Exposure
545 Words
Chapter Six: Exposure
Elsie woke up tangled in Egyptian sheets. Damian’s scent was everywhere—clean linen, expensive leather, and something distinctly male.
His side of the bed was empty.
But his heat lingered.
She rose slowly, limbs aching in delicious places. Her wrists still carried faint red lines where his belt had held her down. She touched them absently. She should’ve felt ashamed.
Instead, she smiled.
Then the door opened.
Damian strode in, barefoot, shirtless, holding two coffee cups and his phone wedged between his shoulder and ear. “Yes. Fly them in. I don’t care what it costs—just fix it.”
He ended the call, handed her a cup. “Good morning.”
She blinked at him. “You’re... calm.”
“I just canceled a million-dollar deal because the client made a joke about secretaries.” He sipped his own coffee. “So, no. I’m not.”
Her stomach twisted. “Was it about—?”
He didn’t answer.
Just leaned down and kissed her. Soft. Intimate.
It made her heart ache.
---
By noon, her phone had twenty messages.
None from him.
But one from her roommate:
> Elsie. You need to see this. Now.
She clicked the link.
There, on a celebrity gossip site—clear as crystal—was a photo of her and Damian stepping off the jet together. Her hair windblown, his hand low on her back.
The headline read:
Billionaire Blackthorn’s New Plaything?
She stared.
Couldn’t breathe.
Couldn’t think.
---
He found her on the balcony an hour later, the laptop still glowing with the article.
“I can fix it,” he said simply.
She turned to him. “Fix what? Me?”
“No.” He stepped forward. “The narrative. The leak. The story. I can have that site taken down in—”
“That’s not the point, Damian.”
“Then tell me what is.”
Her voice cracked. “This... this was supposed to be just us. But now everyone sees me like some... toy you picked up off the shelf.”
His jaw clenched. “You think I see you that way?”
“I don’t know how you see me!” Her eyes were wet now, voice rising. “You say nothing. You never talk about why you chose me. You just order and take and touch like I belong to you—”
“You do.”
The words hit her like a slap.
He stepped closer. Voice low.
“You belong to me. I’ve wanted you since the first time you corrected my schedule in that pencil skirt and whispered my name like it burned. I don’t care what anyone says, Elsie. Let them talk. Let them choke on it.”
His hand curled around her jaw.
“Let them see who you are to me.”
And then he kissed her—hard, rough, claiming.
---
Later, after she cried into his shoulder and he carried her to bed again—not to f**k, just to hold—he finally spoke into her hair:
“I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
She whispered, “What? The affair?”
“No.” A pause. Then softer: “The obsession.”
---
- Writer
