Marked By The Ruthless President

CHAPTER 9 — MY BED, MY RULES

(Gina’s POV)

Walking into Reaper’s private room at the Black Vipers clubhouse felt like crossing a line I could never uncross.

The heavy black door shut behind us with a quiet click that somehow sounded louder than the music still drifting faintly from downstairs.

The room was massive.

Dark walls. Black sheets stretched over a king bed. A leather couch near the window. A weapons cabinet built into the far wall. His cut draped over the chair like a warning.

Everything in here smelled like him.

Leather. Cedar. Whiskey. Danger.

I dropped my duffel near the dresser and turned slowly, trying not to let the size of the bed dominate my thoughts.

Too late.

Because the first thing he said was—

“You’re sleeping there.”

I looked at him sharply.

“And you’re taking the couch.”

The words came out more certain than I felt.

For one long moment, he just stared at me.

That cold, unreadable stare that always made me feel like he was deciding how much patience to use.

Then he walked past me toward the bed.

“No.”

The single word stopped me cold.

I frowned. “No?”

He turned, broad shoulders stretching beneath his black shirt, tattoos disappearing into the sleeves.

“My room. My bed.”

My pulse skipped.

“You can’t be serious.”

His expression didn’t change.

“In case you forgot, Jackals are outside my gates. If someone gets through, you stay where I can reach you fast.”

Practical. Cold. Infuriatingly reasonable.

Still, heat rose in my chest.

“There’s a whole couch right there.”

His gaze flicked toward it once before settling back on me.

“I’m not sleeping on my couch.”

The certainty in his tone made my stomach tighten.

This wasn’t a negotiation.

It was a president giving an order.

I crossed my arms.

“I’m not sharing a bed with you.”

That finally made something dangerous flicker in his eyes.

Not anger.

Amusement.

The kind that made him look even more lethal.

He stepped closer, and the air in the room changed instantly.

The space between us filled with the memory of Venom Lounge. Dark sheets. His hands. The devastating way he left before dawn.

“You’re in my room,” he said quietly. “Under my protection.”

The lower tone in his voice made my pulse jump.

“That doesn’t give you the right to order where I sleep.”

A slow, almost wicked half-smile touched his mouth.

“It does tonight.”

The sheer confidence in that answer should have made me furious.

Instead, it made my body betray me with a dangerous flicker of awareness.

I hated that.

Hated how his presence made everything feel charged.

A knock interrupted the moment.

Tessa slipped in with an overnight bag and one look at the room told her exactly what she’d walked into.

Her eyes went from the bed to me to Reaper.

“Oh,” she said slowly, clearly enjoying herself. “I’ll just leave this here.”

She set the bag on the dresser and disappeared before I could throw something at her.

The door shut again.

Silence rushed back in.

Reaper peeled off his cut and tossed it onto the chair, then pulled his shirt over his head in one smooth motion.

I froze.

Tattooed muscle. Dark ink coiling over his chest and shoulders. Old scars cutting through perfect skin. The hard lines of a body built for violence.

Heat rushed straight to my face.

He noticed.

Of course he noticed.

His mouth twitched.

“Problem?”

I looked away immediately and yanked my pajamas from the bag.

“No.”

Lie.

Huge lie.

I escaped into the bathroom before he could say anything else.

By the time I changed and came back out, the room was dimmer, lit only by the bedside lamp.

He was already sitting on the edge of the bed, boots off, black sweats low on his hips.

Too close. Too real. Too intimate.

I stopped at the foot of the mattress.

“This is insane.”

He looked up at me.

“No. Insane is letting Rex Nolan think he can get close to what’s inside my walls.”

The way he said it made the room go colder.

For the first time, the reality of the threat pressed in harder than the bed tension.

This wasn’t about comfort.

This was war strategy.

Still…

That didn’t stop the awareness.

I climbed onto the far side of the bed stiffly, putting as much distance between us as possible.

The mattress dipped seconds later as he lay down beside me anyway.

The king bed suddenly felt much smaller.

He stretched onto his back, one tattooed arm behind his head, completely at ease.

I stayed rigid on my side, facing away from him.

Every nerve in my body was hyperaware.

The heat of him beside me. The sound of his breathing. The faint scent of whiskey and cedar in the sheets.

This was worse than touching.

Because this was stillness.

Space filled with everything unsaid.

“You’re tense,” he murmured into the darkness.

“You think?”

A low sound that might’ve been amusement.

“Sleep.”

I let out a frustrated breath.

“How are you so calm?”

His voice came quieter this time.

“Because nobody gets to you without going through me first."

The words wrapped around the darkness like a promise made of violence.

Something in my chest tightened unexpectedly.

Not fear.

Something far more dangerous.

Safety.

I hated how much that mattered.

The room fell silent again.

For long minutes, neither of us moved.

Then, just when I thought he’d fallen asleep, his voice cut softly through the dark.

“You keep moving closer.”

My eyes widened.

I hadn’t even realized it.

At some point, the distance between us had narrowed to inches.

Heat flooded my face again.

“I’m not.”

Another low, darkly amused sound.

“Sure.”

Before I could argue, the clubhouse alarms suddenly exploded through the silence.

Red emergency lights flashed through the window.

Reaper was out of bed instantly, reaching for the gun on the nightstand.

Then a voice thundered from the hallway—

“Jackals at the gate!”

Reaper turned back to me, eyes ice-cold and lethal.

“Lock the door behind me. Don’t open it unless it’s my voice.”

Then he disappeared into the hallway.

And the sound of gunfire erupted downstairs.