Chapter 14 Jade
JADE
Ifeel like Phoenix is avoiding me.
I haven't seen him since yesterday. No breakfast invitation. No text about hanging out. Nothing.
The guest cottage feels smaller every hour. Beautiful, luxurious, and suffocating.
By eleven at night, I can't take it anymore.
I walk the stone pathway to the main house in bare feet and pajama shorts, my heart pounding with every step. The lights are on in his office, warm yellow rectangles cutting through the darkness.
I don't knock.
Phoenix is at his desk, laptop open, shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows. He doesn't look up when I enter, just keeps typing with the kind of focused intensity that makes me want to throw something at him.
"We need to talk," I say.
"About?" Still typing.
"About why I'm really here."
Now he looks up. His eyes are dark, unreadable in the low light of the office.
I cross my arms over my chest. "You paid my debts. Brought me to Malibu. Put me in a literal glass cage. For what?"
He stands slowly, deliberately, and walks around the desk. "I told you. I wanted to see you."
"Bullshit. Nobody spends almost $400 grand just to see someone."
"You think you have me figured out?" He's closer now, and I can see the exhaustion around his eyes. He hasn't been sleeping either.
"I think you want something from me. I just don't know what yet."
"Maybe I want you to stay."
"Why?"
"Because I do."
"That's not an answer." My voice rises. "You can't just throw money at people and expect them to fall in line. You can't just decide what's best for me and make it happen without asking. You can't—"
"I can't what?" He's even closer now. Close enough that I can smell his cologne, cedar and something darker. Close enough to feel the heat coming off his body.
"You can't just—" I lose my train of thought when he takes another step. "This isn't fair."
"What isn't fair?"
"Any of this. You. This house. The yacht. The way you look at me like—" I stop myself.
"Like what?"
"Like you own me."
"I don't own you, Jade." His voice is low, dangerous. "But I want to."
The admission steals my breath.
"You can't say things like that."
"Why not? It's the truth." Another step. "I want you here. In my house. In my life. I want you to stop fighting this and just let yourself feel what's between us."
"There's nothing between us except debt and manipulation."
"Liar."
The word hangs in the air between us, charged and intimate.
"I should leave," I say, but I don't move.
"Then leave." He's right in front of me now, close enough to touch. "The door isn't locked. Robert will drive you to the airport. I'll even pay for the flight."
"Stop trying to pay for everything!"
"Then what do you want from me?"
"I want you to stop lying! I want you to tell me why you really brought me here! I want—"
He kisses me.
Hard. Demanding. No asking permission. His hands cup my face and his mouth crashes against mine and every coherent thought I have evaporates.
I should push him away. Should slap him. Should prove I'm not some weak woman who melts the second a rich man touches her.
Instead, I kiss him back.
My hands find his hair, fisting in the dark strands. His hands slide from my face to my waist, pulling me against him until there's no space left between us. The kiss is angry and desperate and wrong in every way that matters.
I break away, gasping. "We can't—"
"Why not?"
"Because you're—" I don't know how to finish that sentence. Too rich? Too controlling?
"Too much like the men your mother warned you about?" He reads my mind, his voice rough. "Is that what you were going to say?"
"Yes! All of that!"
"And yet you kissed me back."
"That was a mistake."
"Was it?" He takes a step forward. I take one back. "Because it felt pretty fucking real to me."
Another step back. My shoulders hit glass. The floor-to-ceiling window is cold against my skin through my thin tank top.
"My mother warned me about men like you," I say, trying to find solid ground in this conversation.
"Men like me?" His hand comes up to brace against the glass beside my head. "Or men who tried to help her and got rejected for it?"
The comment about my mother throws me. "What are you talking about?"
"You work all of those jobs and still can't afford to breathe." His other hand comes up, caging me in. "You're talented but too scared to chase your dreams. You'd rather be safe and miserable than take a risk."
"How dare you—"
"Tell me I'm wrong."
I can't. Because he's not wrong. Everything he just said is painfully, horribly accurate.
"You have no right to judge me."
"I'm not judging." His voice softens slightly. "I'm offering you a choice."
"What choice?"
"Stay here. Let me help you. Stop running from everything that scares you."
"And what do you get out of it?"
"Maybe I get to know you." His eyes are locked on mine. "Maybe I get to see if you're as brave as I think you are."
"I'm not brave."
"You got on a plane to meet a stranger. You're braver than you think."
The air between us is electric. My back is against the cold glass, the ocean dark and endless behind me. The infinity pool glows blue in my peripheral vision. And Phoenix is close enough that I can feel every breath he takes.
"This is a bad idea," I whisper.
"Probably."
"My mother will never forgive me."
"Do you need her permission to live your life?"
The question hits harder than it should. Because no, I don't need her permission. But I've spent twenty-five years living by her rules, accepting her fears as my own.
I grab his shirt and pull him to me.
The kiss is different this time. Not gentle or tentative. Claiming, demanding, desperate. I pour everything into it—every frustration, every want, every moment of the past three days where I've been fighting this exact thing.
Phoenix makes a sound low in his throat and presses me harder against the window. The glass is freezing against my back. His body is burning hot against my front.
His hands slide under my tank top, palms rough against my skin. I gasp into his mouth and he swallows the sound.
"Tell me to stop and I will," he says against my lips.
"Don't stop."
He pulls my tank top over my head in one smooth motion. It lands somewhere near his desk. I'm in my bra and pajama shorts, pressed against floor-to-ceiling glass overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
"Anyone could see—" I start.
"Let them." His mouth finds my neck, my collarbone, the curve of my shoulder.
My hands go to his shirt. The buttons won't cooperate and I make a frustrated sound that makes him smile against my skin.
He pulls back just enough to unbutton it himself, watching my face the whole time. When he shrugs it off, I forget how to breathe.
I've seen him shirtless before by the pool. But not like this. Not up close where I can touch. Broad shoulders, defined chest, abs that look carved from marble. I run my hands over his skin and feel him shudder.
His hands move to my shorts, unbuttoning and unzipping with practiced ease.
"Phoenix—"
"Tell me to stop."
I don't.
He slides them down and I step out, kicking them aside. Now I'm in just my underwear, against the glass, completely exposed.
Behind me, the infinity pool glows blue. The ocean stretches black and endless.
In front of me is Phoenix, his eyes dark and consuming.
"You're beautiful," he says, and I've never felt more vulnerable or more alive.
He reaches behind me and unhooks my bra with one hand. It falls. I'm bare from the waist up, pressed against glass that overlooks his entire world.
"Someone could see—"
"There's no one for miles." His fingers hook into the waistband of my underwear. "But if there was, they'd see you're mine."
He slides them down slowly, watching my face the whole time. I step out of them and I'm completely naked now. Against his window. In his space. Drowning in the intensity of how he's looking at me.
One hand braces against the glass beside my head. The other slides between my legs.
I gasp, my head falling back against the window.
"Look at me," he commands.
I do. His eyes are consuming me, claiming me.
His fingers move and I'm drowning in sensation. The glass is cold on my back, his hand is hot between my thighs. My hips rock into his touch and I'm so close I can barely breathe.
"Not yet," he says, pulling his hand away.
I make a sound of protest that's almost a whimper.
He lifts me like I weigh nothing. I wrap my legs around him instinctively, kissing him desperately.
"Where—"
"My desk."
"We can't—"
"We are."
He carries me across the office and sets me on the edge of his desk. Papers scatter. His laptop gets shoved aside. Something crashes to the floor.
I'm on his desk, completely naked, legs spread, watching him unbuckle his belt. The sound of the buckle makes something clench low in my stomach.
This is insane. This is perfect. This is happening.
He pushes his pants and boxers down in one motion and oh god.
"Second thoughts?" He's smirking because he caught me staring.
"Shut up and fuck me."
He positions himself between my thighs, hands gripping my hips with a possessiveness that should bother me but doesn't.
"Look at me, Jade."
I do.
"This is real. Whatever else was a lie, this is real."
Then he's pushing inside me and the world narrows to just this. Just us.
The first thrust makes me gasp. He's big, stretching me, filling me completely.
"Fuck—" I can barely get the word out.
"Yeah." His voice is strained, controlled. He gives me a moment to adjust even though I can feel him trembling with the effort of holding back.
Then he moves.
Hard. Deep. Relentless. My hands clutch his shoulders, nails digging in. His hands grip my hips hard enough to bruise. The desk creaks beneath us. Papers slide to the floor with each thrust—business documents, financial reports, his entire empire scatters all around us.
I'm close. Every thrust hits exactly right and pleasure coils tighter and tighter inside me.
"Phoenix—"
"I know. Let go."
"I can't—"
"Yes you can." One hand slides between us, finds where we're joined, and I shatter.
I come crying out his name, clenching around him, seeing stars. He follows seconds later, groaning against my neck, his whole body going rigid before collapsing forward.
Still inside me. Both of us breathing hard. The office silent except for our ragged breaths.
"That was—" I start.
"Yeah."
"We shouldn't have—"
"Probably not."
"I should go."
"You should stay." He lifts his head to look at me. "Here. With me. Tonight."
"Phoenix—"
"Just tonight. Then tomorrow you can decide if this was a mistake."
I should say no. Should gather my clothes and walk back to the guest cottage and pretend this never happened.
Instead, I say, "Okay."
He helps me down from the desk, both of us gathering our clothes. My tank top is by the window. His shirt is near the door. My shorts somehow ended up under his chair.
Then he takes my hand and leads me upstairs to his bedroom.
Floor-to-ceiling windows here too, facing the ocean. A bed double the size of mine back in Boston with the kind of sheets that make you feel like you’re in heaven.
He pulls back the covers and I climb in. He follows, pulling me against him until my back is to his chest and his arm is around my waist.
"Sleep," he says against my hair.
"I don't think I can."
"Try."
I close my eyes. I feel his heartbeat against my back, his breath in my hair, and the weight of what just happened settling around me.
Tomorrow I'll deal with the consequences and figure out what this all means. Tonight, I just let myself feel safe in the arms of the man I’ve been warned about.