Chapter 23 Amara
Amara
Corin helps me finish packing, and twenty minutes later, we’ve got everything sorted into two neat suitcases.
Then he stands and lifts both suitcase like they weigh nothing.
I can’t help but catalog the way his forearms flex under the weight. He looks like he walked out of a magazine spread titled “Barefoot Billionaires Who Travel.”
Keon appears at the door with his usual professional expression, about four minutes after Corin called him,
“Ready, Ms. Khan?” Keon asks.
I grab my legal pad and laptop bag. “Ready as I’ll ever be. Let’s go before I change my mind and run away to become a hermit in the Bahamas.”
“You’re already in the Bahamas,” Corin points out.
“Then I’ll run to somewhere else. Antarctica. I hear the penguins taste great this time of year!”
He doesn’t laugh, but his mouth quirks. “No running.”
“No running,” I agree.
The ride back to The Westlight is charged. Like the air before a thunderstorm.
Corin’s hand rests on the seat between us, close enough to touch, but not touching.
I stare out the window at the passing palm trees and try not to think about the fact I just canceled my resort reservation and I’m moving all my belongings into Corin Saelinger’s private villa.
Counselor, you’ve just entered into a binding emotional contract with no exit clause.
How does it feel?
Terrifying.
Also kind of great.
Mostly terrifying.
When we arrive, Thorne is nowhere to be seen.
Neither is Sable. Ysela appears briefly to take one of my bags, gives me a smile that could mean anything from “welcome home” to “about time you stopped pretending you had other plans,” and then vanishes into the villa’s interior like she’s been waiting for this moment for weeks.
Corin carries the rest of my things up to the main suite.
His main suite.
Wait.
Our main suite?
God, I don’t even know anymore.
He sets my suitcase down near the closet, next to the floor-to-ceiling window that overlooks the ocean. Then he turns to face me. “Should we go to the clinic? The day’s still young.”
I open my mouth to say yes. Because that’s what responsible people do. They work. They show up. They don’t let external crises derail their professional commitments.
But then my gaze drifts to his unevenly buttoned linen shirt. Then to his crotch. Then back to his face.
“No,” I hear myself say. “No clinic today.”
His eyebrows lift slightly. “No?”
“Nope.” I fold my arms. “I’m invoking opposing counsel’s right to a recess. We’re taking the day off.”
He cocks his head. “Are we?”
Cocks.
Love that word.
I cross the room, cup his face in both hands, and kiss him.
If our previous kisses were preliminary hearings, this one’s the final verdict. No appeals. No stays of execution. Just a clear ruling delivered mouth-to-mouth because apparently I’ve decided that kissing is my preferred method of legal communication now.
The bar association would be so proud.
He makes a sound low in his throat, his hands come up to grip my waist, and he kisses me back with equal intensity.
His lips are soft and demanding at the same time. He tastes like coffee and something uniquely him.
I pull back just enough to whisper against his mouth, “Bed. Now.”
“Amara.” His voice is wrecked. “Are you sure? It’s the middle of the day.”
“Do I look unsure to you?” I rasp.
Suddenly we’re moving.
He walks me backward toward the bed, his hands never leaving my waist, and I’m fumbling with the buttons on his shirt because apparently fine motor skills have left me.
“Let me,” he says, and strips the shirt off over his head in one fluid motion.
Oh wow.
I’ve seen him shirtless before. Multiple times.
But somehow it hits different now. Maybe because he’s just carried my heavy suitcase upstairs and has a skin-stretching pump that makes his chest and biceps look even bigger than usual.
Maybe because the afternoon sunlight is slicing through the window and turning his skin the sexiest shade of golden.
Maybe because he’s looking at me like he wants to ruin me in the best possible way.
“So hot,” I mumble.
“We’re both hot,” he corrects.
I reach for my own shirt, but he stops me.
“Let me,” he says again, and this time his voice is darker.
He unbuttons my shirt slowly, watching my face the whole time. When he’s done, he slides the shirt off and lets it pool onto the floor.
Then he unzips my linen pants with the same deliberate care.
By the time I’m standing there in just my bra and underwear, I’m already shaking.
“Cold?” he asks.
“Not even a little,” I reply.
His mouth curves. “Good.”
He kisses me again, deeper this time, but then pulls back slightly.
“I want to try something,” he breathes against my mouth.
“Again?” I feign annoyance, but inside I’m trembling with excitement.
“Amara,” he says simply.
I blow out a breath. “Fine. But if you produce handcuffs, I’m calling my lawyer.”
He grins. “You are a lawyer.” He kisses the corner of my mouth. “No handcuffs. Just... this.”
He takes my hand and pulls me toward the floor-to-ceiling window. The one overlooking the private terrace and the ocean beyond.
“Stand here.” He positions me facing the window, and places himself behind me. His hands settle on my hips. “Can you see our reflection?”
I frown at the glass. “Not really? I just see ocean and—”
He reaches past me and taps something on the window frame. The glass shifts, darkening from clear to tinted. Suddenly I can see both of us reflected back: me, flushed and half-naked; him, bare-chested and looking unfairly good for someone who just carried my bags into his villa.
“You have smart glass.” Of course he does.
“Privacy feature.” His breath is warm against my ear. “No one can see in. But we can see us.”
“So you’re telling me you have billionaire mirror-windows specifically designed for—”
“Among other things.” His presses a kiss onto my neck. “Now watch. I want you to see what I see.”
His hands slide up my ribs, unhook my bra, and let it fall. I watch in the reflection as he cups my breasts, his thumbs brushing over my nipples, and I have to bite my lip to keep from making an embarrassing sound.
“Don’t hide,” he says. “I want to hear you.”
“Corin, someone could see.”
“No one can see. The glass is one-way. But even if they could...” His hand slides lower and dips beneath the waistband of my underwear. “I wouldn’t stop. I’d want them to see. I’d want the world to see you’re mine.”
Okay.
We’re doing this.
I watch in the glass as his knuckles graze my inner thigh. The reflection captures every tremor that races through me.
My head falls back against his shoulder, exposing the frantic pulse in my throat.
A gasp, raw and unfiltered, tears from my lips as his fingers slide through my slick folds beneath the underwear, painting glistening trails the mirror mercilessly displays.
“That’s it,” he murmurs, his voice thick. “See how hungry you are for me.”
His thumb finds my clit in my panties, and begins to circle with torturous precision. I see everything. The flush spreading from my breasts to my neck, my nipples pebbling into hard peaks, the way my hips jerk against his palm like I’m begging for more.
When I try to look away, his free hand grips my jaw, forcing my gaze back to the smart glass. “Look. See how perfect you are?”
Every stroke across my clit sends electricity pulsing through my veins, and my breath comes in fractured pants. “C-Corin—”
“Shhh. Watch.” He reaches deeper into my panties, and plunges two fingers inside me, curling just there, and my vision whites out for a second.
I watch my mouth fall open in a silent scream, and see his teeth sink into the juncture of my neck and shoulder, and feel his claiming.
The triple assault is brutal: the stretch inside, the bite on my skin, the relentless circles on my clit.
Pleasure coils viciously inside my pussy.
Tighter.
Tighter—
“Now.” His command vibrates against my skin neck. “Cum for me. Let the whole fucking island hear who owns this dripping pussy.”
I shatter.
A guttural cry rips from my throat as my back arches violently, my pussy clamping around his fingers.
In the glass, I watch my body convulse. My tits bounce, my stomach quivers, his hand works me through the spasms until slickness soaks right through my panties.
The whole time, his free arm is braced across my midsection, holding me upright as I tremble and struggle to stay on my feet.
His eyes are locked on our reflection.
Dark.
Ravenous.
Triumphant.
When I finally stop shaking, he turns me around, kisses me soft and deep.
Claiming.
“Bed,” I manage. “Before my legs give out.”
He picks me up, easily carries me the few steps to the bed, and lays me down with surprising tenderness.
Then he strips off his pants, and finally his underwear, and I forget how to breathe.
Sunlight etches every ridge of him. That sharp V of muscle leading from his hips? A fucking arrow pointing to the thick, heavy length of him. His cock juts upward, veins mapping the rigid shaft, the flushed head glistening with a beautiful pearl of pre-cum. My mouth waters.
Lower, his balls hang full and tight against corded thighs that flex as he moves.
He doesn’t reach for a condom yet. Instead, he prowls onto the bed, his knees bracketing my hips. His palms slide up my thighs, his fingertips tracing the lace edges of my underwear.
“These,” he rasps, “are fucking obscene. They don’t belong here right now.”
One thumb hooks into the soaked fabric at my hip, revealing how thoroughly I’ve drenched the thin material. The scent of my arousal hangs between us.
With agonizing slowness, he peels the lace down. First one side, then the other, his knuckles grazing my inner thighs.
When he reaches my knees, he pauses, lets me feel the humid air kiss my bare folds, before dragging them completely off.
His eyes darken as they rake over my exposed wetness.
“Look at you,” he breathes. “Fucking dripping for me.”