E L A R A

The clinic is quiet, it’s the kind that sets my nerves on edge, too clean, too still, like a held breath before the crash. I’m finishing intake notes for a guest with sunstroke when the front door bangs open so hard it slaps the wall. I jump.

Adrian.

His eyes find mine like a missile lock, hair mussed, shirt half-tucked like he left in the middle of something, or someone. My stomach knots before I even know why.

“You saw it,” he says, voice raw, accusing and scared.

I set my pen down slowly. “Saw what?”

The way his shoulders drop? That’s not a relief, it’s worse and regret for arriving too late.

A D R I A N

 
Fuck.

I should’ve kept my distance, let PR spin it, waited it out and done what I always do: stay in control. But I saw her face in my head, the second Marina showed me that tablet, Elara with her walls back up, eyes shuttered, already halfway gone.

“There’s a headline,” I force out. “They ran a photo of Marlowe leaving my suite. Timestamped this morning.” Elara stares at me like she’s waiting for the rest.

“It looks bad,” I add. Still nothing, just that slow, steady blink she does when she’s not sure if she’s about to laugh or throw something.

 
E L A R A

 
He’s lying, not about the photo, maybe, but about what matters. He’s not here because the press got something wrong. He’s here because they got it right.

“Did she come in for strategy?” I ask quietly. “Or did you let her in because it was easy?”

His jaw flexes. “It wasn’t what it looked like.”

I nod. “Because it never is.”

“Elara, don’t do this,” he says, stepping closer. “It didn’t mean anything.”

“Then why does it hurt?” My voice cracks, low and sharp. “Why does it feel like I got replaced before I even mattered?”

His eyes flare. “You think this is about that? About sex?”

“I think it’s about trust!” I snap. “I opened up to you, I let you in, and the second things got complicated, you defaulted to someone who doesn’t make you feel anything.”

“You think I feel nothing?!” His voice roars in the clinic, bouncing off chrome and tile. “Do you have any idea what it’s like trying not to feel everything?” I flinch, not from the volume, but from the honesty.

“I came here to warn you,” he grits out. “To explain, because I knew what that photo would do to you.”

“Do to me?” My laugh is brittle. “You mean show me what I should’ve already known?”

“You think I meant to hurt you?”

“No,” I say, voice shaking. “But you did.”

He moves fast, one step, two, and suddenly he’s right in front of me. I’m backed against the counter and he’s bracing one hand beside my head, chest heaving.

“Say it,” he growls. “Say you don’t want this.”

I should. God, I should. But the heat of him, the fury, the hurt leaking out around the edges, I feel it in my bones.

“I hate you,” I whisper.

He leans in, breath hot against my cheek. “Then make me regret it.”

My hands are on his collar before I even think, I shove him back, hard, and he lets me, stumbles, then grabs my wrist and spins us, slamming me into the wall with a gasp. Our mouths crash, no finesse, just teeth and tongue and breath and all the things we never said.

His hands rip my scrub top up and over, mine claw at his belt. It’s not gentle, it’s not sweet, it’s everything we’ve held back. He pulls my pants down, panties too, and lifts me like I weigh nothing. My legs wrap around him on instinct.

“Still want me to stop?” he growls into my neck. I bite his shoulder.

“Didn’t think so.”

He thrusts into me in one savage push, and I cry out, more shock than pain, and he freezes.
“Too much?”

I shake my head, clutching his shoulders. “Not enough.”

Then he’s moving, hard and fast, fucking me against the wall like he can erase everything we said, everything we didn’t. My nails dig into his back, his teeth scrape my collarbone. The air is thick with heat and fury, breath and skin and needs colliding in a blur of motion.

“You think I don’t feel?” he pants. “I feel everything, Elara. Every time you look at me like I’m more than a headline, it fucking kills me.” I gasp when he hits deep, again, and again, driving the breath from my lungs.

“Then why do you keep proving me wrong?” He growls, thrusts harder, and I break. It slams through me like a riptide, pleasure and pain and rage all wrapped up in heat. I moan his name, nails dragging down his spine as I come, body clenching around him. He holds me through it, growling curses into my skin, hips still driving into me, chasing his own release.

“You feel that?” he grits, voice wrecked. “That’s how you ruin me.”

He pounds deeper, harder, like he wants to disappear inside me, until I sob his name and he grinds out a curse, hips slamming home as he spills inside me with a groan that sounds like surrender. But he doesn’t stop, his hand slides to my throat, thumb brushing my pulse like a question he already knows the answer to.

He carries me, still joined, to the exam table and lays me down like I’m breakable,
then fucks me like I’m not. He pulls out just long enough to flip me onto my stomach. I brace on my elbows, gasping as he enters me from behind, deeper this time, angling just right. The metal beneath me is cold against my skin, a stark contrast to the heat between us.

“You wanted the truth?” he growls, slamming into me. “This is truth.”

I choke on a moan, fingers curling around the edge of the table, he grabs my hips, dragging me back into each thrust like he can anchor himself inside me, like he’s trying to rewrite both of us with the way our bodies collide.

“This… is how I forget everyone else,” he grits. “Only you. Only you make me feel like this.”

His voice is raw, fraying at the edges, every word sinks deep, every thrust cracks something wider open, shaking loose pieces I didn’t know were fragile. When I come again, it’s blinding, I sob his name into my forearm, shaking, pulsing around him, slick and wrecked. He curses, slams one last time, and I feel him spill inside me again, breath shuddering against my spine. For a moment, the world is nothing but breath and sweat and skin.

He doesn’t let me go, we stay curled together on the exam table, bodies tangled, skin damp with sweat and salt. His fingers trace my ribs like he’s counting them.

“Did I hurt you?” he murmurs, voice raw.

“No,” I whisper, even though my thighs tremble and my heart hurts.

He brushes a kiss behind my ear, then another. Then one at the base of my neck, slow and soft.

“I shouldn’t have let her in,” he says. “Not for sex, not even for strategy, I let her in because I was scared to feel like this.” My chest cracks, my fingers curl around his wrist.

“I know.”

He drapes the paper over us, pointless, but somehow gentle. His hand glides down my thigh, slow and soothing, until the shaking stops.

We sit in silence for what feels like forever. When he finally moves, it’s slow and gentle, he helps me sit up, hands me my shirt, and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear like it matters. I look at him, and something in me breaks, not because of what just happened, not even because of what we said, but because for one breathless moment, it felt real. It felt like love, and if it was, then it’s something I can lose, or maybe I already have.

I press a hand to my chest like I can hold it in, like I can stop the panic. Adrian kisses my temple.

“You okay?”

I lied. “Yeah.”

But inside, I’m shaking, because if that wasn’t just angry sex, then I don’t know how to survive what it was.