Chapter 20 Olivia
OLIVIA
The yacht’s cabin is warmer than the ocean, but I’m still shivering. My hair is wet and splayed out across the pillow, but it’s Stefan’s touch on my bare hip that’s making me feel like temperature no longer has any meaning.
“You’re cold,” Stefan says, reaching for another blanket from the built-in cabinet.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re shaking.”
“That’s not from the cold.”
He pauses, blanket in hand, and really looks at me. His brown-and-blue eyes search my face. Water still clings to his eyelashes, and a droplet traces the scar along his jaw before disappearing into the dark stubble there.
“Olivia—”
“Please, if you care about me at all, don’t overthink this. Not tonight.”
“I’m not the one overthinking.”
He’s right, of course. My brain is spinning out a thousand different scenarios, calculating risks and consequences. What happens after tonight? What happens when the sun comes up and we have to face all the lies and secrets still festering between us? What happens when—
Stefan’s hand cups my cheek, his thumb brushing away a water droplet I pretend is from the ocean. “Like that. Stop. I can practically hear the gears in your head grinding.”
“Sorry my brain doesn’t come with an off switch.”
“You’re wrong about that. It does, and I know a few ways to flip it.”
He’s about me being wrong, and he’s right about him having his hands on my controls—literally, metaphorically, sexually, emotionally, all the “-allys.” And that’s going to be the death of me.
Because I understand exactly what he’s offering, and damn my soul to hell, I crave it. Crave him. Crave the obliteration of thought, the sweet annihilation of finally surrendering to sensation instead of drowning in the relentless torture of my own mind.
“Then do it,” I whisper. “Make me stop thinking.”
That’s all the invitation a man like him needs. He drops the blanket and hauls me against him, skin to skin, and the shock of warmth makes me gasp.
His mouth finds mine, and this kiss is nothing like the playful ones during our truth-or-dare game. This is fucking savage.
His hands tangle in my wet hair, angling my head to deepen the kiss. I taste champagne and ocean salt, feel the lightning-bolt tremor in his muscles as he struggles to hold himself back. Always holding back, even now.
“Stefan,” I breathe against his mouth, “I’m not made of glass.”
“No,” he agrees, crawling on top of me. “You’re made of something much more dangerous.”
The weight of him, the solid reality of his body covering mine, makes everything else fade away. Down here, there are no basement mysteries, no criminal empires, no stolen clinics. Just this—just us, skin and breath and the desperate need to get closer, closer, always closer.
His mouth travels down my throat, nipping and sucking. “Tell me what you want,” he murmurs against my collarbone.
“You know what I want.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“You. I want you.”
He pulls back to look at me. “You have me.”
We both know it’s not true—not really. I have pieces of him, fragments he’s chosen to share, but never the whole truth. Never all of him.
But for tonight, I’ll take what I can get.
I pull him back down, kissing him with all the frustration and longing I’ve been carrying for weeks.
He responds immediately, his control finally, blessedly cracking.
His hands are everywhere—tracing the curve of my waist, the inside of my thigh, the sensitive spot behind my knee that makes me shiver.
“You’re so beautiful,” he murmurs, like he’s talking to himself. “So fucking beautiful it hurts to look at you sometimes.”
“Stefan—”
“Do you know what you’ve done to me?” he snarls, almost as if he’s angry at me for it. “Do you have any idea what you’ve turned me into?”
“What have I turned you into?”
“Someone who gives a damn.” He kisses me again, harder this time. “I can’t sleep without knowing you’re safe. I’m starting to think I lo—”
He cuts himself off, but I hear the unfinished words anyway.
Starting to think I love you.
I freeze beneath him. I should let that little slip go. It won’t do any of us any good to start dragging that truly unhinged shit out into the open. We’re both too broken to make it work, to fix what’s wrong with us. But on the other hand…
“Say it,” I whisper.
“No.” His jaw tightens as he realizes what he did and what I’m asking. “Not like this. Not when you still don’t trust me.”
“I’m naked in your bed on a yacht in the middle of the ocean. How much more trust do you need?”
“All of it.” His thumb traces my bottom lip. “Every last piece of you.”
“Then maybe you should work harder to earn it.”
“Is that a challenge, Dr. Aster?”
“Maybe.”
“Dangerous game.” His hand skims down my throat. “You sure you want to play?”
“I’m sure I want you to stop talking and start—”
He silences me with a kiss that steals every thought from my head. His tongue traces the seam of my lips, demanding entry, and I open for him immediately. The taste of him—dark and intoxicating, champagne and sea salt—floods my senses.
“Tell me,” he murmurs against my mouth. “Tell me exactly how you want me to touch you. I want to know everything. Every secret spot that makes you gasp. Every way you’ve ever imagined my hands on you.”
“We’d be here all night,” I confess breathily.
His fingers trail down my sternum, light as butterfly wings. “Start simple. Here?”
He circles my breast, not quite touching where I need him most. The anticipation is killing me. “Higher,” I breathe.
His thumb brushes over my nipple, and I arch into his touch. “Like this?”
“Harder.”
He pinches gently, rolling the peak between his fingers, and a moan escapes before I can stop it.
“Good girl,” he purrs. “See how easy that was? Now, tell me more.”
“I can’t just—”
“Yes, you can.” His mouth replaces his fingers, and the wet heat of his tongue makes me forget why I was protesting. “You’re a doctor. You know bodies. Tell me about yours.”
I do know bodies—the mechanics, the nerve endings, the physiological responses. But translating that clinical knowledge into words while he’s doing absolutely sinful things with his mouth is something else entirely.
“I like...” I swallow hard as he switches to my other breast. “I like when you use your teeth.”
He immediately complies, grazing the sensitive flesh with just enough pressure to make me gasp. “Where else?”
“My neck. That spot right behind my ear.”
He moves up, finding the spot instantly, and the sensation shoots straight to my core. His stubble scrapes against my skin as he sucks gently, then harder when I thread my fingers through his hair and hold him there.
“What else?” he asks. “Tell me what you think about when you touch yourself.”
“Stefan—”
“Tell me, Olivia.” His hand slides down my stomach, stopping just short of where I’m aching for him. “Do you think about my hands? My mouth?”
“Both,” I admit, shame pinking my cheeks. “I think about that first time in your office. How you put me on your desk and—”
“And what?” His fingers trace maddening circles on my inner thigh. “How I tasted you? How you came apart on my tongue?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want that now?”
“I want everything.”
He groans, pressing his forehead against mine. “Goddammit, Olivia, you can’t say things like that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m trying to go slow. To make this last.”
“I don’t want slow.” I shift my hips, trying to guide his hand where I need it. “I want you to touch me like you did that night. As if you couldn’t help yourself.”
“That’s exactly the problem.” But his fingers finally, blessedly slide through my wetness, finding my clit. “I can never help myself with you.”
The first stroke makes me cry out, my back bowing off the bed. He watches my face intently and adjusts to make my moans grow louder and louder.
“Here?” He circles slowly. “Or here?” A direct stroke that makes me see stars.
“Both. Either. Just don’t stop.”
“Never.” He slides two fingers inside me, curling them just right, and my vision whites out. “God, you’re perfect. So wet for me. So responsive.”
“Only for you,” I gasp, and feel him shudder against me.
“Say that again.”
“Only for you, Stefan. Only ever for you.”
He kisses me hard, swallowing my moans as his fingers work me higher. But just as I’m about to tip over the edge, he stops.
“No!” I practically sob. “Why—”
“Because I want to be inside you when you come.” He positions himself between my thighs, the hard length of him pressing against my entrance.
“Then what are you waiting for?”
“For you to tell me exactly how you want it.”
I meet his eyes, seeing my own desperate need reflected in those impossible blue-brown depths. “I want you deep. I want to feel you everywhere. I want you to make me forget everything but your name.”
“Such a good, good girl.” He pushes inside me slowly, stretching me, filling me completely. “Look at me while I fuck you.”
I force my eyes open, meeting his intense gaze as he starts to move. The connection—physical and emotional—is almost too much to bear.
“God, it’s perfect,” I gasp. “You feel perfect. Like you were made for me.”
“I was.” He hooks my leg over his shoulder, changing the angle, going impossibly deeper. “Every broken piece of me was shaped to fit your broken pieces.”
The poetry of it, the raw honesty, breaks something open in my chest. “Stefan, I—”
“I know,” he says, reading everything I can’t say in my eyes. “Me, too.”
He reaches between us, his thumb finding my clit again, and the dual sensation is overwhelming. My orgasm builds, inevitable and all-consuming.
“That’s it,” he encourages, his rhythm becoming erratic. “Let go for me. Let me see you fall apart.”
And I do. I shatter completely, crying out his name as waves of pleasure crash over me.
Stefan’s hands grip my hips as he rolls us, pulling me on top of him in one fluid motion. The shift in position makes me gasp—he’s somehow even deeper this way, and the sudden control makes me freeze.
“What’s wrong?” He runs his palms up my sides, thumbs brushing the undersides of my breasts. “Shy now?”