Chapter 7
Evelyn
His building loomed like temptation carved in glass and stone—too tall, too polished, too private.
A place where men like him brought women they didn’t intend to forget.
The lobby was silent, marble and gold. The elevator was worse—private, gilded, mirrored on all sides. A confession booth disguised as luxury.
He stepped in behind me, and the doors slid shut with a sound that felt like fate. Before I could even turn, he backed me into the mirrored wall—hard, deliberate, his body caging mine without ever feeling threatening. “You wore that dress to kill me.” His voice was low enough to melt through bone.
I opened my mouth to deny it, but he didn’t give me the chance. His hands bracketed my hips, pinning me gently, insistently, my flushed body pressed against the cold glass. The shock made me gasp.
“You’ve been driving me mad,” he growled against my jaw.
“I didn’t mean to.”
“You did.” And then his mouth claimed mine. Hard. Deep. A kiss that wasn’t searching—it was taking. Like he wanted to taste every word I had swallowed all year, every apology I’d never spoken, every fantasy I’d been too afraid to indulge.
My hands found his shoulders, clutching. His body pressed fully against mine, heat radiating through his suit, restraint trembling under the surface. Then his hand slid down—fisting the hem of my dress. Dragging it up my thighs with a reverence that felt like sin.
A moan escaped me—helpless, humiliating, honest. The air thickened with something feral. His lips broke from mine just enough to speak, breath ragged. “Do you want me to stop?”
“No,” I whispered into his mouth—liquid courage flooding every fragile boundary I’d ever built.
Consequences could come in the morning. Judgment could wait.
Tonight, I let myself want the man I’d pretended not to see.
The man my best friend teased me about relentlessly, laughing that I froze every time he walked past my desk.
She called it the Alexander Effect, the way the internet devoured his photos, analyzing every tailored suit, every boardroom stare. And now he was here, pressed against me in an elevator, his breath shaking, his touch claiming, his control unraveling between heartbeats.
His hands roamed slowly, exploring, learning the shape of me like he’d memorized it already. Every brush of his fingers dissolved another part of my restraint until there was nothing left but want.
The elevator climbed, but neither of us cared. He didn’t stop touching me. Didn’t stop kissing me. Didn’t stop pushing me closer to the edge of something I’d never felt before. And I didn’t stop giving in. Not once.
The elevator dinged softly at the top floor, but he didn’t release me. He bent, lifted me into his arms with startling ease, and carried me out—as if the decision had already been made, as if my body belonged in his arms, as if the night had been waiting for us to finally surrender.
The doors shut behind us, sealing the world away. And I didn’t look back.