Chapter 9
NASH
The house is silent except for the low, endless growl of the ocean beyond the windows. Midnight has long since passed, and I am already masked, already climbing the stairs with the same dark inevitability that pulls the tide back to shore night after night.
The mask against my face is warm from my breath, a second skin I have come to crave more than my own. The guilt should have stopped me by now, but I don’t operate like that.
Her door stands ajar once more, a deliberate invitation I have come to expect, so I slip through without a sound, and there she is.
Blair, my enemy’s daughter, lying on her back with the blanket kicked low around her hips.
She is barely dressed, wearing only a thin white tank top that clings to her like a second skin and delicate pale pink lace panties riding low on her hips.
The front panel is already darkened with a telltale sheen of arousal.
She’s wet before I’ve even touched her. The sight steals the air from my lungs and sends a bolt of pure hunger straight to my cock.
I move to the edge of the bed and sit; the mattress dipping beneath my weight.
She doesn’t stir; her breathing remains deep and even, with lips parted and lashes dark against her flushed cheeks.
She looks so innocent like this, yet her body tells a different story with her thighs fallen slightly open, back arched just enough to push her tits against the thin cotton, nipples peaked and begging beneath the fabric.
I glance at the note on the nightstand and open it. Then show me. Because I’m still here.
A deep twist of satisfaction pulses through my veins. She’s arranged herself like this. Left herself exposed and offered up like a sacrifice on the altar of my obsession.
And why shouldn’t she?
This is my house. My bed. My domain. She is the one who broke in, the one who has been squatting here for weeks, sleeping in the very sheets I own, living in the space her father tried to steal from me.
Her presence here is no accident. She is an offering, positioned in my path by the same cruel fate that almost took everything else from me. Her father wanted to ruin my life. He betrayed me, sabotaged our partnership, and left me with nothing but ashes and rage.
Now fate has delivered his daughter to me, warm and soft and dripping in my bed. She is compensation. She is justice. She is mine to take.
I’m no longer bothering with gloves. There is no point in pretending distance anymore.
My bare hand hovers above her first, drinking in the heat rising from her skin like a man dying of thirst. I start at her tit, one finger tracing the stiff peak of her nipple through the thin cotton.
It tightens instantly beneath my touch, a small, perfect betrayal of her sleeping body.
She sighs, a breathy, needy sound that goes straight to my cock. I circle the sensitive bud slowly, watching goosebumps bloom across her chest, watching her back arch in the faintest, unconscious chase for more pressure.
Lower, my palm skims the warm, smooth plane of her stomach, pausing at the lace waistband of her panties. The fabric is already damp and warm from her body. I hook one finger beneath the edge and ease it aside, revealing her completely.
She’s slick and swollen, glistening in the moonlight, her folds flushed and shining with arousal. The sweet, heady scent of her hits me like a drug, making my mouth water behind the mask and my cock throb painfully against my jeans.
She is here because she belongs to me now.
I touch her gently at first, just the pad of my middle finger gliding through her wet folds, gathering her slickness and spreading it upward to circle her swollen clit. Her hips twitch in response, a sleepy, involuntary roll that makes her press harder against my hand.
A soft, confused moan escapes her lips; it’s needy and delicious.
Her brows draw together as though she is trying to place the sensation inside whatever dream currently holds her.
I keep the rhythm slow and steady, pressing a little firmer with each pass over that sensitive bundle of nerves, coaxing her body to give me more.
And then she begins to move with me. Just subtly, a lazy rock of her hips seeking more contact, but soon enough it begins to grow deeper, more insistent. Her thighs fall wider apart as she grinds against my hand in her sleep, chasing the pleasure I am feeding her.
Another moan slips free, longer this time, ending in a broken whimper that makes my blood run hot. Her head turns on the pillow, her lips parted and breath coming faster now.
I slide a finger lower, teasing her entrance, coating myself in her wetness before returning to her clit.
She is dripping, the lace long forgotten and pushed aside, my hand slick with her.
Every slow circle draws another sound from her throat, soft and pleading.
Her body knows exactly what it wants, even if her mind is still lost somewhere in dreams. Her hips lift and roll, seeking more, offering herself so beautifully it makes my chest ache with dark satisfaction.
I watch her face the entire time, mesmerized by the deepening flush that spreads down her neck to her chest, by the way her nipples strain desperately against the tank top.
I want all of her focus between her legs tonight.
I want her to wake tomorrow aching and confused and soaked, wondering why her body feels so used, why she came so hard in her sleep.
She’s close now. I can feel it in the way her thighs begin to tremble, in the way her rocking grows urgent and stuttering against my palm.
I press harder, faster, adding a second finger to rub tight circles over her clit while the other teases shallowly at her entrance.
Her moans grow louder, less guarded. Her back bows off the bed as pleasure coils tighter inside her.
“Please…” she murmurs, her voice thick with sleep and eyes still closed. The single word undoes something primal inside me.
I give her exactly what she is begging for in her dreams, that steady and relentless pressure right where she needs it most. She comes apart beautifully beneath my hand. A sharp gasp tears from her throat, followed by a long, trembling moan as her hips jerk hard against me.
Wetness floods my fingers, her inner walls pulsing and clenching around nothing. She rides the waves of pleasure with helpless little thrusts, thighs quivering, body drawn tight before finally melting back into the mattress.
I stay with her through every aftershock, easing the pressure only when her movements slow and her breathing begins to even out again.
Carefully, I slide her panties back into place, though the lace is soaked through and clinging uselessly to her.
She looks utterly spent. Her cheeks are flushed and her body lax and glowing in the moonlight like a ruined angel.
I stand on shaky legs, my cock painfully hard and the scent of her arousal still thick on my fingers. The temptation to take more is almost overwhelming, but I force myself to step back. Not tonight. Not yet.
At the door I pause, memorizing the sight of her, the invitation of her body, and the proof of how easily she yields to me even in sleep.
Downstairs, I collapse into the chair, my body thrumming with unspent need.
And I know, with cold and absolute certainty, that I will return until there is nothing left of either of us that does not belong to the other.