Chapter 79 Leo
My eyes snapped open at 3:47 AM.
My cock was rock hard, throbbing with a need that made sleep impossible. I threw an arm over my face and tried to think of anything else. Dead puppies. Tax returns. The breach in the veil. The Scepter sitting in that goddamn vault like a loaded gun pointed at all of existence. Nothing worked.
All I could see was her. Under that table in the conference room, those green eyes looking up at me with that innocent, knowing smile that was anything but innocent. Her mouth so close to my cock, her small hand sliding up my thigh while Dean Horowitz and Mrs. Litt sat on the other side of polished wood, completely oblivious to what was happening beneath their noses.
Stop. Just stop thinking about it.
I kicked off the sheets and sat up, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. My skin was burning despite the cool air coming through the cracked window. Sweat slicked my chest. The room felt like a prison, the walls pressing in on all sides. I dragged a hand through my hair and tried to get my breathing under control, but my body wasn’t listening to reason. It hadn’t been listening to reason since the moment Kristen Lockwood walked into my life and turned everything I thought I knew about control into a sick joke.
I needed a cold shower. I needed to get out of my own goddamn head before I did something we’d both regret. Or something I’d regret, anyway. Kristen didn’t seem to have any regrets about anything she did.
The shower didn’t help. Cold water did nothing but make me angrier, more aware of how pathetic this whole situation was. I was a grown man, a member of the Bloodhounds, someone who’d faced down threats from other realms without flinching. And here I was, undone by a girl half my age who should have been off limits in every possible way.
I was still hard when I stepped out. Still thinking about her small hand wrapping around me. Still remembering the way she’d looked at me when she’d been caught, like she’d won some secret game I didn’t even know we were playing.
This is pathetic. You’re pathetic.
I pulled on sweatpants and a t-shirt, then headed downstairs. Maybe food would quiet the noise in my skull. Maybe I could distract myself with something, anything that wasn’t the memory of Kristen Lockwood on her knees in a conference room, testing every boundary I’d tried to set.
The kitchen was dark when I walked in. I opened the fridge and let the light spill out across the tile floor, cool air washing over my face. I grabbed a bottle of water and some leftover chicken, not even hungry but needing something to do with my hands. Something normal. Something that would ground me back in reality instead of the fever dream my life had become.
Then I heard them. Footsteps. Soft and barefoot on the hardwood floor behind me.
I froze, bottle halfway to my mouth. My entire body went rigid.
No. Not now. Not like this.
I didn’t have to turn around to know who it was. I could feel her presence like a physical thing. The air in the room changed when she was near, like the pressure drop before a storm. My skin prickled with awareness, every nerve ending suddenly alive and focused on the person standing behind me.
“Can’t sleep either?” Her voice was low, teasing, with an edge of something darker underneath.
My jaw tightened. I didn’t turn around. Didn’t trust myself to look at her. Not when I was already wound this tight, already on the edge of doing something that would destroy everything.
“Go back to bed, Kristen.” The words came out harsher than I intended, but maybe that was good. Maybe she’d actually listen for once.
Silence. Then more footsteps, closer this time. Of course she didn’t leave. Why the hell would she? Kristen never backed down from anything, especially not when she knew she had the upper hand.
“What happened today…” My voice came out rougher than I wanted, scraped raw. “That was a mistake.”
I finally turned to face her, and immediately regretted it. She was standing there in a thin tank top and sleep shorts that barely covered anything. The tank top clung to every curve, and those shorts rode high on her thighs, showing off legs that seemed to go on forever. Her dark hair was loose around her shoulders, tumbling past her collarbone in waves I wanted to wrap around my fist. Her eyes were bright in the dim light from the fridge, watching me with that same knowing look that made me want to either shake her or kiss her until neither of us could think straight.
God help me.
“A mistake,” she repeated slowly, like she was tasting the word, testing its weight.
“Yeah.” I forced myself to meet her gaze, to ignore the way my body was responding to her proximity. To ignore everything except the fact that this couldn’t happen. “I crossed a line. It won’t happen again.”
Her lips curved into a smile that made my blood run hotter, made the kitchen feel ten degrees warmer. “You didn’t seem to think it was a mistake when it was happening.”
My hands curled into fists at my sides. “It was. And it’s done.”
She took a step closer, and I should have backed away. Should have put the counter between us. Should have left the goddamn kitchen and locked myself in my room until morning. But I didn’t move. I stood there like an idiot and watched her close the distance between us.
“Doesn’t look like you think so.” Another step. My pulse kicked up, heart hammering against my ribs.
“Kristen, don’t…” The warning died in my throat.
Before I could react, before I could move or breathe or think, her hand slid down between us. It slipped into my sweatpants with a confidence that shouldn’t have surprised me anymore, and wrapped around my aching cock.
Fuck.
My breath hissed out between my teeth. She was touching me. Actually touching me. Her small hand wrapped around my length, warm and sure and deliberate. This wasn’t an accident. This wasn’t a game. This was Kristen making a choice, pushing past every boundary I’d tried to set, daring me to stop her.
She stroked once, slowly, from root to tip, and I nearly came apart right there in the middle of the kitchen.
“Does this feel like regret to you?” Her voice was soft, almost a purr.
“Take your hand off.” My voice came out as a growl, barely human. Every muscle in my body was coiled tight, screaming at me to either step away or pull her closer. There was no middle ground anymore.
She didn’t listen. Of course she didn’t listen. She stroked again, her thumb brushing over the head in a way that made my vision go white at the edges. I was so hard it hurt, every nerve ending on fire, my control hanging by the thinnest thread.
“Kristen. Now.”
She squeezed, and something inside me shattered.
I grabbed both her wrists and yanked them away from my body. Before she could react, before she could say another word or flash another one of those knowing smiles, I spun her around and pinned her hands against the fridge above her head. The slam echoed in the quiet kitchen, metal meeting skin.
The refrigerator was cold against her palms. Her body was warm, so damn warm as I pressed against her from behind. My cock ground against her ass through the thin fabric of our clothes, and she let out a small sound that nearly destroyed me. My chest pressed to her back, my heart pounding against her spine. My mouth found her ear.
“You don’t know what you’re playing with.” The words came out rough, almost savage.
She turned her head just enough to look at me, and that smile was still on her lips. Victorious. Hungry. Completely unafraid.
“I don’t know what regret looks like, Leo. But it’s not this.”
We were locked there, frozen in the half-light spilling from the open fridge. My grip was iron on her wrists, hard enough to leave marks. My body caged hers completely, every inch of her pressed against every inch of me. Her breath was coming fast, chest rising and falling, and I could feel her pulse racing under my fingers.
Take her. Right here. Right now.
The thought blazed through me like wildfire, consuming every rational thought I had left. I could spin her around. Lift her onto the counter. Rip those shorts off and bury myself inside her again. My hips pressed harder against hers, grinding against her, and she made another one of those sounds that shot straight through me.
Just do it. She wants this. You want this. Stop pretending you don’t.
My grip on her wrists tightened, and I was seconds away from giving in. Seconds away from crossing every line I’d sworn to protect, from betraying every promise I’d made to her father. The man who’d been my best friend. The man who’d trusted me to keep her safe.
Then I heard it. A sound from upstairs. The creak of floorboards.
“Everything alright down there?” Patricia’s voice cut through the haze like a bucket of ice water, shocking me back to reality.
My entire body went rigid. I released Kristen’s wrists and stepped back, putting space between us even though every instinct screamed to pull her closer, to finish what we’d started.
Fuck.
Fuck.
FUCK.
My voice came out steady when I called back, controlled, like I wasn’t seconds away from crossing every line I’d sworn to protect. “Yeah. Just grabbing some water.”
Silence stretched out for what felt like an eternity. Then the sound of footsteps retreating down the upstairs hallway.
“Oh. Okay.” The bedroom door closed with a soft click, and the house went quiet again.
I turned back to Kristen. She was still against the fridge, breathing hard. Her wrists were red where I’d held them, and something dark and possessive in me liked seeing my marks on her skin. She was looking at me like she’d won, like she knew exactly how close I’d come to breaking.
Because she had won. And she did know.
“Go to bed.” My voice was steel, the command of a guardian, not a man who’d just been seconds from fucking his best friend’s daughter in a dark kitchen. “You have class tomorrow.”
She didn’t move for a long moment. Just stared at me with those eyes that saw too much, that stripped away every defense I tried to build.
Then she pushed off the fridge and walked past me. Her shoulder brushed my chest, a whisper of contact that sent another jolt through my system, and I had to clench my fists to keep from reaching for her.
“Goodnight, Leo.” Her voice was soft, satisfied.
She disappeared up the stairs without looking back, and I was left standing in the dark kitchen. Water bottle forgotten on the counter. Cock still hard and aching. Hands shaking with the effort of not going after her, of not following her up those stairs and finishing what we’d started.
I braced against the counter and dropped my head, trying to get my breathing under control.
This can’t happen. This can’t keep happening.
But even as I thought it, even as I tried to convince myself I could maintain control, I knew I was lying to myself. She was under my skin now, in my blood, and there was no going back from that. Every time I pushed her away, she pushed back harder. Every boundary I set, she crossed without hesitation.
And the worst part? Part of me didn’t want her to stop.