Page 36 of Vance

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” Kaden gloats.

I turn to him, my gaze sharp. “What are you talking about?”

“This,” he says, gesturing toward the site of our construction project. “This is what you’re good at, Vance. Not the contracts or doing the things to please your wife. This.”

A sharp pulse of irritation runs through me, not because he’s wrong, but because he’s alarmingly close to something I’ve been ignoring since long before I took her as my bride. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t I?” he challenges, his eyes boring into mine. “I see the look in your eyes when you talk about her. The way you try to justify your actions. You’re not just playing a house, Vance. You’re forgetting who you are.”

“I know exactly who I am,” I snarl. “I am the man who is going to grow our empire. And I will do whatever it takes to make that happen. Whatever. It. Takes.”

Kaden holds my gaze for a long moment, his expression unreadable, before giving a slow, deliberate nod. “Good.”

We drive in silence for a while, the city lights blurring into a smear of color and light. The adrenaline of the night is fading, replaced by a familiar, cold resolve. I am Vance Ashford—the architect of my own destiny, and I will not be deterred.

I pull my phone from my pocket as Xander drives back to our side of the city and swipe it open to find an unread text. Two words glow up at me from the screen. Simple words that shouldn’t cause this slight pang of guilt behind my sternum.

SOPHIA

Be careful.

I read it three times before checking the timestamp. It came barely a minute after my own, left unread when my brothers arrived. For the first time since I’ve known her, she responded not with hatred or her usual sharp tongue, but with concern. With something that looks dangerously like care.

My thumb hovers over the keyboard. I should type something back. Something dismissive and cruel to maintain the emotional distance between us. Instead, I find myself staring at those two words until the screen goes dark, wondering when the fuck I started wanting someone to worry about me.

The SUV glides to a stop outside my building. I step out, leaving my brothers to their own vices. When I walk into the lobby, the concierge nods as I silently pass. My private elevator doors close, sealing me into the solitude of the cab, and I lean my head against the cool metal, exhaustion washing over me in waves. The night’s work sits heavy in my gut. This is who I am. This is what I was built for.

The penthouse is dark when I enter, save for the ambient glow of the city filtering through the expansive windows. I loosen my tie, shrugging out of my jacket and letting it fall to the floor unheeded. The bedroom door stands ajar, and I move toward it with the silent tread of a predator returning to its den.

Finding Sophia asleep on my side of the bed—our side, now, I suppose—I whisper, “Are you sleeping, sweetheart?”

She’s wearing one of my dress shirts, the soft blue fabric swallowing her frame, the collar open to reveal the elegant column of her throat. The sheets have tangled around her legs, hiking up to expose her thighs. She rolls around slightly, kicking away the sheet. As my gaze travels over her body, I realize with a dark thrill that she’s wearing nothing underneath.

I should let her rest. I should shower off the night’s violence and crawl in beside her like a civilized man. I should do a lot of things that don’t involve what I’m about to do.

But I’m not civilized. I never have been. And the sight of her—open, vulnerable, and all mine—unleashes something in me that I don’t have the strength to cage tonight.

I undress slowly, methodically, my eyes never leaving her face. My cock is already hard, throbbing against my stomach when I climb onto the bed and settle my weight between her splayed legs. Her breathing remains steady, her lips parted slightly, dark lashes casting shadows on her cheeks. She looks peaceful. Innocent. Nothing like the woman who stood toe-to-toe with me and demanded I find another way.

She doesn’t stir as I slather saliva over my cock and position myself at her entrance. “I know what I am,” I murmur against her throat, my lips tracing the pulse point that flutters beneath her skin. The confession tears itself from somewhere raw and unguarded, a place I don’t often visit. “You deserve better than me, sweetheart. God knows you do. But you’re mine now, and I won’t pretend I’m willing to let you go.”

Even in sleep, her body yields as I press forward, easing into her tight heat with a slow, steady push that tears a silent groan from me. She stirs, her brow furrowing, a soft whimper escaping her lips as her body adjusts to my intrusion. I freeze, one hand resting on her hip, the other bracing myself above her.

“Shhh,” I whisper, my voice rough with restraint and the closest approximation to softness I can manage. “It’s just Daddy.”

Her eyes flutter but don’t open, her body arching instinctively toward mine even as her mind remains caught in dreams. I move in slow, deep strokes that draw shuddering breaths from her sleeping form. She’s welcoming, her cunt quickly becoming slick and gripping me like it was made for this—for me. Tenderly easing my cock in and out of her, I chase the peace I can’t find anywhere else, the absolution she doesn’t know she grants me.

She moans in her sleep, for the possession she’s too stubborn to admit she craves, as her legs mindlessly wrap around mine.

“Wake up,” I command softly, needing her eyes and awareness. She’s a sin too sweet to resist, but I don’t just want her body. I want all of her. With it, I’m willing to take her hatred, desire, or whatever she’ll give me. Her lashes flutter again, and her eyes open, hazy with sleep and confusion. “That’s it. Wake up for Daddy, sweetheart.”

“That’s it. Wake up for Daddy, sweetheart.”

The words whisper beneath my ear, low and rough, drawing me out of the depths of slumber. My lids are heavy, laden with exhaustion and wine. For a moment, I think I’m dreaming—another one of the dark, twisted dreams that have plagued me since I signed away my name, became his, and gave him my body and whatever remained of my soul.

But the weight above me is real. The heat pressing into me is real. The stretch and burn of intrusion between my legs is devastatingly, undeniably real.

I open my eyes to find Vance hovering over me, his face stripped of its usual coldness, his dark eyes consuming me with an intensity that makes my breath catch in my throat. He isn’t just on top of me—he’s inside me, buried to the hilt, his hips cradled between my thighs as he rests on his forearms bracketing my head.