The heavy mahogany doors of the penthouse suite clicked shut, locking the world and my sanity on the other side. The air in the room was cool, scented with expensive lilies and the faint, metallic tang of the city air coming through the floor-to-ceiling windows. But the coolness did nothing to dampen the fire burning between James and me.
He didn't turn on the lights. The only illumination came from the glowing skyline of the city, casting long, predatory shadows across his face. James threw his tuxedo jacket onto a velvet armchair, his movements fluid and dangerous.
"Take off the dress, Anna," he commanded.
His voice wasn't loud, but it held the weight of a billionaire used to total obedience. I stood frozen in the center of the room, my heart hammering against my ribs so hard it was almost painful.
"James... we shouldn't," I whispered, though every cell in my body was screaming for him to touch me. "You're the one who told me to be a good girl. You're the one who raised me to know better."
"I told you a lot of things when I was pretending to be just a guardian," he rasped, stepping into my personal space. He reached out, his large hand cupping the back of my neck, his thumb tracing the sensitive skin behind my ear. "But that man died the moment I realized I couldn't breathe in a room where you weren't looking at me. That man died when I saw Vane's hands on your skin."
He leaned down, his lips ghosting over mine, barely touching but enough to make me whimper. "Now, I'm just a man who wants what belongs to him. And I've never been good at sharing."
I reached back, my fingers trembling as I found the zipper of my silk gown. With a slow, agonizing hiss, the fabric gave way, pooling at my feet like a shimmering red shadow. I stood before him in nothing but lace and the moonlight, feeling exposed and more alive than I had in all my nineteen years.
James's breath hitched. His gaze traveled over every curve of my body, a slow, possessive heat that felt more intimate than a touch.
********
"You are a masterpiece, Anna," he growled. "And tonight, I'm going to claim every inch of you."
He lifted me effortlessly, my legs wrapping around his waist by instinct as he carried me toward the massive king-sized bed. When he dropped me onto the silk sheets, the "meaningful core struggle" screamed in the back of my mind—this was forbidden, this was wrong, this was the man who had protected me from the world.
But as he stripped away his shirt, revealing the hard, scarred muscle of a man who had fought for everything he owned, the guilt was drowned out by a wave of pure, unadulterated need.
James crawled over me, pinning my wrists above my head with one hand while the other explored the line of my throat. He kissed me then, not with the restrained hunger of the car, but with a raw, desperate passion that demanded everything I had to give.
"Tell me you want this," he whispered against my skin, his teeth grazing the sensitive cord of my neck. "Tell me you're mine, not because I raised you, but because you choose me."
"I choose you," I gasped, arching my back as his hand slid lower, finding the damp heat between my thighs. "I've always chosen you, James."
The night became a blur of friction and fire. Every touch was a lesson in power; every moan was a surrender. He was a billionaire in the boardroom, but in this bed, he was a king, and I was his most prized conquest. The "polish" and "pace" of our movements were a dance of forbidden fruit, each moment pushing us further away from the lives we used to lead.
*********
As the first hints of dawn began to bleed into the sky, I lay tangled in the sheets, watching the man who had been my world sleep beside me. I was no longer just a "Daddy's Girl". I was a woman bound to a billionaire by a secret that could destroy us both.
It wasn't just about what happened tonight it was about what happened when the sun came up and the world expected us to be "family" again.