Behind the Bathroom Door (Harper's POV)

In that half-conscious haze, something warm and wet pressed against my chest — shame and a strange, electric thrill surged through me at once, crackling from my skin all the way to the curled tips of my toes.

A muffled sound escaped my throat before I could stop it. My toes curled against the sheets on their own.

Everywhere he touched felt like it was on fire.

His warm lips moved slowly across my skin. Through the lace of my nightgown I could feel the bridge of his nose grazing the soft flesh of my breast, his tongue circling and flicking relentlessly at my nipple until my hips arched upward without permission — as though my own body were offering itself to him.

The war between what my body wanted and what my mind refused made me want to whimper. Instead, I bit down hard on my lip.

"Don't hold back," he murmured against my chest, his breath warm and unbearably close. "Moan for me. Make it worth my while."

The strap of my nightgown was yanked off my shoulder. My breast sprang free, and I reached up instinctively to cover myself — only to have my wrist caught and pinned against the headboard.

"Don't move."

His voice was quiet, almost soft. But there was no give in it at all.

His tongue traced a slow circle around my nipple before his lips closed over it — sucking, then catching it lightly between his teeth. Pleasure detonated across my chest. A sharp, breathless gasp tore free before I could swallow it. My fingers twisted hard into the sheets beneath me.

"That kind of reaction," he said, "tells me you're enjoying this."

Before the words had fully landed, his other hand covered my left breast — his palm kneading the full curve while his thumb rolled over the stiffened peak. The pressure shifted without warning, light then heavy then light again, and every time it deepened my body shuddered against my will.

Why is this happening to me.

I hated myself for responding this way. I hated that even as he toyed with me, something in me was coming apart with pleasure.

Between my thighs, my underwear was soaked through, the damp fabric clinging to my skin. I pressed my legs together, trying to ease the hollow, aching tension building there — and only succeeded in grinding the wet fabric against the most sensitive part of me, forcing a strangled whimper out of somewhere deep in my chest.

His lips left my breast. A low, amused sound rose from his throat.

"Touching yourself now?"

My face burned.

He didn't wait for an answer. His hand slid to my hip, and with one smooth motion he stripped away the last thing covering me — fingers hooking the waistband of my underwear, drawing the fabric down over my hips, past my thighs, off my ankles entirely.

I was completely naked. Only my eyes were still covered.

"I thought the Grayson family had such strict standards," he said, his tone carrying that same unhurried mockery. "And yet here you are — soaking wet, and I've barely touched you."

In the darkness behind the blindfold, my mind was perfectly, humiliatingly awake. Every sensation was amplified. I could hear my own heartbeat. I could hear his breathing. I could hear the cicadas beyond the window, feel the faint warmth of the air drifting across my bare skin, feel the weight of his gaze moving over me with slow, deliberate pleasure.

Pinned beneath him, unable to move — I must have looked exactly like what I was.

He pushed my knees apart and spread my legs open.

Then he lowered himself, and his lips traveled downward — over my chest, my navel, the hem of nothing — following the centerline of my body all the way down.

Every muscle in me locked. My fingers clawed at the sheets. I had no idea what he was about to do.

Not until his breath reached the soft, innermost curve of my thigh.

"Don't —"

The refusal died in my throat. His tongue had already found me.

What came out instead was a string of broken moans I couldn't contain.

He moved slowly — one long, unhurried stroke from bottom to top along my slit, the pressure perfectly calibrated, as precise as someone who knew exactly which strings to pull.

My body lurched off the mattress. My thighs snapped shut around him without thinking, trapping his head between my legs.

A low laugh vibrated against me, and the heat of his exhale hit the most sensitive part of me directly.

"That eager?"

He lifted my legs and settled them over his shoulders, opening me wider.

"Seems like you don't need me to be gentle."

And then something thick and burning pressed hard against my entrance —

I jolted upright in bed, heart slamming against my ribs, my back drenched in cold sweat beneath my nightgown.

That dream again.

One month ago, my parents — desperate to secure an alliance with the Sterling Group, a conglomerate that stretched across Europe and Asia — had drugged me themselves and delivered me to the bed of the family's mysterious heir.

I despised that feeling of being controlled. I despised him — that man and his cruel, amused indifference. But my resistance had only driven my parents into more frantic flattery on his behalf. Since there was no way to make the Grayson family dissolve the engagement, I had to take matters into my own hands.

The only concrete lead I had was the emblem on his chest, glinting in the dark: Kingston Academy for Boys.

The Sterling family had one unwritten but ironclad rule — the heir had to be exceptional. He had to be ranked first in his school.

If I could take that rank from him, the inheritance would pass to the top student from another branch of the family. My so-called fiancé would be finished.

So I cut off my waist-length hair, bound my chest flat, and enrolled as a scholarship student — a financial aid admission, the kind no one looked at twice — and walked myself straight into the heart of Sterling territory.

I pressed both hands over my burning face. The shame from that memory pooled low in my stomach all over again.

Stop thinking about it.

Shower. Then class.

Kingston Academy's Student Villas were two-story structures — bedrooms upstairs, a common living area on the ground floor, one shared bathroom between all residents. The private rooms, naturally, belonged to the two young gentlemen on the upper floor.

I, the scholarship student, had been given a converted storage room downstairs. It didn't even have a lock on the door.

I gathered my clothes and slipped into the bathroom, twisting the lock behind me. I stripped quickly, then began unwinding the long stretch of binding cloth wrapped tight around my chest.

The relief was immediate. I let out a slow breath as the compression released, reached for the showerhead —

"Harper! Open up!"

The door handle rattled violently. I flinched hard enough that the hot water hit me full in the face.

Vaughn. The Sterling family's second son. Head of the school's disciplinary committee.

He had a reputation for a hair-trigger temper and, rumor had it, ties to organized crime that ran considerably deeper than his school title suggested.

"I — I'm in the shower!"

"At this hour?" He kicked the door once, sharp and impatient. "My phone's in there. Pass it out."

I shut off the water in a panic — and immediately registered the problem. I had forgotten to bring a towel. My dirty clothes were soaked through, and putting on my clean ones while still dripping wet would leave visible watermarks straight through the fabric.

"Vaughn, just a moment — I'll pass it under the gap —"

I crouched at the door, bare, and tried to slide his phone through the narrow gap at the bottom. It caught on the frame with a sharp, clean crack.

"That phone cost three hundred thousand," Vaughn said, and the temperature in his voice dropped several degrees. "If there's a scratch on it, selling you wouldn't cover the damage."

I pressed my lips together.

I had come here with nothing. No money, no safety net — I'd left everything behind to get out from under my family's control.

He wasn't wrong.

"You idiot. Ever heard of opening the door a crack?"

Whatever patience he'd had was gone.

I pressed my back flat against the door, drew one slow breath, and eased it open the narrowest possible margin — just enough to extend my arm through with the phone.

"Vaughn, here's your —"

A cold laugh cut me off. My wrist was seized.

"Let's see," Vaughn said, and wrenched the door open in one pull — his gaze dropping immediately, sharp as a hawk's, to where I stood: soaking wet, completely bare, with nowhere left to hide. "What exactly is it you've been locking the door for every single time you shower —"