my chest, fingers flexing, her breath stuttering against my shirt. “Simon…”
“Don’t run now,” I murmur, voice low, all the darkness I usually hide seeping through. “You want to see all of me? You want to see what you do to me?”
She shakes her head, but her body betrays her—hips swaying closer, lips parting. I slide my hands over her hips, gripping her tight enough to bruise.
She gasps, but doesn’t pull away. I crowd her against the edge of the desk, one palm splayed at her lower back, pressing her to the hard wood. My mouth finds her neck, tasting salt and skin and fear.
I work her top up and over her head, mouth never leaving her throat. She shivers, goose bumps rising where my fingers brush her bare sides. She isn’t wearing a bra—a fact that undoes me, patience fracturing with every second.
My mouth covers one nipple, tongue flicking, sucking her soft flesh until she’s writhing, moaning, her fingers tangling in my hair.
I lift her onto the desk, yanking her skirt up around her hips, baring her to my gaze. She tries to close her legs, but I push her knees apart, kneeling between them. My hands grip her thighs, holding her open, exposed to me, only me.
“Simon!” Her voice is high, needy, pleading.
“I want you to remember who you belong to.” I press a kiss to the inside of her knee, trail it up her thigh, savoring the way she trembles under my mouth.
My tongue flicks over the damp seam of her panties, tasting the salt-sweet slickness that is all for me. I strip the last of her clothes away, and she’s bare, shivering on my desk.
She tries to hide her face, but I grip her jaw, force her to look at me. “Eyes on me, Eden.”
She obeys—flushed, glassy-eyed, lost. I lick a slow line up her slit, tasting her, claiming her. My tongue circles her clit, relentless, until her hips buck and her hands clamp over the edge of the desk.
Her cries echo off the wood and glass, heat and need blurring into something wild. I slide two fingers into her, stretching her, curling deep. She’s so tight it nearly breaks me.
She comes for me, clenching around my fingers, sobbing my name. But I’m not done.
I stand, undoing my belt with shaking hands, letting her see what she does to me—how hard, how desperate I am for her. I push inside her in one smooth thrust, burying myself to the hilt, hips grinding against her ass until she gasps, back arching.
Her nails rake down my back, her legs wrap around me, and I lose all sense of restraint. I fuck her hard, rough, each thrust driving her higher.
My desk shakes with our movements, papers sliding, a mug toppling to the floor. She matches me—thrust for thrust, kiss for kiss, her mouth hungry on mine.
I whisper her name, threats and promises tangled on my tongue. “You’re mine, Eden. No one will ever have you but me.”
She comes again, body shuddering, tears streaking her cheeks. I hold her through it, lips at her ear, growling filth and devotion until I break, spilling inside her, marking her as mine.
Afterward, I cradle her against me, chest heaving, mouth pressed to her hair.
In this office—my kingdom, my cage—I let her see every piece of me. And she doesn’t look away.
***
The nights are the worst. When the apartment goes quiet, when the city’s pulse slows to a murmur beneath our windows, that’s when I feel the tension threaten to pull me apart. It simmers in the silence—thick, relentless.
Every brush of her hand, every sigh she tries to muffle beneath her breath, every quick glance she steals at my mouth when she thinks I’m not looking. There’s a hunger in her, a need she tries to hide, and it drives me mad.
I try to control it. I keep my distance during the day, keep my voice calm and my hands steady as I guide her through this life I’ve forced her into.
It’s never enough. When she walks past me, the scent of her skin, the sight of her hair tumbling loose down her back—every detail is a provocation.
The way her clothes stretch over the gentle curve of her belly, the unconscious way she rests her hand there, the way her body has begun to change in ways only I notice.
It makes me want her with a desperation that borders on violence.
She doesn’t see it, not the way I do. She doesn’t realize how every inch of her has become sacred to me, how the small, mundane movements—her yawn in the morning, her little smile when she catches the cat watching her from the window, the soft sounds she makes in her sleep—are all carved into my memory.
Maybe Eden thinks I’m distant because I’m busy, or cold because I’m lost in my work, but the truth is, if I gave in to the urge to touch her every time I wanted, I’d never let her go.
Tonight is worse than most. The house is shadowed and silent, the world reduced to lamplight in the hall. I stand in her doorway, unseen, watching her sleep.
The covers are tangled around her hips, one arm curled beneath her head, the other draped protectively over her stomach.
The faint swell there catches in the lamplight, soft and new, but undeniable. My child. Our child. The thought reverberates through me, equal parts pride and terror.
I don’t move. I watch her breathe, slow and steady, lost in dreams she’ll never tell me. She stirs, shifting closer to the pillow, mouth slack, hair scattered like gold across the sheets.
The sight should calm me, but instead, it sets something deep inside me alight—a craving that isn’t just for her body, but for everything she is. I want to own her, to carve my place into every part of her life until she can’t remember who she was without me.
I slip into the room, quiet as a shadow. She doesn’t wake. I stand at the edge of the bed, watching the rise and fall of her chest, the gentle movement of her fingers as they flex in sleep.
My hand aches to touch her. I want to run my palm over her stomach, to feel the proof of what we’ve made, but I hold myself back, hovering in that unbearable space between restraint and need.
My gaze traces the lines of her body—the curve of her hip, the delicate arch of her neck, the soft part of her lips. I want to bend down, bury my face in the hollow of her shoulder, breathe her in until the rest of the world disappears.
I want to wake her with my hands, with my mouth, with every hungry inch of me.
Instead, I kneel beside the bed, elbows resting on the mattress, letting my hand hover just above her skin. She stirs, lashes fluttering, and turns toward me, eyes half lidded with sleep. For a moment, neither of us moves.
“Simon,” she whispers, voice rough with dreaming.
I swallow. “Go back to sleep.”
Her hand finds mine beneath the blanket, small and warm, threading our fingers together. I feel her heartbeat against my wrist—racing, unsteady, mirroring my own.
She shifts, making space, and the invitation is there—unspoken, fragile, impossible to resist. I slide onto the bed, pulling her against my chest, one hand curling around her belly, the other tracing slow circles along her spine.
She sighs, pressing her face into my shoulder, soft and trusting.
I kiss her hair, her temple, the shell of her ear. My hand moves lower, skimming the edge of her nightshirt, exploring the new softness of her waist. She makes a sound—a plea, a question—and arches into my touch, craving the same closeness that eats at me.
I let my control slip, just a little. My hand moves under her shirt, fingers splaying across the gentle swell of her stomach. She shivers, clutching my wrist, and I feel her fear and want tangled together, sweet and sharp.
“You’re mine,” I murmur, voice thick with everything I can’t say. “I’d do anything for you.”
She turns her head, eyes shining in the low light. “I know.”
That’s all it takes. My mouth finds hers—hungry, claiming, desperate. I taste her, drink in her breath, lose myself in the heat of her. She clings to me, nails biting into my back, legs twining with mine, heart pounding beneath my hand.
I move over her, slow at first, reverent, worshipful. My cock is already hard and I push inside of her slowly, feeling the delicious stretch.
The longer I touch her, the more I need—rougher, deeper, until she’s gasping my name, her body arching, pleading for more. I fill her, every thrust a promise, a brand, a vow that nothing will ever come between us again.
I fuck her hard, tangled in sweat and longing, the world narrowing to the space between our mouths, our bodies, our hearts.
Eden breaks for me, shuddering, moaning, her eyes locked on mine as she falls apart. I follow her, spilling into her with a violence that surprises even me, clutching her as if I could hold her—and our child—inside me forever.
Afterward, I don’t let her go. I hold her until she sleeps again, my hand never leaving her belly, my eyes fixed on the shape of our future beneath the sheets.