Chapter 5 #2
I groaned, the sound torn from my throat. I found her clit, swollen and waiting, and I circled it with agonizing slowness.
She screamed, a high, broken sound that I swallowed with a kiss. I crushed my mouth to hers, devouring her. She tasted like peppermint tea and desperation. Her tongue met mine, tentative at first, then demanding. She tangled her fingers in my hair, pulling me closer, grinding down onto my hand.
I broke the kiss, pulling back just an inch so I could look her in the eye.
“Say it,” I commanded. My fingers increased the pressure, rubbing circles that made her knees tremble. “Say the third condition.”
“The… the agreement…” She was panting, her eyes rolling back. “There must be… an authenticated… security agreement.”
“Yes.”
I slid two fingers inside her.
She shattered.
It wasn't a slow build. It was an explosion. She clamped down around my fingers, her body bowing off the windowsill. She cried out my name, high and sweet, her nails digging into my shoulders.
“Ezra!”
I held her through it. I kept my hand steady, riding out the waves of her orgasm, watching the way pleasure took her apart. I watched the way her face slackened, the way her lips parted, the way she completely surrendered to the sensation.
It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
When the tremors finally subsided, she slumped against the glass, her head resting on my shoulder. She was breathing hard, her heart hammering against my chest.
I slowly withdrew my hand. I smoothed her t-shirt down. I kissed her forehead.
“You passed,” I whispered.
I stepped back, my own body screaming for release. I was hard, painfully so, straining against the denim of my jeans. But I didn't touch her again. I couldn't. If I took what I wanted—if I unzipped my pants and buried myself inside her—there would be no going back.
And we had a deal.
Amara looked at me. Her eyes were hazy, unfocused, wrecked.
“You…” she whispered. “You didn't…”
“I didn't finish,” I said. My voice was tight. “Because that wasn't part of the lesson.”
I walked to the kitchen sink and washed my hands. I scrubbed them with soap, watching the water turn grey, but I could still feel the phantom sensation of her heat on my skin.
I turned off the tap and dried my hands.
When I turned around, Amara was still sitting on the windowsill. She looked shell-shocked. She looked… aware.
“Go to bed, Amara,” I said. “We have an early start tomorrow.”
She slid off the sill, her legs wobbling slightly. She didn't argue. She didn't make a bratty comment.
She walked toward the hallway. But before she disappeared, she stopped. She didn't turn around.
“Ezra?”
“Yes?”
“I’m not bored anymore.”
Then she ran. I heard her bedroom door slam shut, followed by the click of the lock.
I stood in the middle of the living room, listening to the silence return. But it wasn't the same silence. It was charged. It was heavy.
I looked down at my hands. They were shaking.
I had thought I was teaching her a lesson about control. I had thought I was proving that I could handle her chaos.
But as I stood there, aching and alone, I realized I had made a catastrophic miscalculation.
I hadn't just touched her body. I had let her see mine. I had let her see the hunger I kept chained in the dark.
And now that she knew it was there… she was going to feed it.
Three Days Later
The dynamic in the penthouse had shifted. The air was no longer cold; it was thick.
We moved around each other like magnets with the same polarity forced together—repelling, yet vibrating with the need to flip and snap together.
Every glance was heavy. Every accidental brush of shoulders in the kitchen sent a jolt of electricity through me that took an hour to dissipate.
We were in the "Fake Dating" phase of the plan.
“Hold my hand,” I said.
We were walking through the quad toward the arena. It was game day. The Kodiaks were playing Boston University. The campus was swarming with students in black and gold.
Amara was wearing my jersey.
It was oversized, the number 19 emblazoned on the back, tucked into a pair of tight black leather pants. She looked incredible. She looked like she belonged to me.
“People are watching,” I muttered, nodding toward a group of girls whispering near the library steps.
Amara sighed, but she slipped her hand into mine. Her fingers were small, warm. She squeezed my hand, a silent reassurance.
“Relax, Cap,” she said, looking up at me through her sunglasses. “You’re stiff as a board. You’re supposed to be madly in love with me, remember?”
“I’m supposed to be ‘taming’ you,” I corrected. “There’s a difference.”
“Whatever makes you sleep at night,” she teased.
“Hey! Sterling!”
I looked up. A guy from the BU team was walking past us, flanked by two of his line-mates. He was big, ugly, and looking for trouble.
“Cute jersey,” the guy sneered, looking at Amara. “Didn't know Sterling let his groupies wear the merch.”
I felt Amara stiffen.
I stopped walking. I turned to face the guy. I didn't let go of Amara’s hand. In fact, I pulled her closer, tucking her into my side.
“She’s not a groupie,” I said calmly.
“No?” The guy laughed. “Then what is she? Cause last I checked, Vane’s sister was community property.”
The world went red.
It wasn't a slow burn this time. It was an instant detonation.
I let go of Amara’s hand. I took a step forward.
“Ezra,” Amara whispered, grabbing my arm. “Don’t. He’s baiting you. You’ll get benched.”
I didn't care about the bench. I didn't care about the game. I cared about the way this insect was looking at her.
“Apologize,” I said.
“Or what?” The guy puffed out his chest. “You gonna hit me, rich boy?”
I didn't hit him. That was sloppy. That was for people who lost control.
I stepped into his space. I was taller. I was wider. And I had the eyes of a man who knew exactly how to dismantle a human body.
“Or I’ll make sure you never make it past the blue line tonight,” I said softly. “I’ll make sure every time you touch the puck, you end up on the glass. And then, I’ll buy the building your parents live in and evict them.”
The guy blinked. The bravado faltered.
“Jesus, man. It was a joke.”
“Apologize,” I repeated.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. He looked at Amara, then back at me, terror dawning in his eyes. “Sorry, okay?”
He hustled away, his friends trailing behind him.
I stood there, breathing hard, the adrenaline coursing through my veins.
“Ezra,” Amara said softly.
I turned to her. She wasn't looking at me with fear. She was looking at me with awe.
“You… you defended me,” she said.
“He disrespected you,” I said, as if it were the simplest equation in the world. “No one disrespects what is mine.”
What is mine.
I hadn’t meant to say it. But there it was.
Amara’s lips parted. She took a step toward me. We were in the middle of the quad, surrounded by hundreds of people, but it felt like we were the only two people on earth.
“Yours?” she whispered.
I looked down at her. I saw the jersey with my name on her back. I saw the way she fit against my side. I saw the way she had come apart in my arms three nights ago.
“For the duration of the contract,” I amended, my voice gruff. I needed to put the wall back up. I needed to protect us both.
She smiled. It was a knowing, dangerous smile. She reached up and adjusted the collar of my jacket, her fingers brushing my neck.
“Careful, Sterling,” she murmured. “You keep looking at me like that, and people might start thinking this isn't fake.”
She turned and started walking toward the arena, her hips swaying in the leather pants.
I watched her go.
“It’s not,” I whispered to the empty air.
I checked my watch. One hour until game time. I needed to hit someone. I needed to bleed. I needed to purge this frantic energy before I did something truly reckless.
Like fall in love with Amara Vane.
Locker Room - Post Game
We won. 4-1.
I played like a man possessed. I checked the BU loudmouth into the boards so hard his helmet flew off. I scored two goals. I felt invincible.
But the high crashed the moment I walked out of the showers.
My phone was buzzing in my locker.
Caller ID: Father.
I stared at the screen, the towel dripping around my waist. The noise of the locker room—the shouting, the snapping of towels—faded into a dull roar.
I picked it up.
“Sir,” I answered.
“Ezra,” my father’s voice was crisp, devoid of warmth. “I saw the game highlights. You’re playing aggressive. Sloppy.”
“We won, sir.”
“Winning isn’t the point. Image is the point. Control is the point.”
I gripped the phone tighter. “I was in control.”
“Were you? I also heard a rumor that you threatened a player on the quad before the game. Over a girl.”
My blood ran cold. He had spies everywhere.
“It was a misunderstanding,” I said.
“It sounds like a distraction,” he countered. “I’m coming up early, Ezra. Friday. I want to meet this… roommate of yours. If she’s the Vane girl, as my sources suggest, you better have a very good explanation for why you’re housing the enemy.”
“She’s not the enemy,” I said. “She’s… an asset.”
“We’ll see,” he said. “Dinner. Friday. The Penthouse. Have her ready. And Ezra? If she embarrasses us… you’re done. The hockey, the MBA, the trust. All of it.”
Click.
I lowered the phone.
Friday. Two days away.
My father was coming. The ultimate test.
I looked up and saw Leo Vane staring at me from across the locker room. He looked suspicious. He looked angry.
I was trapped.
I needed Amara to be perfect. I needed her to be the obedient, polished socialite my father expected.
But as I thought about the girl who ate pizza on my rug and moaned my name against a window, I realized I didn't want her to be perfect.
I wanted her to be real.
And that was going to get us both destroyed.