Chapter 32: Everything I’ve Ever Wanted. Pt 1.
John
After I hang up, silence swallows the room. I look back at the bed—at Selene, warm and flushed, hair fanned messily across her pillows—and I already know I'm not going anywhere just yet.
I hadn't planned on taking her again.
I definitely shouldn’t have stayed long enough to fall asleep beside her like a man with no responsibilities, no meetings, no crisis waiting for him across an ocean.
But the second I pushed into her again—fast and deep, my body reacting before my brain caught up—I nearly came immediately. Her heat, her tightness, the little gasp she made? I lost every ounce of control I thought I had.
Leaving after that felt like peeling off my own skin.
Necessary… but wrong.
It has felt wrong since the moment I first met her.
Denver — Where Everything Shifted.
She walked into that Denver boardroom at Reed Enterprises and the world stopped like it owed her something.
Not because she tried to get attention, or because she flicked her hair or flirted or used any feminine tricks women sometimes use around men like me.
No.
Selene didn’t need tricks.
She commanded the damn room without even trying .
I remember it vividly: Jonathan,Adrian and myself mid-conversation—and then she walked in. Confident, unapologetic, sharp-eyed. The kind of confidence that came from knowing she could run circles around half the men in the building. I did notice her eyes widen slightly when she looked at me, but it was so subtle that most would have missed it.
I leaned forward without meaning to.
Not to check her out—though Christ, that part was unavoidable.
But to watch how effortlessly she took control.
Her poise, her knack for numbers.
Her refusal to let anyone—including me—rattle her.
Any other woman, I’d have charmed effortlessly. It’s muscle memory by now. A raised brow, a compliment, a bit of heat behind my words and they all folded like fresh linen.
But she?
She brushed me off with the efficiency of swatting dust off a table.
And I felt something I hadn’t felt in years: Deep seeded interest.
She didn’t play into my arrogance or bend. She didn’t soften. She looked at me, appraised me, and moved on effortlessly.
It was intoxicating as her perfume.
Her assertiveness touched something buried in me—the part most people never saw. The part that wants to yield, to give up control, to kneel before the right woman… and watch her burn me alive with one whispered command.
The right woman would could command and allow me to command .
Dangerous?
Absolutely.
But very few women have ever triggered that side of me. And when they did, it was fleeting moment. A brief night of curiosity.
Selene… was a possibility of everything I'd ever wanted .
Getting Her to New York.
I shouldn’t admit this, but oh well—honesty never killed a man.
(Actually, it has, but whatever.)
I engineered that trip.
Jonathan was meant to meet me in Denver for lunch .
I called Jonathan Reed and demanded Selene attend, and I even got her to come back that same evening. .
She thought it was logistics. Practicality. Efficiency.
It was me moving chess pieces.
By the end of that day the decision had already settled into my bones:
I wanted her in New York—with me.
So I created a reason.
A fabricated work emergency.
A subtle suggestion.
A chance for her to “tour” my offices and “work onsite.”
We could have done everything online.
Of course we could.
But I needed her in close proximity.
I needed time and I needed her away from Denver’s noise so I could make my move without the younger Reed brother hovering like a starved hawk.
AKA Adrian.
I saw the way he looked at her.
I saw the crack in her armor when he spoke her name.
Which is why I had no shame stacking the deck.
A man like me doesn’t wait his turn.
I take it.
The Secret No One Sees.
People assume I’m always in control and enjoy it.
Ruthless and Commanding.
Sharp, unyielding and decisive.
And they’re right.
In the boardroom and negotiations ? I don’t bend, I devour.
In business? I lead with an iron fist and a sharp tongue.
That’s how I multiplied the fortune I inherited—turning a comfortable trust fund into an empire.
Not necessarily ethically or politely.
Money grows fastest when you’re willing to get your hands dirty.
And mine have never been clean.
But privately?
Behind closed doors?
There’s another side to me.
A side almost no one gets to see:
The part that craves to surrender.
To let someone else dictate the pace.
To feel nails on my skin, rope around my wrists.
To give up control I’m forced to hold every waking second of my life.
A few people—men and women—have drawn that out of me before.
Never fully.
Never completely.
Just flashes in the dark.
Moments of letting go.
Funny thing is, people assume submission is weakness.
But it takes strength to trust someone with your undoing.
Selene… she radiates that rare energy.
That confidence.
That dominance simmering just below her sass and her sharp tongue.
She could take me apart.
Piece by piece.
Word by word.
And I would let her.
Happily.
That’s the part that scares me.
London Calls, Control Slips.
The elevator doors shut, and I feel myself switch off.
Not into rest.
Into restraint.
Into the cold, controlled version of me that handles crises and destroys obstacles and opponents.
By the time I reach the airport, the mask is fully on.
But the second the jet door closes behind me, the ache returns.
Selene lying in the bed beneath me... my cock buried deep in her wet tight cunt.
Her nails dragging down my back and digging into the flesh on my ass, urging me on and deeper into her.
The little moan—half plea, half command—that forced my hips to drive harder.
That sound echoes in my skull the entire flight and I can still taste her on my tongue and smell her intoxicating smell on me.
I land in London exhausted, unfocused, irritated by my own distraction.
The crisis at the plant is serious—sabotage, incompetence, or both—but even walking the production line, giving orders, fixing problems, none of it fills that ache.
Because all I can think of…
is her.
Her gasp when I clasped the bracelet on her wrist.
Her wide, uncertain eyes when I told her, “Wait for me.”
The hesitation that followed.
She doesn’t owe me loyalty.
But I want it anyway.
God help me, I want her to wait.