Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Brie
We pass the doorman and a group chatting in the lobby, my heels clicking on marble, our hands linked, skin flushed, our steps quick and deliberate.
When the doors close on his private penthouse elevator, he waits just long enough for the hum of cables to rise, for the air between us to grow taut—then he’s on me, pressing my back hard into the metal handrail, the jut of his arousal against my hip. Heat seeps down my spine and pools.
He breaks the kiss with a sharp inhale. His dark, glittering stare drops from my eyes to my lips and then lower to the place where my silk shirt opens at the collar, the buttons undone to my décolletage.
The doors chime and it’s as if we’re on air in a rush, my peripheral vision a blur, my singular focus him. No doorman. No witnesses. Just us and three years of wanting. We don’t make it past the living room.
In a flash, his hand is on the back of my neck, fingers tangled in my hair. His tongue slips between my lips, whispering over my teeth, stealing my breath.
A memory flashes—dawn light through yacht windows, his fingers tracing the pulse point at my wrist. “Your heartbeat gives you away,” he’d whispered. I’d told him something true then, something I’ve never repeated: “I’m tired of pretending.” His answer: “Then don’t pretend.”
I’m not pretending now. Because this time there’s no alias to hide behind.
The brush of the stubble on my cheek burns, and the taste of wine and a hint of mint blend, as though at some point he prepared for this very moment.
A slight whimper escapes from my throat.
He pulls back a little, pausing—eyes scanning, careful, controlled.
The way he reins himself in is almost as intoxicating as the way he grabs me.
He’s waiting—watching for the smallest sign I want to stop.
The restraint in him is a kind of control I can’t resist.
“Yes,” I say, answering the question I hope he’s asking. “Please.” I’m tired of waiting, of holding back, of denying myself. I want him, and I want him now. I want him so badly I risk combustion.
He acquiesces. His tongue slips over mine, then over my face, to my neck, pulling my earlobe into his mouth.
More of his hands—one in my hair at the back of my head, one moving down to press the small of my back so that my body shifts closer to his.
His breathing deepens, quickens, a low groan caught in his throat.
My fingers steal under his shirt. My palm glides along rippling muscle, smooth and toned. His skin is hot and his heady scent and heat envelop me.
His legs press against mine, his chest into my breasts.
“I need to get you upstairs.” But I’m feeling what I hear in his strangled words—it’s too far.
“Here.” I push his suit coat over his shoulders, attacking his buttons with shaking fingers. “Now.”
He makes a sound—half-laugh, half-groan—and suddenly I’m pinned against the cushions, his weight divine, his mouth on my neck, my jaw, my collarbone. His hands everywhere.
He has me pinned against the back cushions, and it’s enough—but my feet lift off the ground and he carries me across the room, setting me down on the other side. His eyes are dark, focused, and his breathing is no longer steady.
He tugs my skirt up—impatient, urgent—over my thighs, bunching it at my hips. When his fingers trail over the front of my vulva through thin silk, I buck against his hand.
It’s been so long since I’ve been touched there by someone other than me—but that’s not it. It’s him. His hands. His breath hot on my neck. The reality of Adrien d’Avricourt kneeling between my thighs, looking at me like I’m oxygen and he’s drowning.
His other hand yanks at my blouse buttons—too slow—so I reach up to help, fingers fumbling. The fabric parts and he doesn’t wait, doesn’t tease. He yanks the lace cups of my bra down, baring me, and his mouth closes over my nipple.
The sensation shoots straight to my core. I arch into him, fingers diving into his hair, holding him there. He sucks and licks like he’s starving, alternating between breasts, and when his teeth graze my nipple I gasp his name.
His legs shift, one knee pressing inside my thigh, opening me, then the other. He settles between my spread legs, and the weight of him, the pressure—I’m practically vibrating.
His fingers hook my panties, yanking them aside roughly, and then he’s touching me where I’m swollen and slick. So wet it’s almost embarrassing.
“Fuck, Brie.” His voice is gravel. “You’re soaked.”
The crude words should embarrass me. Instead, they make me wetter.
“Please,” I gasp, stretching for his waistband. My fingers find his belt buckle but I’m shaking too hard—from need, from the days of restraint finally breaking—and I can’t get it undone. “I just…need…now…please.”
Adrien understands. He has to be feeling it too—this desperation, this animal need that’s nothing like the controlled seduction on the yacht. This is messier. Rawer. Real.
He whips his belt through the loops, fumbles with his trousers. When he frees himself—thick and hard and right there—I reach for him without thinking. Hot silk over steel. He hisses, his hips jerking forward, and I wrap my fingers around his length.
“Brie.” A warning or a prayer, I can’t tell.
He hitches my panties further aside, his fingers brushing where I’m aching, and positions himself at my entrance. I feel his crown pressing against me—not in, just there, the promise of him—and my knees lift involuntarily.
With his mouth close to my ear, voice wrecked: “Next time, everything comes off. All of this. I want to see you properly. Taste every inch. But right now—” He presses forward slightly, just the tip, and we both gasp. “Right now I can’t wait.”
“Then don’t.” I’m frantic, nodding against his face, my hair silk between our cheeks. “Don’t wait.”
“Look at me.” Not a command—a plea. Like he needs proof I’m real, that this is happening.
Our eyes lock. His are nearly black, pupils blown wide, and I see myself reflected there—flushed, desperate, completely undone.
He thrusts hard and fast, filling me in one brutal stroke, and we both cry out. The stretch, the sudden fullness—it borders on too much and not nearly enough.
He stills, shuddering, a great rushing gasp escaping. His forehead falls to mine. “Fuck. Fuck, you feel good.” His voice cracks on the last word.
His biceps strain beside my head, muscle taut, as he holds himself perfectly still. I can feel him throbbing inside me, fighting for control he doesn’t want, that neither of us need.
I can’t stay still. My feet hook onto his legs, urging him deeper. “Adrien.” His name breaks on my lips. “Move. Please move.”
He withdraws—not all the way, just enough that I feel the loss—then drives back in. Testing. The angle. The depth. The friction.
“Yes,” I whimper, and he does it again. Harder this time. Again. Finding a rhythm that has me making sounds I don’t recognize—soft mewling noises, desperate gasps, his name over and over.
His pace builds. Faster. Harder. The couch creaks beneath us. Somewhere in my fractured awareness I know the windows overlook the city, that anyone could see, but I don’t care. Can’t care.
He reaches between us, fingers finding my clit, and the dual sensation—him inside me, hitting something deep that makes me see stars, his fingers circling with practiced precision—breaks me.
“That’s it,” he coaxes, voice strained. “Let go. Give it to me.”
My body obeys before my mind can catch up. The orgasm slams through me—violent and complete—my back arching off the cushions, legs gripping him in a vice. I’m aware of crying out, of my internal muscles clenching around him in waves.
A jagged moan tears from his throat. He thrusts twice more—deep, desperate—then stills, pulsing inside me. His whole body shudders with release, and I feel it, feel him emptying into me, hot and deep.
We lie tangled together, breathing hard. My skirt is bunched around my waist. His shirt hangs open. My bra is still shoved down beneath my breasts. The sudden oddness of what we’ve done—half-clothed, frantic, a bed awaiting upstairs in multiple rooms—crashes over me.
Windows overlooking the city glitter with apartment lights, possible voyeurs. From somewhere below—maybe the street, maybe the building’s ventilation—I catch a thread of music. That amber-lit room. The dancer’s controlled abandon. All those people acknowledging desire without shame.
We just did the same. But worse. Because they had boundaries. Rules. We have none.
My hold on him loosens and he shifts. Wetness seeps between my legs—his and mine, mixed—and the sensation grounds me in awful clarity. He pushes up, and his absence feels like loss and relief in equal measure.
Then it hits me. Really hits me.
He said he rarely brings women here, and suddenly I need that to be true. I need it in a way that terrifies me because it means this matters, means I’m not just scratching an itch or breaking professional protocol for meaningless sex.
This is what unnerves me—not the physical act but this: the way my chest constricts when he moves away.
The way I want to pull him back. On that yacht, I walked away because it was fantasy, controlled, contained.
This is real. And this—this is Manhattan where he’s my client, where I’m assigned to protect his interests, and I just—
No condom.
The realization arrives cold and sharp. I should care more than I do. Should be calculating STI risks, pregnancy possibilities—none, thank you IUD, professional consequences. Instead, all I can think is how right it felt. How completely I lost myself. How I’d do it again right now if he touched me.
That’s the most frightening part.
No exit strategy. No performance.
Just me, stripped of every defense I’ve mastered.
He lives in a world of beautiful women on display, many available on request. I’m the one who disappeared. The one who became unattainable. Now that I’ve surrendered so completely, now that he’s had me again—without barriers, without planning, without the mystery—
“Hey.” His deep tone saves me from the spiral, and his hand cups my jaw, turning my face toward his. In the dim light from the city, his eyes are dark but potent. Seeing me.
“I can hear you thinking,” he says quietly. “Constructing walls between us.”
“I don’t—”
“You do. You’re cataloging why this was a mistake. Why I’ll lose interest now that the chase is over, or maybe you’re reeling over professionalism.” His thumb traces my cheekbone. “Three years, Brie. Do you know how many women I could have had in three years? How many I did have?”
The words sting, but he doesn’t let me look away.
“None of them were you. Not because you walked away—because of who you were before you left. The woman who told me she didn’t know how to stop pretending.” His forehead touches mine. “You’re not pretending now. That’s what I’ve been looking for. That’s what I want more of.”
He stands, reaching down to help me up. “Come with me. I’m going to clean you up, take you to my bed, and then we’re taking our time. I’m going to show you just how much I’ve thought of you these past few years.” And the tremor in his voice is what finally undoes me.