Chapter 10 — The Door I Dont Lock #2
Elena didn't just lie there. Her hands went to my pants, struggling with my belt buckle, pulling the zipper down with a need that mirrored my own.
When we finally shed the barriers of fabric, when skin met skin with nothing between us, the sound that escaped her throat was a sob of pure relief.
There were no preliminaries. There was no gentleness. The situation didn't allow for it. The violence from the file room still hung in the air, demanding an equivalent physical release.
I entered her all at once.
Deep. Hard. Complete.
Elena screamed, her nails scratching my shoulders, her legs wrapping around my waist, locking me to her as if I were the anchor keeping her from being swept away by the storm.
The sensation was overwhelming. Her heat enveloped me, tight, wet, perfect. It was like coming home after a war, only to discover the house was on fire and the only way to survive was to burn together.
“Look at me,” I ordered, holding her face with both hands, forcing her to maintain eye contact while I moved inside her. “Don't close your eyes. I want you to see who's here. I want you to see who owns you.”
“It's you,” she gasped, her face flushed, her eyes shining with unshed tears. “It was always you.”
With each thrust, I felt the tension leaving my muscles and entering hers. It was an energy transfer, raw and primitive. I was pouring my rage, my fear, my obsession into her, and she was accepting it all, absorbing it, transforming it into pleasure.
The office, with its glass walls and view of the city I controlled, disappeared. The world shrank until it became only this: the sound of her breathing, the smell of sex and blood, the friction of skin, the frantic beating of our hearts pressed against each other.
I leaned over her, kissing her again, swallowing her moans. I tasted my own blood in her mouth. We were consuming each other.
“Gabriel…” she called, her voice breaking, her body beginning to clench around me.
“Let go,” I whispered against her ear, increasing the rhythm, losing the rest of my humanity. “Let go, Elena. I've got you.”
She came undone. I felt her contractions squeezing me, a wave of spasms that triggered my own release.
I buried my face in her neck, biting her shoulder to muffle my own cry, and let myself go.
The orgasm was a white explosion of pain and pleasure, a total annihilation of the ego.
For a few seconds, I wasn't the lawyer, I wasn't the corrupt judge's son, I wasn't the monster.
I was just a man. And she was the only woman who existed.
We stayed like that for a long time. Me, leaning over her, panting, the sweat cooling on my back. Her, with her head resting on my shoulder, her hands still clutching my shirt, her heart beating against my chest like a frightened bird.
Silence returned to the office. But it wasn't the same silence as before. It was heavy. Dense. Loaded with consequences.
Slowly, reality began to seep through the cracks of my foggy mind.
The sound of the air conditioning. The hum of the computer. The smell of sex saturating the workspace.
I pulled away from her, withdrawing from her body with a physical reluctance that hurt.
Elena let out a trembling sigh and pulled her legs up, covering herself instinctively, trying to recover some dignity. She looked at me. Her face was swollen, her lips red, her hair a glorious mess.
But in her eyes… in her eyes I saw the reflection of what we had just done.
I had crossed the line I swore to protect. I had mixed work with desire in the most volatile way possible.
I adjusted my clothes with mechanical movements, closing the zipper, buttoning my shirt. My hands, now clean of blood but dirty in another way, trembled.
I walked to the window and looked outside. The rain continued falling over Ashford, washing the streets, but not washing away what had happened in this room.
Guilt hit me with the force of a freight train.
I had just turned my only witness, my only clean asset, into a lover. I had just given Richard Hale—and anyone who discovered this—the perfect weapon to destroy us.
If this came to light, her credibility as an impartial translator would disappear. The case against Vanguard would collapse. Thomas would go to prison. And I would be disbarred for improper conduct.
But worse than the legal consequences… was the emotional consequence.
I looked at my reflection in the dark glass.
I had told her I didn't love her. That I owed her nothing.
But I had just claimed her with a possessiveness that left no room for doubt.
I turned to her.
Elena was still sitting on the desk, watching me with a cautious expression. She was expecting something. Words of comfort? A promise?
“Get dressed,” I said. My voice came out cold, cutting, harsher than I intended. It was a defense mechanism. I needed to get my walls back up, and fast. “Someone could knock any second.”
Hurt flashed in her eyes, quick and devastating. She slid off the desk, her legs visibly trembling, and started searching for her blouse on the floor.
“Gabriel…” she began.
“Don’t,” I cut her off, raising my hand. “Don’t say anything. Not now.”
I walked to my chair and sat down, looking at the folders scattered on the floor. The chaos I’d created.
“This was… a miscalculation,” I murmured, to myself, but loud enough for her to hear.
Elena stopped, holding the blouse against her chest.
“A miscalculation?” she repeated, her voice laced with disbelief. “That’s what you call it?”
“It’s what it was.” I forced myself to look her in the eyes. “I let adrenaline dictate my actions. I compromised the operation. I put you at greater risk than you already were.”
“You didn’t seem to think it was a mistake five minutes ago,” she retorted, pulling on her blouse with abrupt, angry movements. “You seemed pretty sure of what you were doing.”
“Five minutes ago I wasn’t thinking. Now I am.”
She finished dressing and walked to the desk, bracing her hands on it as she leaned forward to face me. The mark on her neck looked darker now, a living accusation.
“You can try to rationalize all you want, Gabriel. You can try to retreat behind your cold, calculating lawyer armor. But it doesn’t work anymore.
” She pointed to the floor, where we’d both been.
“You crossed the line. You knocked down the door. And the door you don’t lock… is the door chaos walks through.”
“Leave,” I ordered, closing my eyes. I couldn’t look at her. Not when every cell in my body wanted to pull her back into my lap.
“I’ll leave.” She grabbed her purse. “But know this: you’re not afraid because you compromised the operation. You’re afraid because you liked it. And because now, you have something to lose.”
The door opened and closed.
I sat alone in the silent office, her scent still clinging to my skin and seared into my soul.
I looked at my right hand. The cut on my knuckles had started bleeding again, a thin line of bright red.
Elena was right.
I had something to lose now.
And the terror that came with that realization was worse than any threat Richard Hale could make. Because Richard I could destroy. But this… this feeling growing in my chest like a poisonous weed… this had the potential to destroy me from the inside out.
The door I hadn’t locked had swung open. And the monster wasn’t on the outside.
The monster was me. And I had just devoured her.