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Eilish is power.
Sera is temptation.
And that’s the thing I can’t seem to stop thinking about.
Temptation is supposed to be temporary. A body to use. A mindless choice made in the dark when a man has control to step away after.
Whereas power lasts.
It can be measured. Negotiated. Put in contracts, trusts, names, land, wedding rings. Power builds if a man knows where to find it.
Wanting a woman until she changes the importance of every other decision is not how I work.
Sera lies on my bed, marked and breathless, her gaze trailing over my chest, and I know I should pull away. Get off her. Put distance between us before I make the mistake of letting this moment take over.
Instead, I grab the towel and start cleaning my cum off her skin.
She watches me the whole time, quiet in a way that feels more dangerous than when she’s arguing.
Once I’m done, my hand settles on her thigh, thumb pressing into the soft skin bruised from my grip. I lower my mouth there, not quite a kiss and not quite a bite, just enough pressure to make her moan softly.
Her fingers skate over my shoulders, light enough to be accidental and intimate enough to be anything but.
I roll onto my side, reach for the blanket folded at the bottom of the bed, and drag it over us.
Sera sighs when my arm slides around her waist. Contentment settles in my bones.
I wait for her to argue about it, but she lies next to me, warm and tired, and her breathing slows.
Mine follows.
That’s when I know I’ve made the wrong decision.
Not by fucking her.
By wanting her to stay after.
Chapter 26
Sera
I wake up alone in his bed.
My body aches in places that remember him before my head fully catches up with my betrayal.
Christ, he fucked me in his fancy drawing room before feeding his fox. I smile at the memory until the papers on his desk remind me of who he really is.
A drawer slides shut beyond the open door to his walk-in closet. Then comes the faint whisper of a sliding hanger and the rustle of fabric.
After a beat, Fionn appears. And for one deeply irritating moment, my thoughts go blank.
This man looks lethal in a suit.
He’s not just wearing it either: he’s built into the damn thing. Dark fabric stitched neatly to his shoulders, black shirt open at the throat, gold cufflinks fastened, damp hair pushed back from his face.
The scratches I left on him are hidden now. The bite marks, the sweat, the man who slept behind me with his arm locked around my waist, all folded away under Dublin’s finest tailoring.
His eyes find mine. “Morning.”
