Chapter4
Chloe's POV
The Vance Hotel was the most luxurious in the city — its marble and gold façade. The manager appeared at the entrance before we reached it, silent and efficient, no questions asked.
The private elevator opened without being called.
In the mirrored walls of the elevator, we stood in a silence so charged it felt like a living current. I could feel his gaze moving over me — hungry, as though he were already stripping away every layer I wore. His eyes lingered on the line of my throat. When our gazes met in the reflection, something electric snapped between us. I felt like prey being studied by a predator, and the realization sent a shiver down my spine that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with the heat already gathering low in my belly.
His jaw was tight. The cedar scent had shifted — something beneath the clean surface of it that made the fine hairs along my arms rise.
His wolf, something in me registered, quiet and certain. It's close to the surface tonight.
I had no awakened wolf of my own — that part of me had been sleeping so long I'd stopped believing it existed. But his scent reached something anyway, some nameless depth that stirred without my permission. Could it be possible, I thought, distantly, that something in me already knows him? I pushed the thought down before it could take shape.
"You're trembling," he said. His voice was low, unhurried, filling the small space without effort. "Second thoughts?"
I shook my head, though my voice came out thinner than I wanted. "No."
The elevator opened.
He slid a matte black card to access the penthouse suite, and the suite swallowed the city whole. Floor-to-ceiling windows framed the glittering skyline on three sides. I walked toward the glass because it was somewhere to look that wasn't at him.
"From here," I said, my voice thinner than I intended, "it looks like the whole city belongs to you."
Behind me came the soft rustle of his jacket being removed, followed by the quiet click of cufflinks against marble. In the window's reflection I watched the breadth of his shoulders, the way the white shirt pulled across muscle with each deliberate movement.
"You can still change your mind," he said. The unexpected gentleness in his voice nearly undid me.
I turned to face him. Moonlight carved clean angles across his face where he stood in the center of the room, the top buttons of his shirt undone to reveal a strip of warm bronze skin. The tension in him still hadn't eased — jaw tight, gold threading deeper into the gray-blue of his eyes, whatever was running close to the surface working very hard to stay contained. "No," I said. "I don't want to change my mind."
He crossed the room slowly, each step making my pulse climb higher. When he stopped in front of me, the cedar scent wrapped around my senses completely. His fingers brushed a strand of hair from my face, the casual touch burning like flame.
"Why me." Flat. Direct.
I looked up at him and felt something sting behind my eyes — not tears exactly, more like the pressure of everything I'd been holding together all night finally finding the crack it had been looking for. "Because you're not Arthur Windsor," I said. The name came out steadier than I expected. "Because tonight I needed to make one choice that was entirely mine."
Something shifted in his expression. "Windsor. Delta blood."
"Forget I said anything." I held his gaze. "Tonight, let the past stay buried."
He studied me for a long moment, gold threading deeper into his irises. "He didn't mark you."
Something cold moved through my chest. I reached up and yanked my collar aside, baring the unmarked curve where neck met shoulder. "See? No mark. He decided I wasn't worth it."
The cedar scent spiked — sharp and sudden. His jaw tightened, and something moved through those deep-water eyes that I couldn't name — Something that looked almost like anger on my behalf.
"He was wrong." Flat. Certain. The tone of someone stating fact, not offering comfort.
Don't, I thought. Don't say things like that when I have no defenses left.
"And now you want to use me to forget him."
"No," I said, stepping closer until I could feel the warmth radiating off his chest. "I want to enjoy tonight. Just tonight." I held his gaze. "Can you give me that?"
He looked at me for one more moment — reading me, finding whatever he was looking for. Then he backed me against the nearest wall with controlled force, his body pressing close, the heat between us immediate and overwhelming. He kissed me — rough, hot, starving — his tongue demanding entrance, one hand tilting my head back so he could take the kiss deeper until I moaned against his mouth. Electricity raced through me, pooling low in my belly. I clutched his shoulders, nails digging into expensive fabric.
When we broke apart, both of us were breathing hard. His eyes had gone fully wolf-gold, bright with raw hunger.
We stumbled toward the bedroom, shedding clothes along the way. When I was finally bare, his gaze traveled over me slowly — darkening, memorizing — and I felt both vulnerable and powerful at once.
He pressed against my entrance and pushed in slowly, stretching me with a burn that made me gasp and clutch at his shoulders. Inch by inch he filled me, the heavy drag forcing my body to yield. When he was fully seated inside, he paused, breathing hard, giving me time to adjust. Then he began to move — long, controlled thrusts that dragged against every sensitive place inside me.
I wrapped my legs higher around his back. He growled low in his throat and shifted, rolling us so I straddled him. I braced my hands on his chest and rode him, rolling my hips in slow circles at first, then faster, taking him deeper with every downward motion. His hands gripped my hips, thumbs pressing hard enough to leave marks, guiding me without taking over.
Pleasure coiled tighter until it broke. He did not let me rest. He rolled us again, pinning me beneath him, driving deeper, and I felt the cedar scent spike and recede with his breathing — the wolf in him running close to the surface, pulling back, running close again.
His control finally gave. He thrust harder, faster, and the heat of it triggered a tremor that rippled through my entire body.
He didn't mark me. His mouth reached the curve of my neck and shoulder — and I felt the moment he could have, felt the wolf right there at the edge — but he pulled back with a deliberateness that cost him something visible. The cedar sharpened, then slowly eased. I felt the cost of it in the tension that ran through him afterward, and I didn't ask why.
Morning light filtered through the curtains, warming my bare skin.
The ache registered before anything else. Every muscle, every joint — a full-body accounting of a night I'd entered with both eyes open. I lay still and took stock.
He was on his back beside me, one arm loose at his side. In sleep the controlled danger of him had finally stood down — jaw released, shoulders no longer carrying that coiled tension, the wolf that had been so close to the surface all night gone quiet at last. The cedar was warm and unhurried, nothing like the sharp-edged intensity I remembered from the dark.
I studied him carefully. Even in his sleep, he was frowning. Who was he, really?
