28. Phantom’s Sanctuary
Phantom’s Sanctuary
Ari
I lie in my bed, staring at the message Maddox just sent me.
Stalker
You’re not sleeping either, are you, angel?
He always knows. It’s both irritating and… oddly comforting. I bite my lip, hovering my fingers over my phone.
Nope.
A few seconds pass before he responds.
Stalker
Come to me.
My heart stutters.
You don’t even ask anymore?
Stalker
It’s like you don’t know me.
I bite my lip to keep from smiling. He can be such an asshole. And yet… I love it. I love that we can banter and that he can meet me head to head. Still, I’m cozy in my bed.
Stalker
Ari. Just get in the car.
I don’t reply right away. I stare at the glowing screen, my stomach knotting with nerves. It’s been just over twenty-four hours since I’ve been home. I’d finally caved and put him in my phone as ‘Stalker’ and last night, I’d asked for some space. I clarified that I wasn’t running away, but I just needed a night back at my house to clear my head. And despite spending nearly twelve hours today catching up on work, I’d spent way too long thinking of Maddox.
I close my eyes.
He’ll ruin me. I know it.
But I suppose he already has, hasn’t he?
Send me the address.
Two seconds later, it pings through.
Stalker
550 Front Street. 35th floor. Ask for Cross.
And just like that, I’m grabbing my keys and slipping into leggings and a black hoodie. I don’t even stop to ask myself what I’m doing.
Because I already know.
I’m just as addicted to him as he is to me.
The drive to Maddox’s place is quick. It’s just after eleven at night, and while downtown San Diego is usually pretty busy, it’s a Tuesday night and most people have work in the morning. I pull into the basement level parking structure of Maddox’s building, rolling my eyes at the exorbitant hourly rate.
I should send him an invoice.
Walking into the lobby of the building, I stop in my tracks. Oh, this is fancy. I stare at the marble floors of the high-rise lobby, taking in the freakishly shiny walls, the modern art, and the fig tree that’s about thirty feet tall situated in the corner.
What the hell have I walked into?
The concierge greets me like he already knows who I am.
“Mr. Cross is expecting you,” he says, sliding a key card across the desk and motioning me to the private elevator.
As the elevator ascends, I clutch my phone like a lifeline, heart thudding. Every floor we pass ratchets up the nerves. I don’t know why I thought his place would be some dark, shadowy corner of the city.
I didn’t think it would be a penthouse.
I didn’t think it would be… this.
When the doors slide open, I step into the kind of apartment that belongs on a magazine cover. Glass walls, warm lighting, sleek lines. It smells like leather and expensive cologne. It smells like him.
“Maddox?” I call, my voice catching.
And then I see him.
Barefoot. Shirtless. Low-slung black sweatpants that hang off his hips like he knows exactly what they’re doing to me. Damp hair pushed back from his forehead, tattoos on full display—ink climbing his arms, chest, and neck.
Holy shit.
“You came,” he says, his voice that low rasp that always makes my stomach twist.
“I said I would,” I manage, trying to look anywhere but at the line of muscle cutting down his torso. “You didn’t tell me your place looks like a Bond villain’s apartment.”
He smirks. “Is that a compliment?”
“It’s just unexpected,” I say, spinning around and admiring the sweeping view of downtown and the ocean beyond it. Floor-to-ceiling windows stretch the length of the room, the dark sky making the nearby lights pop. “But I can’t deny it’s stunning.”
He shrugs, like none of it really matters. “I like it. It’s quiet. Private.”
“You must’ve made good money in cybersecurity,” I say, arms folding across my chest. “You know, before you turned into a full-time stalker.”
Maddox takes a slow step toward me, that infuriating smirk still tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I did,” he replies easily. “Fortunately for me, I had friends in high places who kept my money safe.”
I tilt my head. “Legal money?”
He chuckles, the sound low and rich, like I’ve said something he enjoys. “Mostly. Enough that the IRS isn’t knocking on my door. Let’s just say I had contingency plans… and a few people who believed I’d make it back.”
“Home,” I muse, glancing around again. “This is home?”
His gaze shifts, like he’s really looking at the space for the first time. “It’s walls and glass and silence,” he says after a moment. “But it’s not home without you in it.”
That stops me cold.
“Maddox—”
He shrugs again, but there’s no indifference this time. Just something raw and open in the lines of his face. “I like things that are mine. Things I can control. But this?” He gestures around at the modern furniture, the dimmed lighting, the sleek stone countertops. Then his gaze cuts back to me. “This place doesn’t mean shit without someone real in it with me.”
His voice is even, but the presence of it presses against my chest.
“I used to tell myself that this penthouse was the goal. That if I had a view like this and no one breathing down my neck, I’d finally feel free,” he says, softer now. “But it turns out freedom means fuck all if you’re just sitting alone in a glass box at the top of the city, wondering who’s going to remember you when you’re gone.”
Something in my chest aches for him, for everything he lost. His daughter. His years spent in prison. The quiet loneliness that still follows him like a shadow.
I reach out without thinking, my hand brushing across one of the tattoos on his chest—a pattern of black ink that looks like the inside of a kaleidoscope, fractured but symmetrical.
“You don’t have to be alone in it anymore,” I whisper.
His breath catches—barely—but I feel it in the tension between us, in the way his muscles go taut under my touch.
His hand covers mine, holding it flat against his chest, grounding us both. “I don’t want to be.”
His other hand lifts, fingers sliding to the back of my neck, thumb brushing behind my ear with a devastating gentleness. Like he’s memorizing the shape of me. Like he’s afraid I might vanish if he doesn’t anchor me.
“You nervous?” he asks quietly.
“A little,” I admit. “Not of you. Just… this.”
“This?” he echoes.
“Us,” I clarify. “Now that we’re not hiding. Now that we have to be out in the real world with Asher and your past and… everything else.”
He studies me, his blue eyes dark and unreadable, that dangerous edge to him surfacing like it always does. But it’s tempered by something softer now. Something deeper.
“You think this hasn’t been real all along?” he asks, voice rough. “I’ve been dying for you for over a year, angel. I’ve built my fucking world around the idea of you. That’s real.”
I try to breathe, but it feels like there’s no air left in the room.
He leans down, his forehead resting against mine. “You’re here now. That’s all I need.”
Then, his tone shifts, tender and uncharacteristically hesitant. “And just so you know… I don’t expect anything from you. I know what your house means to you, what it meant to move into a space that belonged to your grandmother.”
My eyes sting, and before I realize what I’m doing, I blurt out the first thing that comes to mind. “She was the first person who made me feel like I didn’t have to earn love. She made it feel like home no matter what was going on outside the walls.”
His hand flexes on the nape of my neck. “I get it. That house is part of who you are. I’d never ask you to give that up.”
I blink fast, trying to clear the emotion clouding my vision.
“But I’d follow you anywhere, Ari,” he murmurs. “Anywhere. I’d live in a one-bedroom apartment with cockroaches and no fucking hot water if it meant I got to wake up next to you.”
I let out a shaky breath, and he leans in, brushing his lips against mine.
“I’m not trying to trap you,” he whispers. “I’m trying to show you you’re free. As long as you’ll let me worship you wherever that freedom takes you.”
My hands curl into his skin, and this time when he leans down and kisses me—slow, reverent, nothing like the greedy kisses from before—it feels like something entirely new is beginning. His mouth moves over mine, slow and careful at first, like he’s afraid he might break something delicate between us. But it’s not delicate. It’s not fragile. It’s a wildfire—ravenous and consuming and impossible to stop.
I kiss him back with everything I have, my fingers grabbing the hard muscles of his back, tugging him closer. He groans softly, the sound vibrating in his chest, and then his arms are around me—tight, claiming, anchoring. The foyer of his penthouse is silent except for our breathing, and I swear the walls lean in to watch.
He lifts me without warning, strong hands gripping the backs of my thighs as I wrap my legs around his waist. My back hits the cool marble wall behind us, but the chill barely registers because he’s there—his mouth at my throat, dragging open-mouthed kisses along the pulse pounding just beneath my skin.
“Maddox,” I gasp, clutching at his shoulders. “Here?”
His voice is rough, almost pained. “I need you. Right now. I don’t give a fuck where we are.”
The desperation in him floors me, in the way his hands hold me like I might disappear, the reverence in his touch, both delicate and needy all at once.
His mouth finds mine again, hungrier now. His hips roll against me, and I can feel how hard he is beneath his sweatpants—thick, straining, hot. I grind against him instinctively, the friction sparking through me like lightning. I feel him everywhere—his breath in my lungs, his heartbeat against my ribs, his hands tracing every inch of skin they can find beneath my clothes.
“You have no idea,” he mutters between kisses, “what it does to me… to have you like this. To know you’re mine.”
“I’m yours,” I breathe.
A low, broken sound escapes him. “Say it again.”
“I’m yours, Maddox.”
His head drops to my shoulder with a groan, his body tightening against mine. “Fuck, Ari.” He kisses my neck again, slower this time, his tongue tracing the curve of my jaw. “I could die a happy man just like this. With your body wrapped around mine and the taste of your lips on my own.”
“Please,” I whimper.
“I have a confession,” he murmurs, his tongue feathering against my pulse point as he inhales the scent of my perfume. “At the beach house, I put some of my cum in your perfume bottle.”
I go still. “Why?”
“So you’d always smell like me.”
A bolt of heat goes through me. “Fuck. I hate that I find that so hot,” I mutter, pulling his face up to mine and kissing him fully.
When he pulls away slightly, one of his hands slides beneath my sweatshirt and bra, the rough pad of his thumb brushing over my nipple, and I cry out softly, the sound swallowed by his mouth. His other hand slides down between my thighs, pressing against the thin barrier of my leggings.
“You’re soaked,” he rasps, moving his hand under my leggings and dragging the fabric of my underwear to the side. Then he slips his fingers into the wet heat of me. “God, you’re always so fucking ready for me.”
He presses two fingers inside me, slow and deliberate, his forehead resting against mine like he needs the connection just as much as the release.
“I need you,” I whisper, grinding down against his hand, needing more. Needing everything.
His breath shudders out against my cheek as he draws his fingers out and back in, curling them in just the right way. His thumb finds that sensitive bundle of nerves and starts to circle, lazy, teasing strokes that have me gasping.
“You’re already shaking,” he growls, voice rough and reverent all at once. “So fucking tight. So wet for me.”
My head tips back against the wall, my eyes fluttering shut as pleasure builds deep in my core. It’s overwhelming—the thick drag of his fingers, the delicious pressure of his thumb, the relentless heat coiling inside me like a fuse lit too close to the fire.
“Look at me, angel,” he demands softly. “I want to see your face when you come.”
I force my eyes open, and the second our gazes lock, I nearly unravel. His expression is all heat and hunger and something far more dangerous.
Worship.
“That’s it,” he murmurs, curling his fingers deeper as he fucks me harder with them. Like the last couple of times, I love that he doesn’t treat me delicately. That he gives me exactly what I need. “Fuck yourself on my hand. Show me how bad you need it.”
I whimper, my hips grinding into the pressure of his palm as sparks skitter beneath my skin. The friction is perfect, obscene and raw. I can feel the slick mess he’s coaxing out of me, soaking through my leggings as his fingers fuck me hard and deep, each thrust sending me closer and closer to the edge. Every time I roll my hips, I bump my clit against his knuckle, and god I’m so close already.
“You going to come for me?” he rasps, his voice thick with need as he ruts into me. “Soak my fingers before I even get the chance to stretch you around my cock?”
Fuck, he’s good.
“Maddox—” I pant, the tension inside me about to snap.
He leans in, his lips brushing the shell of my ear. “Be a good little cockslut and come. Right here. Let me feel how much you want me.”
That’s all it takes.
It hits me like a wave—hard, fast, all-consuming. My body arches against him as I cry out his name, clenching around his fingers, pressing my shivering clit against his knuckles. My nails dig into his bare shoulders, and pleasure fractures through me in jagged bursts, white-hot and blinding. I can’t think, can’t breathe, can only feel—the pulsing throb of release and the delicious stretch of his fingers still deep inside me, his knuckle grinding against my aching bud with merciless precision, guiding me through every last tremor.
He kisses me through it, swallowing my moans like they’re the air he breathes, his hand never leaving my body as he murmurs praise against my lips.
“Good girl. That’s it. Just like that.”
His fingers don’t move, still resting deep inside me, like he can’t bear to let go yet. Like he’s memorizing the way I feel around him. Like he’s already imagining how he’ll ruin me next.
I just came but I’m already aching for it again.
When I finally sag against him, trembling and breathless, he pulls his hand away and kisses my temple, murmuring against my skin, “There she is.”
I nuzzle into him, drunk on the afterglow, on the way he holds me like I’m something precious. Something irreplaceable.
“Your bed?” I murmur, still breathless.
He grins against my neck. “Yeah. But I’m going to make you come again first before I give you my cock.”
He carries me the rest of the way through his home, like I weigh nothing, like he’s been waiting his entire life to hold me like this. And as he pushes open the door to his room and lays me down like I’m a secret he never intends to share, I realize this is the beginning of something terrifying and beautiful.
And mine.
Not borrowed. Not temporary. Not stolen. Mine .
His room is minimal, clean but lived in. A deep navy comforter, dark wood floors, heavy blackout curtains. A space made for privacy. For secrets.
He lays me down like I’m breakable, but the look in his eyes says otherwise. His gaze flicks over me like he’s trying to etch the sight into memory.
“I’ve wanted you here for so long,” he admits quietly, crawling over me, caging me in without touching me. “I didn’t think I’d ever get to have you like this. Not really.”
His fingers brush down the center of my chest, slow and purposeful.
“You have me,” I whisper.
Something flickers behind his eyes—relief, possession, awe. A slow, dark smile curves his lips.
“Not yet,” he murmurs. “Not in all the ways I want you, little warrior.”
“Oh? And what other ways do you want me?”
He gives me a lopsided smile. “You really want to know?” I nod eagerly. He sighs, looking like he regrets saying anything. “Fine. I want you in my bed every night, with my ring around your finger, and then I want to fuck babies into you. Happy?”
His answer jolts through me. “Really?” I ask, my voice barely a whisper.
“Really. But for tonight, I’ll settle for filling up your delicious cunt.”
I grin as his eyes linger on me. He crawls on top of me slowly, like he’s giving me a chance to bolt, to run from the gravity of this thing between us.
But I don’t, because he’s already rooted too deep.
I swallow hard, watching him, feeling every beat of my heart hammer behind my ribs.
Marriage? And babies?
Fuck.
His body covers me as he kisses me again, slower now. Not hungry—devoted. His mouth maps every inch of me, like he needs to remember every reaction, every shiver, every gasp.
“You’re still trembling,” he murmurs, dragging his lips down my throat, settling between my thighs. His fingers part me again, deliberate and slow, as if he has nowhere else to be.
I can barely breathe. “Maddox…”
“Relax,” he says, voice low and reverent. “You’ll come for me again, nice and slow this time.”
And when he pushes into me and makes me come three more times, when he touches me like I’m the most precious and dangerous thing he’s ever held, it’s nothing like the desperate nights before.
It’s careful. It’s consuming.
He kisses me through each one, soft but claiming, swallowing every breathless moan like it’s the only thing keeping him alive. He whispers words I’ll never fully remember but will always feel—how soft I am, how sweet I taste, how perfect I look spread out beneath him. And when I’m completely spent, his left hand cradles the back of my head, thumb gently stroking behind my ear like he knows I’m hanging by a thread.
“That’s it,” he murmurs against my lips. “Fuck. You’re so goddamn beautiful when you come.”
The praise punches through me just as powerfully as the orgasms themselves. I whimper into his mouth, completely at his mercy, shivering in the circle of his arms. His fingers stay unmoving against every inch of me.
When the aftershocks finally ebb, I sag against him, panting, feeling boneless and shattered. He pulls his hand away slowly, carefully, like he’s afraid I’ll break. And then he presses the gentlest kiss to my temple. I cling to him, shaking with the force of it all. The terrifying, dizzying realization that this man—this obsessive, relentless man—knows me better than anyone ever has.
My head falls against his shoulder, and I let myself be held. For once, I don’t resist. He gathers me close, tucking me beneath his chin, one hand tracing lazy circles against the bare skin of my back. His breathing evens out first, then mine, until we’re just… quiet.
I tilt my head, looking up at him. “You good?”
He hums. “Perfect.” His fingers toy with a strand of my hair, curling it absently. “Stay tonight,” he murmurs. “Please.”
And I do.
For the first time in my life, I don’t hesitate.