Chapter Sixteen
Rhea
T he shower is hotter than it needs to be.
Like, first-layer-of-skin-peeling hot.
But I don’t turn it down.
The steam curls around me like a humid guilt blanket, fogging up the mirror and pretending to be comforting.
It’s not.
It’s just enabling me.
I tilt my head back and let the water pound my shoulders like it owes me rent. I pretend it’s washing away the shame, the slick, the sudden spiral of whatever the hell my body decided to do in that SUV and every moment since.
It’s not working.
I drag my hands down my body, checking for signs that I’m still human and not just a walking puddle of pheromones and regret. My legs are shaking again. Not enough to fall over, but enough that I know what’s coming.
Heat, round two. Ding ding.
I finish fast, mostly because I’m worried if I stay in any longer, I’ll either faint or try to hump the wall tiles.
(I won’t.)
(Probably.)
( I think. )
I grab a towel from the rack. It’s fluffy and borderline luxurious - clearly the kind of towel that costs more than my entire skincare routine.
But I still miss my ratty blue one from home. The one that smells like detergent and bad decisions and has a hole the size of my fist in the corner.
I wrap it around myself and step into the en suite. Here, everything’s grey or chrome or quietly judging me.
I spot the robe on the bench and pull it on. It’s soft and lavender-scented.
I hate how comforting it is.
Back in the bedroom - containment suite? holding cell? libido dungeon? - I pause. It’s too clean. Too quiet .
The kind of quiet that makes your thoughts echo extra loud and makes you wish you’d brought a playlist, or at least a tiny angry friend for emotional support.
( Lexi. I left Lexi back there, at the gala. Shit. )
Along with my bag, my phone, my camera -
My entire goddamn life.
“Good job, Rhea,” I mutter to myself. “Very subtle omega meltdown. Ten out of ten.”
A restless kind of itch works under my skin, and I drift toward the dresser, tugging open drawers just to do something, just to fill the silence.
The top one is empty. The second drawer has a blanket.
It's thick, cozy, and emotionally supportive. I hesitate, and then pull it out and hug it to my chest, breathing in the clean cotton scent like it might whisper affirmations.
The bed looks too big. Too cold. The clinical neatness of it bothers me, somehow, like it's daring me to disturb it.
I carry the blanket to the bed and toss it across the foot, and then proceed to rearrange the bed like some sort of manic nesting raccoon.
A pillow here. Another pillow there. Blanket tucked right over the foot. No - now it’s too symmetrical. Move it again. Ruin the perfectly tucked sheets.
Take that, Vale.
It’s stupid. I know it’s stupid.
But the more I build up the space, the easier it gets to breathe.
I try not to question it. My body knows what it needs even if my brain is still busy pretending everything’s fine.
Only once the bed is messy and uneven and a little bit mine do I sit down at the edge of it, my hands sinking deep into the folds.
I focus on breathing in and out, in and out, even as my thighs twitch like they’ve got secrets. The pulse between them is no longer subtle - it’s holding a megaphone and starting a protest.
Still, I try to pretend I’m fine.
Just a girl on a bed, slowly being possessed by her own hormones.
My body’s buzzing. Everything feels too sharp - too close to the surface. The air prickles across my skin like it knows something I don’t. Every nerve feels electric, like I’m plugged into something I can’t see.
And then -
I feel it. That shift.
Like the floor beneath me just moved half a breath. Like something pressed against my lungs from the outside.
There’s someone on the other side of that door.
There’s no sound. No footsteps. No knock.
I just know it.
I creep toward the door; barefoot, robe wrapped tight, my hair still damp and stuck to my neck.
A hot, feral mess in a spa wrap.
I press my ear to the door -
But there's nothing. No sound.
Right. Soundproofed.
Lucian would absolutely design a room where screaming wouldn’t help you. Sexy.
“…Hello?” I try, quietly.
Nothing.
“…Hello?” Louder now. More desperate. Slightly haunted.
Still nothing.
I curse under my breath and step back, brushing wet hair off my face, ready to convince myself it was just the heat cooking my brain -
Click.
Not the door, but something subtle.
A shift. A presence.
Then, a voice.
Sharp. Smooth. Familiar.
“You’re awake.”
Lucian.
Of course.
Because what I needed right now - as I'm on the verge of spontaneously combusting from hormonal overload - was Daddy Dom Dracula himself materializing like an ominous orgasm fairy.
“Is that rhetorical,” I say, “or do you just really love narrating the obvious?”
I swear I can feel him through the door, standing there like a judgey gargoyle in expensive shoes, hands in his pockets, jaw clenched, posture like a blade waiting to be unsheathed.
“Just confirming you’re not dead,” he replies, dry as a bone. “Would’ve been inconvenient. And annoying.”
“Oh wow,” I mutter, pressing my forehead to the door. “Truly touching. Write that on my gravestone.”
“I’m not here to coddle you.”
“Clearly. I’d sooner get emotional support from a stapler.”
“So dramatic ,” he says, like he’s not the one who locked me in a luxury panic room and is now haunting the hallway like the sexiest threat to my sanity imaginable.
“So what are you here for?” I ask. “You get off on eavesdropping, or is this just your version of bedside manner?”
“I don’t eavesdrop,” he says, calm and cutting. “I observe.”
“Oh, right. Sorry. Not creepy. Just weirdly committed . You taking notes too? Should I moan louder for the transcript?”
“I don’t need a transcript to read you,” he murmurs, his voice dropping half an octave as though it’s personally trying to undo my robe. “You’re all instinct. No discipline.”
I swear to God if I had a shoe to throw at this door, I would.
“You’re a prick,” I mutter instead.
“And you’re shaking.”
I flinch.
I am shaking. Not in a dramatic, fainting way - more like a soda can someone’s been slowly, cruelly shaking for the last four hours.
My body is humming - again . The ache building like pressure behind my ribs. My heat hasn’t spiked yet, not fully, but it’s prowling just beneath the surface, licking at my skin.
“Ugh,” I groan. “What time is it?”
“Just after two.”
“In the morning ?!” I shriek.
Pause.
"Yes, darling. That’s generally when two o’clock happens."
I slap a hand over my own face like it’ll physically smother my embarrassment.
“You’re so lucky this door is solid steel.”
“ You’re so lucky I haven’t opened it,” he says, dry and deadly.
“Are you done playing omnipotent hallway cryptid now?” I bite back a snarl. “Are you ready to leave me alone?”
“Is that what you want?” he says, quieter now.
“I want you to fuck off,” I snap.
“You sure?” he hums. “Because you’re breathing like you’re about to ask me to do the opposite.”
“I’m breathing like I’m annoyed.”
He hums again. “You sound flustered.”
“I sound like I want to punt you down the hallway.”
“Sure you do,” he says smoothly, “That's why you’ve been pressed up against that door for thirty-five seconds now.”
I blink.
Glance down.
And -
shit.
Full chest-to-door contact. My nipples are literally fogging up the steel through the robe.
I shove off the door like it’s betrayed me. “That means nothing.”
“It means you’re slick again,” he says simply.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” His voice is smooth and smug. “Don’t notice? Or don’t enjoy it?”
“I will end you through this door, Lucian Vale.”
“I’d love to see you try. You’d probably hump it by accident.”
My hands curl into fists against the door. “Leave me alone.”
“ No .” His voice dips lower. “You don’t get to stand there soaking through that robe, panting against the door like you’re begging for contact, and then pretend you don’t want someone on the other side.”
The robe’s clinging now - too warm, too soft. My thighs are damp again, slick sliding where skin meets skin.
I squeeze them together, biting back the sound that threatens to escape.
“Feels weird, doesn’t it?” Lucian continues, completely undeterred. “The ache starting low. The way your skin’s too tight, too hot, too needy .”
I make a sound. A high-pitched, angry noise that is definitely not a whimper.
“You’re twitching,” he says. “Clenching your thighs together. Hoping pressure helps. Hoping anything helps.”
“Shut up,” I whisper, horrified at how breathy it sounds.
“You’re burning,” he murmurs, “and that little robe’s soaked straight through, isn’t it?”
I don’t answer. I can’t answer.
Because unfortunately, he’s right. Again .
I press my forehead to the cold surface like it’ll ground me, but it doesn’t. Nothing does.
My body buzzes with it - heat, need, shame - and something uglier beneath.
Desire.
For him.
“Just admit it,” he whispers. “You’re fucking yourself in your head right now. You’re thinking about me opening that door. About what I’d do to you. About the way I’d make you scream.”
My hand betrays me. It starts moving before I even realize it, sliding between my legs.
“You touching yourself?” he asks.
I whimper. A squeaky, traitorous yes -whimper.
“You fucking better be,” he growls. “Show me how desperate you are. Rub that pretty pussy, Omega. Let me hear it.”
“ Lucian ,” I breathe his name like a prayer and a profanity.
“I want you soaking that robe. I want you dripping. I want you wrecked without me even laying a finger on you.”
His voice is a low hum of satisfaction curling in my ear through the steel. My thighs are slick, and my fingers glide through heat and wet with practiced ease.
“You should hear yourself, Omega. That little whisper? That tremble in your breath? That isn’t just heat. That’s need. That’s mine. ”
I squeeze my thighs together as I close my eyes.
“You’re clenching right now, aren’t you?” His voice is deliciously cruel. “Trying to squeeze around nothing. Desperate for friction. Grinding on air.”
I arch against the door without realizing. Seeking .
“I can smell it,” he growls. “That slick, that heat rolling off your body, practically begging me to crawl inside and fill every fucking inch you can’t reach.”
I moan. Lucian laughs.
“ Ohhh , there she is. That pretty little noise. You trying to rub your thighs together again? You gonna hump the wall like a good girl for me?”
“ Lucian ,” I breathe.
It’s a sob of a name. A surrender, really .
“That’s it, Rhea,” he murmurs, voice low and lethal. “Say my name while you fall apart.”
My fingers find my clit, already slick and swollen, and I gasp. My hips roll into the touch, back arching, breath stuttering.
The sound is obscene ; wet and raw and messy. My fingertips glide through slick, circling faster as my thighs shake.
“ Fuck ,” Lucian groans - barely audible, like he didn’t mean for it to slip. “What I’d give to be in there right now. I’d tear that robe off your body. Drag my tongue from your slick little hole to your clit until you’re crying and shaking. Wouldn’t stop until you soaked my mouth.”
I grind my hand harder, teeth clenched, breath coming in gasps now as I picture him doing exactly that.
The thought of riding his perfect face…
“Then I’d flip you over and hold you there - face down, ass up, dripping - while I pushed my cock in slow. Just the tip. Let you feel the stretch. Let you beg to be ruined.”
I’m rubbing fast now - frenzied, panting, feral .
“Think you’d like that?” he asks. “Think you could handle it?”
I can barely get the words out. “You know I would.”
“I’d knot you,” he snarls. “Tie you up so fucking deep your cunt remembers my shape. So full you can’t even breathe. And I’d keep you like that - marked, shaking, leaking me for hours .”
“ Lucian ,” I gasp , the pressure building sharp and bright.
“Say it,” he commands. “Tell me who owns that cunt.”
“ You , Alpha.”
“Then come, Omega , ” he practically barks. “ Now .”
My hips jerk wildly, riding my own hand as I sob into the door. Slick floods down my thighs, fingers slippery and soaked as wave after wave of release crashes through me.
I grind into my hand like a woman possessed, riding the wave of it, falling apart in a sweaty heap of shame, satisfaction, and extremely damp cotton.
I shatter fully - loud and raw and unfiltered - and on the other side of the door, I hear him curse.
He’s hard. He’s suffering.
And he still doesn’t come in.
He waits until I’ve come back down to myself, waits until the fog in my mind has eased somewhat before his voice returns.
It’s quieter now - triumphant, smug, and far more dangerous.
“You’ll beg for the real thing soon enough, Omega. And when you do?”
My eyes almost roll back into my head as pleasure floods through me.
“I won’t be on the other side of the door.”