28. CHAPTER 25 #2
If I didn’t keep up the fight, I'd fall under his spell. And the last thing I wanted was to fall for a man whose affections were probably tethered to strategy instead of sincerity.
Especially a man who pays attention. Almost too much.
He knew my favorite teas. The pastries I always ordered from a tiny corner café years before meeting him. The authors whose first editions I’d searched for. The fragrances that calmed my nerves. Down to the sketch pad and color palettes I used.
No one I’d ever dated paid this kind of attention. No one had ever learned me the way Orion seemed to in such a short period of time. It was so precise in ways that frightened me.
Which was precisely why fighting him became necessary. It was how I protected myself. It gave me clarity, because the moment I stopped pushing, I’d fall, and he’d know exactly how to catch me.
When we left the estate for his mysterious surprise trip, I was prepared for another maneuver, or calculated demonstration of power. That was Orion. Structured, purposeful, always one step ahead.
Surprisingly… I had fun.
Actual, breath-loosening, stomach-warming fun. Talking to him. Riding beside him. Watching the way his face softened when he spoke about his father teaching him to ride. Relaxing in the sudden casual ease between us.
I let my guard down… just a little. A harmless slip.
And after dinner, when he walked me back, I thought a small peck was nothing. A thank you. Just a gesture of goodwill between two people trying to make this strange arrangement livable.
I didn't expect him to respond the way he did. I sure didn't expect the kiss to ruin me.
It was devastating—hot, consuming, stealing every rational thought. I’d never been kissed like that before, kissed until my knees trembled, my pulse turned erratic, and my thighs clenched helplessly. The sheer want in it left me unable to sleep, or think. My body was its own traitor.
Then the storm started.
And of course—of course—the universe would trap me with the one man I was running from, right after kissing him like he was my reason for breathing.
When I lived at the Fernández mansion, storms always sent me to Blaise’s room. He never complained. He’d left his door open since we were children—back when my fear of storms were worse and absolutely terrifying.
We talked until morning, watched movies, ate the snacks our mother banned but Annette managed to sneak in for us. It made my mother furious whenever she found out. That is.
Last night there was no Blaise, so I went to the closest door.
Orion’s door.
With the charged air between us still simmering from that kiss, I didn’t know what to expect.
I definitely didn’t expect his hands to feel the way they felt. Or the look in his eyes when they caught mine.
I’d seen the raw unmasked lust in his expression earlier in the hallway. But in his room, beneath the flashes of lightning, there was something else in his eyes—something that made me forget, for a moment, that I wasn’t supposed to want him.
He touched me as though he was restraining himself from worshipping me. Then kissed me like he could unravel me with patience alone.
He asked for permission—again and again—even as I burned for him, and wanted to give him everything he asked for and more.
And when he lowered himself between my thighs, when his mouth touched me so softly I nearly cried, as he coaxed pleasure from my body as though he was learning me in real time.
I felt seen. Desired. Cherished in a way that terrified me.
Part of me didn't want it to end. The other part wanted to escape whatever this was becoming, especially when he asked, “How long has it been for you?”
I had no other choice but to run. I couldn’t give him an answer without giving away too much. Answering meant lowering walls that had taken me so long to build, and exposing the one secret that still felt too vulnerable, and too fragile to hand over to a man like Orion Kade.
He’d eventually know everything. He was my husband. We’d build a life together. A family.
Eventually, I'd have to tell him that he would be my first. That he'd be the man I gave almost all my firsts to. Well... the first that really mattered.
That part scared me terribly.
How does a heart survive loving a man like Orion?
A man who doesn't need love to function, who might wake up one day and decide he prefers a mistress to a wife.
Someone whose affection could easily be obligation pretending to be desire.
I’ve always wanted a love that lasts. A partner who wants me so wholly that being apart from me feels like missing breath.
That is not Orion.
At least… that was what I believed. Until last night, when I saw his expression between my thighs, his eyes on me with a focus that made me feel I was the only thing in the world that made sense.
I heard the way he said my name… and I felt the hesitation in his hands, the care in his voice, the restraint in his body.
The way he made me feel—without words—things I didn’t know I could feel.
Now I don’t know what scares me more. That this is all meaningless to him, or that I am misreading him completely and there might be something real forming between us.
Something I’m not sure I know how to open myself up to.