Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Sloane
“You sure?” he asks, voice hoarse.
My stomach dips in anticipation. I lift my chin, gaze steady on him. “I wouldn’t have brought you here if I wasn’t.”
My legs are still shaky, and my lungs are raw from the race on the ice.
Every inch of my skin is hypersensitive—awakened by adrenaline and sharpened by the fact that Maddox Lasker is looking at me like I’m the only thing on earth he hasn’t conquered yet.
And he wants to.
His knuckles graze my side, the gentlest brush, but it lands like lightning. “Sloane…”
“I don’t want careful,” I whisper. “Not tonight.”
I want to surrender to him here in my private sanctuary. The room I never let anyone see.
Not board members, not press, not even Tessa.
This is my secret, my last safe place.
And now Maddox Lasker fills the doorway, hair wild from our race, eyes blown wide with want and something darker.
Something desperate.
He steps in. Kicks the door closed with his heel. The lock slides into place, soft but final.
Then silence. A breath held between us.
Until he moves.
His hands find my hips, warm and sure, and he backs me into the room like a force of nature.
Every step erases another line I swore I’d never cross.
When his mouth crashes onto mine, it’s not a kiss—it’s a declaration.
He’s savage as he consumes me, possessive and real.
He guides me until my ass hits the table, his body crowding mine, and I gasp when his tongue sweeps across mine exactly how I like it.
“You have no idea,” he mutters into my mouth, voice shredded, “what you do to me.”
But I do. Because he’s doing the same thing to me.
Unraveling every stitch I’ve sewn into my armor.
Making me feel everything I’ve worked years to avoid.
His hands are everywhere—spanning my ribs, dragging down my hips, fisting the hem of my hoodie.
I tug it over my head and he growls, rough and low.
“Fuck.” His gaze eats me alive. “Take the leggings off. Slowly.”
My lips part. I hesitate just long enough for heat to spark in his eyes.
Then I obey.
I sway my hips as the leggings slide down my thighs until they pool at my feet, and I kick them away.
His stare lands on my pussy, and he growls. “Fuck me, Sloane. All night with no underwear? You really are trying to kill me.”
I’m so turned on all I can do is exhale, every inch of exposed skin feeling like a promise he’s about to collect on.
He lifts me onto the table in one fluid motion, and I wrap my legs around his waist, arms clinging tight to his shoulders.
The sound he makes as he unbuttons his pants—half groan, half growl—burns through me like fire.
“Mine,” he rasps, grinding against me. “Say it.”
The word is a flame in my chest. “Yours.”
That single syllable destroys what little composure we have left.
He thrusts into me in one rough, hungry stroke.
My cry rips out of me, echoing off the suite walls.
“Jesus, Sloane.” His forehead drops to mine, breath ragged. “So fucking tight. You were made for this. For me.”
I clutch at him like a lifeline. “Don’t stop.”
“I have no plans to ever stop.”
His thrusts are brutal. Deliberate.
Every inch of him drives into me like he’s trying to brand me from the inside out.
His mouth is everywhere—my jaw, my neck, my collarbone. His words fall hot and filthy in my ear, every one of them a sin I want to commit again and again.
“You like being fucked in your private little tower, don’t you princess?”
“Yes,” I gasp. “Yes.”
“Bet you’ve never let anyone up here. Never let anyone see you like this. But me?” His teeth graze my throat. “I get everything.”
“Yes, yes. Only you. Only ever you.”
He’s seeing the version of me I hide from the world. The one who wants to be held, claimed.
Wanted without conditions.
My orgasm crashes into me like a tidal wave. My legs tremble, my hands clawing down his back as I ride it out.
He grabs my wrists and pins them over my head with one hand, the other gripping my thigh as he keeps thrusting, harder now, more erratic.
The table creaks beneath us, but I don’t care. I want more. I want all of him—this heat, this power, this desperate claiming.
Without warning, he pulls out. I cry out at the loss, but he spins me fast and rough, bending me over the back of the couch before I can breathe.
“Hands flat,” he growls, voice a snarl at my ear. “Back arched. Ass up. You wanna be mine? Then show me.”
My palms brace on the couch cushion, heart slamming in my chest. I feel his hand whisper down the curve of my spine, fingers splaying across my hips like he owns them.
And he does.
“You think I haven’t dreamed about taking you like this?” he rasps. “Watching you fall apart for me. Seeing what you look like bent over the throne you rule from.”
He thrusts into me again—deeper this time, angle brutal, possession written in every stroke.
“Fuck,” I gasp, head dropping forward. “Maddox…God you feel so good.”
“Say it again.” His palm smacks my ass, a sharp bite that makes me whimper and my second orgasm climb higher. “Say who you belong to.”
“You,” I choke out. “I’m all yours.”
“That’s right.” His hand fists in my hair, tugging just enough to make me feel it. “My smart-mouth boss. My ice queen. My fucking addiction.”
The rhythm builds. Maddox pounds into me, breath ragged, skin slapping against skin, filthy praise pouring from his lips like a litany.
“So wet for me. So fucking tight. I could stay buried in you all night and still want more.”
I’m already there—right at the edge, heat coiled tight in my belly. His hand slips between my thighs, fingers finding that spot, rubbing fast and relentless.
“You gonna come again for me, Sloane? Gonna soak my cock while I ruin you?”
I break.
The orgasm tears through me like fire, shaking every inch of my body. My moan rips out of me, half sob, half plea.
Maddox thrusts twice more, then spills into me with a hoarse shout, hips grinding deep like he never wants to leave.
For a moment, there’s nothing but the sound of our ragged breathing.
We collapse onto the couch in a tangle of limbs, hearts pounding, skin damp. His arm bands tight around my waist and anchors me against the broad wall of his chest.
For the first time in years, I feel…safe. Not alone.
His breath slows against my hair. I let my eyes drift shut, lulled by the steady thud of his heart.
But I can’t let myself fall too far.
I never could.
So I speak.
“I have a question for you. Something I’ve been wondering.”
His smile is faint but there. “Okay, shoot.”
“At the hospital visit, why were you hesitant at first?” I ask softly. “With the kids. You looked like you wanted to run.”
His body stiffens just enough to notice.
“Because I haven’t had any role models in my life on how to act with kids,” he says, voice quiet but steady. “I mean, I had my mom for a while, but how to act like a man but gentle with little ones? I have no idea.”
Emotion swells in my throat.
“I didn’t want to walk in there and have one of them see me like I saw my dad when I was seven. I know I got my temper from him, but thankfully I didn’t get his addiction. But still, I just don’t know how to be. All I know is that I didn’t want to be that.”
“But you weren’t,” I whisper. “You weren’t that guy.”
“No,” he says. “Because of you.”
He presses a kiss to my temple.
And that’s when it happens.
The shift I’ve been fighting finally takes hold.
I realize I’m in love with him.
Not just attracted. Not just infatuated.
In love.
It hits with full force, cracking open the hollow space inside my chest where nothing has lived for years. I feel it in every part of me—the weight of it, the terror of it, the inevitability.
And I know.
It can’t work.
We’ve let ourselves blur the lines. We’ve been reckless with our hearts and our reputations.
And now I’m lying here in the wreckage, listening to the steady rhythm of his heart while mine breaks quietly inside my ribs.
He shifts beside me, completely unaware. Still holding me like I’m something precious.
I let my eyes close again, committing the moment to memory.
Because I know what comes next.
The world outside will come for us.
And I’ll be the one who opens the door.
We weren’t careful. Not with each other. Not with the world outside these walls.
And if the world saw us tonight… there will be no taking this back.