Chapter 285
ELENA
The ride back to the hotel was quiet.
Not the comfortable kind of quiet. The kind that buzzed with tension, heat pooling just under the surface of my skin. I kept my hands folded in my lap like a proper diplomat like a woman who hadn’t just spent the last hour wrapped around her lover in a steaming hot spring, pressed skin to skin beneath a moonlit sky.
I stared out the window, pretending the frost patterns were more interesting than the way Derek’s thigh brushed mine every time the SUV hit a bump. It wasn’t even intentional, probably. But didn’t matter.
Every touch was electric. Every inhale I took carried the scent of him–wet pine, heat, the barest edge of want. Goddess, I could still taste him on my tongue.
Across from us, Joe sat with the eternally patient expression of a man who was pretending not to notice anything. There were two guards in the front seat, murmuring to each other in low voices.
I pressed ny knees together. My body was still humming.
I wanted to jump Derek right here in this car. Climb into his lap. Sink down on him and let the entire damn summit hear me moan, I imagined it in vivid, impossible detail his hands gripping my hips, his mouth hot against my throat, the way his eyes would darken as I rocked against him in the back seat, not caring who watched..
My pulse pounded with the fantasy, my breath catching.
It was madness. But Goddess, it would have been worth it.
⚫ I exhaled slowly through my nose and forced myself to stay still. There was a place. A time. This wasn’t it. But if we didn’t get
back soon, I was going to start making questionable decisions.
And he wasn’t helping.
He hadn’t said a word since we climbed into the SUV, but his hand rested on the seat between us, fingers spread just wide enough to graze my thigh. It wasn’t possessive. It wasn’t deliberate.
But it was there–a spark, a tether. Every few minutes, he’d glance at me from the corner of his eye–that slow, smoldering gaze that made my stomach flip and my whole body ache.
The tension between us was a live wire stretched taut.
Every bump in the road sent his leg pressing more firmly against mine, and every time it happened, I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from doing something reckless. I could feel the heat of him even through our clothes, as if our bodies remembered something they weren’t supposed to yet.
I could still feel the echo of his mouth on my skin, his fingers on my hips, the way his voice had sounded when he whispered my
name in the water.
And he kept looking at me. Like I was something fragile and burning all at once. Like he wanted to devour me and protect me in
the same breath.
When we finally pulled into the circular drive in front of the hotel, I practically leapt out of the car. Snow crunched underfoot. The blast of cold air was almost a relief, a sharp slap that cooled the flush in my cheeks.
I turned toward him as soon as he closed his door.
“Do you want to come back to my room?”
It was bold. Maybe too bold. But I didn’t care.
He paused. Just for a second. And my heart sank.
he said.
“Oh,” I said, already turning away, trying to cover the sting. “Thats fine; I just thought
“Come to mine.”
I looked up sharply.
He was smiling now. A slow, knowing smile that made my pilse skip.
“I have something set up.”
Something…
I blinked, still processing the shift from rejection to invitation.
He held out his hand. I took it.
+25 BONUS
His suite was on the top floor.
Bigger than mine. Warmer. The lighting was dim and intimate, lit mostly by the flames crackling in the stone hearth and the soft glow of sconces on the walls.
The second we stepped inside, I could smell cedar and smoke, mingling with the faint trace of his cologne.
It felt private in a way nothing had in days.
He didn’t say anything right away. He watched me take in the room, my gaze drawn instinctively toward the bedroom.
The door was open. Inside, the bed had been made up with satin sheets. Deep silver–gray, gleaming in the firelight. A bottle of champagne waited on a tray beside a pair of crystal flutes. There were candles, too, flickering along the dresser, sending shadows dancing across the walls.
My breath caught.
“You did all this?”
His mouth curved. “I wanted tonight to be different.”
“Different how?”
He stepped toward me. Slipped his arms around my waist.
“No rush. No car,” he laughed. “Just you. Just me.”
My heart clenched.
This wasn’t some elaborate seduction. This wasn’t a man trying to prove something. This was intention. A declaration.
I melted into him.
His lips found mine, slow and unhurried. There was nothing frantic this time. No frenzy. Just a deep, burning tenderness that made my breath hitch.
He undressed me carefully, reverently, pausing to kiss each newly exposed patch of skin. When I pulled his shirt over his head, he leaned into me like I was the only thing anchoring him to the earth.
When we fell into bed, it was like a dream.
The sheets were cool at first, smooth beneath my back, but they warmed quickly with our bodies pressed together. He kissed
down my throat, across my chest, every movement purposeful. His hands knew me. Revered me.
And when he finally slid into me—slow, aching, perfect–I felt the world fall away.
It was nothing like the last time.
It was more.
He held my gaze the entire time, his forehead brushing mine, our Breathing in sync. My hands curled around his shoulders, my nails dragging over his skin as I arched into him, chasing something I hadn’t even realized I was missing until I found it again in him..
He whispered my name.
Over and over. Like a prayer. Like a promise.
And when we finally tumbled over the edge together, it was like flying. Like coming home.
***
We lay tangled in the sheets, our limbs still trembling, the fire casting a soft orange glow across the room. I felt floaty. Boneless. But more alive than I had in years.
Derek’s chest rose and fell beneath my cheek. One arm was wrapped around my back. His other hand stroked lazily through my hair.
Neither of us spoke for a while.
The quiet wasn’t awkward. It was full. Weighty with all the things we didn’t need to say.
But something inside me stirred.
A pressure building behind my ribs. An ache. An impulse that didn’t feel entirely like mine–but didn’t feel foreign either.
I lifted my head. Looked into his eyes.
“Mark me.”
The words came out before I could stop them.
His expression froze.
I could feel my heart pounding in my chest, breath catching as I realized what I’d just said.
“Mark me,” I repeated, softer this time, the words breathless. Raw “I want you to.”
I didn’t even know where it came from. It was like some part of me had reached for something beyond logic. Beyond memory. Beyond reason.
But I meant it.
Every word.
