I step into the hallway, nearly colliding with the wall in my haste to escape. Mia stands in her doorway, test results in hand, watching me with an expression I can't decipher.
"Thank you," she calls after me as I stride toward the elevator. "For checking."
I raise a hand in acknowledgment without looking back, unable to trust myself with another glimpse of her in that threadbare shirt with her hair piled high on her head. The elevator doors slide open with merciful speed, and I step inside, punching the lobby button before leaning against the back wall as the doors close.
My heart pounds against my ribs like it's trying to escape, and I drag a hand down my face, exhaling slowly. I came to her apartment to prove something—to her, to myself, I'm not even sure anymore. Instead, I've only proven how dangerously close I am to shattering every professional boundary I've ever set.
And the worst part?
As the elevator descends, all I can think about is going back up.
Chapter 9
Sebastian
My car waits where I left it. A sleek black reminder of my precisely ordered life—a life that feels like it's teetering on the edge of something dangerous after what just happened upstairs.
Mia fucking Phillips
Her name alone sends a fresh wave of heat through my body as I slide into the driver's seat, grip the wheel, and try to remember how to breathe like a normal human being instead of a teenager who just discovered what his dick is for.
The drive home is a blur. I move automatically through the motions—turn signal, brake, accelerate—while my mind replays every second of being in her apartment. The way she looked in that worn t-shirt. The bare legs that seemed to go on forever. The freckles across her nose. The way she said my name.
I barely register pulling into my building's garage, taking the private elevator to the top floor, or unlocking my door. It's only when I step inside and the automatic lights flicker on that reality crashes back.
And the stark contrast between my space and hers hits me like a punch to the nuts.
Where Mia's apartment was cluttered with life mine is a monument to emptiness. Sleek leather furniture in shades of black and gray. Glass tables with nothing on them but a single art book I've never opened. White walls bare except for one abstract painting that cost more than my first car.
No photos. No mementos. Nothing personal at all.
I drop my keys into the black ceramic bowl by the door. The silence presses against my ears as I shrug off my jacket, hanging it with mechanical precision in the closet where identical jackets hang in a perfect row.
My jaw aches. I realize I've been clenching it since I left her place. I roll my shoulders, trying to release the tension knotted between my shoulder blades, but it's useless. The tightness isn't just physical, it's something deeper, a coiling need that won't be stretched out by simple movement.
In the kitchen, I grab a glass from the cabinet and fill it with water, gulping it down like I've been wandering the desert for days.
It doesn’t help. I still feel like a man on edge.
Walking to the floor-to-ceiling windows that make up the eastern wall, I stare out at the city below. Lights glitter against the darkness, thousands of lives playing out in apartments where people laugh and argue and fuck and live. Normal people with normal desires. Not men who get hard at the thought of controlling a woman's breathing, of holding her suspended between pleasure and surrender until she begs for release.
Not men who almost kiss their fellows in supply closets and show up at their apartments under flimsy pretexts.
"Fuck," I whisper to the glass, my breath fogging a small circle that quickly disappears. The memory of Mia standing in her doorway refuses to fade—red curls piled messily on top of herhead, that damn t-shirt barely covering the tops of her thighs, her eyes widening when she saw me.
What would have happened if I'd given in to the urge that drove me there in the first place? If instead of backing away, I'd stepped forward. Pushed her against the nearest wall. Covered her mouth with mine and swallowed whatever sound she would have made.
My body instantly responds to the thought, cock hardening against the confines of my slacks. I press my forehead against the cool glass, trying to shock myself back to sanity.
What would Mia do if she knew the truth? If she knew that when I look at her, I don't just see a brilliant doctor or even a beautiful woman. I see someone I want to possess. To control. To take apart piece by piece and put back together under my hands.
She'd probably run. Or report me to HR. Or both.
I push away from the window and stalk through my pristine living room toward the bedroom. It’s as stark as the rest of the place—king-sized bed with charcoal gray sheets pulled military-tight across the mattress. No photos on the nightstands. No clothes thrown across a chair. Just a single reading lamp and an alarm clock, its red numbers cutting through the dimness to inform me it's nearly eleven.
I should sleep. I should take a shower, crawl into bed, and forget today ever happened.
Instead, I sit on the edge of the mattress and stare at my hands. These hands that nearly touched her tonight. That wanted to curl around her throat and feel her pulse quicken beneath my palm. To tangle in those wild red curls and pull her head back until she gasped.
