Chapter 8
T here was something thrilling about being here like this.
In a city where I didn’t know a soul.
Where I could let down my guard without worrying about disappointing anyone.
Without thinking about how the moment might read in a tweet or scan in someone else’s column.
There was no context for this version of me. No frame of reference.
No watchful editor. No ex-boyfriend with a Google Alert set to my name.
No quiet shame from my mother. No intellectual eye-roll from former professors who would’ve called this kind of submission regressive.
No Mina texting “???” the second I missed a scheduled FaceTime.
My phone was still in my bag, wherever he’d stashed it in the SUV.
I’d turned it off before the plane took off—somewhere between obedience and self-preservation—and hadn’t touched it since.
I wasn’t even sure I wanted to. The thought of the screen lighting up with group texts or news alerts or another reminder from my calendar felt …
suffocating. Like a lifeline I no longer needed.
There was just heat.
And him.
And the strange, electric sense that I could become anything here.
I leaned against the alley wall a moment longer, breath steadying, skin still pulsing with unsatisfied want. My dress clung to my thighs in places I could still feel him. Even if he hadn’t touched me.
Not really.
I hadn’t posted all day.
I hadn’t emailed my editor.
I hadn’t answered my mother’s last text, which had just said Busy? followed by a heart.
My social feeds were quiet. My inbox untouched. My location—if anyone was looking—was simply … off.
I’d built my career carefully.
Brick by brick.
I was the smart one. The rising star in investigative media. Trusted by sources, editors, readers. The woman who could walk into any political fundraiser and leave with a scandal no one else had sniffed out.
And here I was—barely dressed, soaking wet between my thighs, obeying the voice of a stranger through an earpiece like I belonged to him.
Worse—wanting to belong to him.
What would they say, the people who’d followed me? Who’d hired me? Who’d believed in me?
What would my grandfather think?
A flush of guilt crept up my neck.
But even that sham e
felt like foreplay now.
I was just beginning to catch my breath when I felt it: the shift in air, the quiet gravity of his presence.
He didn’t speak.
He just stepped into view from the shadows and watched me.
His eyes drank me in, slow and thorough. A storm wrapped in a tailored suit. The same white shirt, still unbuttoned at the throat. Hair mussed slightly from the breeze. The glint of a watch at his wrist.
“You look wrecked,” he said.
I swallowed. “I’m trying not to be.”
He stepped closer. His voice dropped, intimate and devastating.
“You’ll fail.”
Then he reached for my hand and laced his fingers through mine.
I followed him.
Just like that.
We stepped back into the world, our path winding through the glowing streets of Miami’s waterfront district.
Music drifted from open-air lounges. Women in designer heels laughed too loudly over martinis.
Men glanced at me and then looked away quickly—maybe sensing something dangerous in the man beside me.
We turned into a side entrance of an upscale restaurant—dimly lit, sleek, expensive. Every table a quiet power play of money and influence. He didn’t check in. Just gave a nod to the host, who guided us to a private corner booth near a wall of glass, the city glittering just beyond.
He let me slide in first, then took the seat beside me—not across. Close. Too close.
The menus were already waiting .
So were his hands.
Not touching, not quite. But one arm rested along the back of the booth, his fingers just barely grazing the bare skin of my upper arm. The touch was nothing. A whisper. A dare.
“Order what you want,” he said. “Or let me choose.”
“I think you like choosing,” I said.
He smiled. “I do.”
He ordered for both of us without asking. Wagyu tartare. Scallops in a champagne reduction. A bottle of red so expensive I pretended not to notice.
The server poured.
His hand stayed on my arm.
Not moving.
Just present.
“I haven’t had a proper meal in three days,” I admitted, mostly to the tablecloth.
He leaned in, voice like smoke. “You’ll need the energy.”
The food came. I barely tasted it.
Because his hand had moved.
Slid slightly lower.
Still on my upper arm, but now stroking—small, idle movements that made it hard to think.
I took a sip of wine.
He watched me drink.
Watched the movement of my throat. The way my lips parted. The color rising in my chest.
“You want me to touch you,” he said quietly.
“I—” I choked on a breath.
“Not here?” he asked.
I didn’t answer.
But he smiled like I had.
His fingers brushed lower .
The inside of my arm.
Then the curve of my waist, barely hidden beneath the tablecloth.
“I could make you come,” he whispered, “right here. Without anyone knowing.”
My eyes fluttered shut.
“Would you stop me?”
“No.”
He leaned in closer.
“Good girl.”
The words unraveled me.
Not because they were dirty.
Because they were true.
I didn’t want him to stop. Not here, not ever. Not even if the ma?tre d’ walked by and saw his hand slip lower. Not even if the sommelier returned to refill our glasses and noticed the way I was pressing my thighs together, just to keep from falling apart.
I wanted to be ruined in public.
By this man who hadn’t told me his name.
His fingers ghosted across my ribcage, just beneath the side slit of my dress. The booth shielded the motion, the tablecloth hiding what the shadows didn’t. I tried to focus on the food. The wine. The conversation at the next table. Anything.
But he smelled like power. Like musk and danger disguised as a gentleman. Like a man who didn’t ask for permission because he never had to.
“You’re shaking,” he murmured.
I was.
His hand moved again. Down. Just a little.
He didn’t rush.
He traced the line where my torso met my thigh. That tender, secret place. So close to where I ached, I nearly sobbed.
“Open your legs,” he said.
I didn’t hesitate.
And that terrified me.
But I did it anyway.
The fabric of my dress shifted as I parted my thighs under the table. The cool air brushed against heat. Slickness.
He didn’t touch me.
Not there.
His fingers stayed just shy, stroking the inside of my thigh with maddening restraint.
“You’re still soaking,” he said, the words so soft I felt them more than heard them.
I couldn’t speak. I could barely breathe.
He moved a single fingertip higher.
Still not quite touching.
“I could take you right now,” he said. “Push your dress up. Slide inside you slow. Make you ride my cock while you try to stay quiet.”
I whimpered, nearly knocking my wineglass over in the process.
He caught it without looking.
Set it down gently.
Then smiled at me like he hadn’t just said the filthiest thing I’d ever heard.
The waiter approached with the main course.
I nearly panicked.
But his hand withdrew before anyone saw.
He leaned back, glass in hand, cool and composed.
I adjusted in my seat, heart pounding, thighs clenched.
The scallops arrived, plated like art. I took a bite, the champagne sauce delicate and sweet, but it barely registered.
Because he was watching me again.
Not my face.
My mouth.
He lifted his glass, eyes still on my lips. “You taste like trouble,” he said.
I swallowed hard. “You don’t know me.”
“I know enough.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Like what?”
“That you’ve never let go like this. That you’re scared of how much you want to.”
“That’s presumptuous.”
“That’s true.”
He took a bite of steak, chewed, swallowed. “You want to know what I think?”
“Always,” I said, breathlessly.
“I think your body’s been waiting for this longer than your mind has. I think you’ve spent years pretending your hands could do what you needed. But they couldn’t. Not really.”
He leaned in again. “You need to be taken.”
The words ripped through me like silk tearing. Quiet. Devastating.
“And what do you need?” I asked, somehow keeping my voice steady.
His smile was slow, dangerous. “Control. Until I decide to give it up.”
The room felt too warm.
The world too sharp.
He shifted in his seat, one leg brushing mine under the table. I felt the hard outline of his thigh. His body—bigger, stronger, heavier than I’d let myself picture—was inches from mine, and every cell in me leaned toward him.
“If I slipped my hand under that table right now,” he said, “and spread you open, would you let me?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
He exhaled through his nose, a quiet sound of satisfaction.
“But I won’t,” he said. “Not yet.”
My jaw clenched.
“Because I like watching you wait.”
I stabbed my fork into another scallop.
He leaned close again, his lips barely grazing my ear. “When I finally touch you,” he said, “it won’t be here. It’ll be somewhere private. Silent. Somewhere I can hear every sound you make. Every breath. Every time your hips buck when I don’t let you come.”
I squeezed my thighs together so hard I thought I’d snap.
The waiter reappeared with dessert.
He chose a dark chocolate torte.
The bite he offered me tasted like lust. Like the way he spoke. Bitter. Sweet. Dangerous.
“I want to feed you. Tie you down. Break every rule you’ve made for yourself.”
He wiped the edge of my mouth with his thumb.
Then slid that thumb between his lips and sucked the taste of me from his skin.
I whimpered. Quiet. Wrecked.
“You want to know what it’ll feel like when I finally fuck you?” he asked, voice low, just for me.
My whole body locked down.
He didn’t wait for an answer.
“You’ll tremble. First in your thighs, then deeper. You’ll grab at the sheets. At me. You’ll say my name even if I haven’t given it to you yet.”
His lips grazed the shell of my ear.
“Your cunt will grip me like it’s starved. Like it’s been waiting your whole fucking life to be filled like that.”
I choked on a breath, the torte forgotten.
He wasn’t touching me. But it didn’t matter. The way he spoke—deliberate, composed, in that voice like velvet dragged over concrete—made my whole body throb with need.
“You’ll come more than once. I’ll make sure of it. You’ll come until you’re begging me to stop. And I won’t. Not until you forget your own name.”
I let out a small, helpless sound—barely audible, but he heard it.
He smiled, wicked and slow.
But I wasn’t going to let him have all the power.
I cleared my throat and shifted, crossing my legs again beneath the table, trying to will oxygen back into my brain.
“Okay,” I said, breath tight. “But what about you?”
His brows lifted slightly.
“What do you get out of this?” I asked. “Out of me?”
His gaze flicked to my lips. Then my eyes. “Everything.”
I stared at him, waiting for more.
He didn’t look away. Didn’t blink.
“You stood out,” he said simply. “Not because of your résumé. Not even because of the photo.”
I swallowed.
“You wrote things in your application that you didn’t realize you wrote,” he continued. “Little tells. Cracks. Longing you couldn’t quite scrub out. You tried to sound polished, controlled, in charge. But there was this tension underneath it all. A hunger.”
He leaned in closer, resting his forearm on the table.
“You’re a woman with a sharp mind, a practiced image, and just enough restraint to pass for someone who’s never broken. But I knew.”
“Knew what?” I whispered.
“That you were waiting for someone to give you permission.”
My stomach dipped.
“To let go,” he added. “To be undone.”
“I didn’t think anyone noticed,” I said, so quietly it didn’t even feel like speaking.
“I did,” he said. “I notice everything about you.”
His voice lowered again, intimate and careful. “You’ve been playing a part for a long time, Zara. The good girl with the sharp mouth and smart takes. The overachiever. The savior. The watchdog.”
I blinked.
“But I don’t want that version of you.”
My chest tightened.
“I want the one you bury,” he said. “The one who aches. Who obeys. Who breaks apart when someone calls her a good girl.”
A full-body shiver rolled through me.
I could barely breathe, but I forced the next question out anyway.
“So why me?”
“Because I couldn’t stop thinking about you,” he said, without hesitation. “Because you’re not like the others. You’re brave enough to walk into fire.”
“I didn’t know what I was walking into.”
“Exactly. ”
His thumb brushed along the edge of my jaw, just once. “And you still came.”
My eyes burned. But not with fear. With the weight of being seen.
He pulled his hand back and picked up his glass again. Took a slow sip like he hadn’t just set my entire nervous system on fire.
I stared at him across the table.
“You never told me your name,” I said.
He tilted his head, considering.
Then leaned in once more, close enough for only me to hear.
“Ronan.”
The name hit like another touch. Solid. Grounded. Real.
He said it like a promise. Like a threat.
“Say it,” he said.
“Ronan.”
His eyes darkened.
“You have no idea what you just unlocked.”
I wanted to ask what he meant.
But I had a feeling I’d find out soon enough.
I couldn’t wait.