“No,” I whisper honestly, throat tight with unshed tears. Everything I’ve built, everything I am, feels like it was decimated. My heart feels like it was set on fire and razed to ash alongside my gallery.
But Julian is solid and warm. Real. Here. And suddenly I need something—anything—to crowd out the hollowness expanding in my chest.
I shift in his arms, studying his face in the early morning light filtering through his bedroom windows. His eyes, usually so calculating, look softer now, concern etched in the slight furrow of his brow.
I lean down, pressing my lips against his. Tentative at first, giving him the chance to pull away. He doesn’t. His hand comes up to cup the back of my neck, not pushing, just holding.
I deepen the kiss, tasting him, my hands framing his face as desperation takes over. I need to feel something besides loss. Besides betrayal. Besides the crushing weight of everything I’ve lost.
Julian responds instantly, his body coming alive. His hands slide down my back, pulling me closer as his mouth opens to me. The kiss turns hungry, frantic, my teeth grazing his lower lip.
“Please,” I breathe against his mouth, though I’m not entirely certain what I’m asking for. Comfort. Oblivion. A moment where I don’t have to think about what happens next.
Julian’s eyes darken with understanding. “Whatever you need,” he whispers, his hands already working their way beneath my borrowed shirt. “I’m right here.”
I push Julian back against the pillows, straddling his hips with desperate urgency. My heart pounds in my chest, drowning out thoughts of ashes and betrayal with each thundering beat.
“I need—” The words catch in my throat.
Julian’s eyes lock with mine. “I know.”
Our boxer briefs disappear in frantic motions, my hands shaking as I toss them aside. The sensation of skin against skin sends electricity through my veins, making me feel something besides pain for the first time since watching my gallery burn.
I crash my mouth against his, swallowing his groan as our bodies connect. His hands grip my hips, guiding me into a rhythm against him. The friction of our cocks sliding together pulls a broken sound from my throat.
“That’s it,” Julian breathes against my lips, his voice rough with desire. “Stay with me. Right here.”
I rock my hips harder, chasing the building pressure that coils tighter in my balls. Julian’s hand snakes between us, those long, elegant fingers that command boardrooms and sign million-dollar deals now wrapping around both our shafts. He squeezes us together, and the dual sensation—the velvethardness of his cock against mine, the firm grip encircling us both—makes my vision blur at the edges.
“Fuck,” I gasp, dropping my forehead to his shoulder, inhaling the scent of his cologne.
His free hand cups my balls, rolling them gently between his fingers with practiced care. The touch is almost too much to bear—tender yet filthy, intimate in a way that makes my chest ache with something I refuse to acknowledge. I bite down on his shoulder, tasting salt on my tongue, muffling the desperate sounds threatening to escape my throat.
Julian’s breathing quickens beneath me, his chest rising and falling rapidly. His grip tightens around our lengths as he works us both with steady, purposeful strokes. “Look at me,” he commands, his voice taking on that edge of authority that he wields so effortlessly.
I raise my head with effort, meeting his gaze as we move together in increasingly frantic rhythm. The vulnerability in those ice-blue eyes matches my own—stripped bare and unguarded. For once, there’s no pretense of casual indifference.
“I’ve got you,” he murmurs, thumb swiping deliberately over the sensitive heads of our cocks, spreading the wetness gathering there. His other hand continues its maddening attention to my balls, creating a circuit of pleasure that makes my thighs tremble where they bracket his hips.
The pressure builds and builds until I can’t hold back any longer, until the whole world narrows to this moment, this sensation, this man beneath me. Julian’s eyes never leave mine as I shatter completely, my release spilling hot and thick between us in violent pulses. The intensity of my climax triggers Julian’s own, his back arching off the mattress as he adds to the mess coating my stomach, his grip never faltering as he works us both through each shuddering pulse and aftershock.
“Fuck,” I gasp, my entire body trembling with the force of it. The release feels like more than just physical.
Julian shifts me off him onto the mattress and moves down my body. I watch, dazed, as he lowers his head and begins to clean our combined release from my stomach with his tongue. The sight of him—powerful, dominant Julian Frost—lapping at my skin makes my breath catch.
His tongue traces patterns across my abs, moving lower to take my sensitive cock into his mouth, cleaning me with gentle suction that makes me whimper. When he’s satisfied, he crawls back up my body and captures my lips in a deep kiss. I taste us both on his tongue, and it feels more intimate than anything we’ve done before.
“Come here,” he murmurs, pulling me against his chest.
The gentleness shatters the last of my defenses. The tears come without warning, my body shaking with sobs I can’t control. Julian’s arms tighten around me as I break apart completely.
“The gallery,” I choke out between sobs. “Everything I built—gone. All those artists trusting me with their work. Their careers. And my mother—” My voice breaks on the word.
Julian strokes my hair, his lips pressed against my temple. “I know,” he whispers. “Let it out.”
“I thought I was finally free. Finally myself. But she still—she still had this power?—”
“Shh,” Julian murmurs, his hand tracing soothing circles on my back. “We’ll rebuild the gallery, better than before. Your artists will be taken care of—I promise you that. As for your mother...” His voice hardens slightly. “She won’t hurt you again. I’ll make sure of that too.”
