But it was hollow. The relief lasted maybe a heartbeat, and then the ache came clawing back.
I was still empty. Still wound tight. Still needing him.
I dragged the pillow over my face, trapping the sound as I shoved the vibrator back between my legs. Maybe if I came again, I’d be able to sleep. Maybe I could wear the edge off this feeling—dull the ache he’d left behind.
This time, I let the fantasy take over.
Luka in the chair by the window. Watching. Arms folded, jaw set—disappointed, but hungry. Like I was a problem he intended to solve.
I imagined him crossing the room, tearing the toy from my hand, pinning my wrists to the headboard, and putting his mouth on me until I begged him to stop. I imagined his cock forcing its way inside me while I twisted against the sheets.
I tightened my grip, slick with sweat, and raked the toy harder over my clit—again and again—punishing myself the way he would.
The second orgasm didn’t creep up on me. I stalked it, hunted it down, cranking the vibrator to its highest setting, chasing friction instead of pleasure.
All I could see was him.
His hand at the back of my neck. His voice in my ear, low and merciless.
You couldn’t even last one night.
I bit into the pillow when the release tore through me. It was agony, the kind that left me thrashing against the sheets, every nerve on fire. My hips jerked, my legs locked. Tears leaked sideways into the fabric.
When it was over, the quiet felt enormous.
And the worst part—the part that made my stomach twist—was that it still hadn’t been enough.
I’d come twice.
And all I could think about was Luka.
Fuck, I wanted him.
chapter
five
The lobby was a cold white cube at 7:50 a.m., the sound of my heels too loud against the marble. I’d meant to outmaneuver him, to slide in the gap between too-early and right-on-time. But of course, Luka was already there—perched on the arm of a leather bench like a wolf in a wool coat.
He didn’t look up at first. Just scrolled through his phone, one ankle hooked over the other, as if the world ran on his timing. When he lifted his eyes, the blue carved straight through my composure.
“You’re early,” I said, aiming for chill but hearing the quaver in it.
“So are you.” His mouth tugged sideways—half-smile, half-knife. “You’re learning.”
I set my jaw. “I’m not a child.”
He rose. And towered. This close, the air between us hummed with a charge that made me want to step back—or forward. I couldn’t tell which.
He glanced at me, then at the spinning glass doors behind him. “The car is outside.”
It wasn’t a question. But I smiled anyway, baring teeth. “I’m taking the Tube.”
Something flickered in those cold blue eyes—amusement maybe, or a surgical interest. He stepped in until there was no air left between us. Then, with the bluntness of a man who never second-guessed himself, he reached up and tucked the edge of the scarf tighter at my throat.
His scarf.
“You still don’t have a proper coat for this weather,” he said, his fingers dragging lightly over the wool. “What kind of man would I be if I let you freeze to death on the Northern Line?”