Chapter4
975 Words
Chapter 4: Under the Lens
The iron doors of the master suite at the Sterling estate slammed shut with a heavy, motorized thud.
Elena stumbled forward, her legs weak from the adrenaline crash. The room was a palace of cold marble and gold leaf, but to her, it felt like a gilded cage. She spun around, clutching the remains of her silk robe to her chest, her eyes wide with a mixture of fury and betrayal.
"A trade?" she hissed, her voice shaking. "I was a trade, Julian? You didn't marry me because you wanted me. You married me to keep my father’s filth in your family!"
Julian didn't answer immediately. He was already moving, his eyes scanning the ornate crown molding and the corners of the ceiling. He stripped off his ruined dress shirt, tossing it onto the floor to reveal a back covered in fresh bruises and old scars.
"Lower your voice," he commanded, his tone a sharp, jagged edge.
"Don't tell me to be quiet! You lied to me for three years! Every touch, every night in that bed—it was all just business to you?"
Julian moved so fast she didn't have time to blink. He caught her by the waist and hauled her flush against his bare chest, his hand clamping over her mouth. His skin was searing, the scent of rain and dark musk overwhelming her senses even as she tried to fight him off.
"Listen to me," he breathed into her ear, his voice a low, vibrating rasp. He pointed subtly toward a small, blinking red light hidden behind the eyes of a marble bust on the mantel. "My mother doesn't just want the ledger, Elena. She wants to see if we’re still a 'team.' She’s watching. Every word, every move. If she thinks you’ve turned on me, she’ll have you removed from this room by morning. And you won't like where you end up."
Elena’s heart hammered against his ribs. She looked at the hidden camera, then back at the man holding her. The erotic tension was a physical weight between them, a thick, suffocating cloud.
"What do we do?" she whispered against his palm.
Julian’s eyes darkened, a predatory hunger flickering in the depths of his pupils. He slowly lowered his hand from her mouth, his thumb dragging across her lower lip.
"We give her what she wants," Julian murmured, his voice dropping into that seductive, dangerous register. "We make her believe that no matter how much we hate each other, we can't keep our hands off one another. We play the part, Elena. We make it so intense she feels like an intruder."
"You want us to... here? Now? While she’s watching?"
"I want you to survive," Julian countered, his hand sliding down the small of her back, pulling her hips firmly into his. "And if that means I have to reclaim every inch of your body in front of an audience, I’ll do it. Now, scream my name like you mean it."
He didn't give her a choice. He captured her lips in a kiss that was pure, unadulterated possession. It was a performance, but the fire that ignited between them was terrifyingly real. Elena’s hands tangled in his hair, her nails digging into his scalp as she arched her back, her robe falling completely to the floor.
Julian lifted her, her legs wrapping around his waist as he carried her toward the massive, silk-draped bed in the center of the room. He threw her back onto the pillows, his body hovering over hers like a shadow.
"You’re a monster," she gasped, her breath coming in short, jagged bursts as his hands roamed over her curves.
"I’m your monster," he hissed, his mouth trailing fire down her throat to the swell of her breast. "And tonight, the monster is the only thing standing between you and the grave."
He moved with a frantic, desperate energy, his touch leaving brands on her skin. Every movement was calculated to look like a man obsessed, a man who couldn't spend a single second without his wife’s touch. But underneath the performance, Elena could feel the raw, jagged edges of his own desperation.
The pleasure was a sharp, piercing thing, heightened by the knowledge that they were being hunted. Julian entered her with a powerful, rhythmic drive that made the headboard thud against the wall—a deliberate sound for the microphones hidden in the room.
"Tell me you're mine," he groaned, his face buried in the crook of her neck, his breath hot and ragged.
"I'm... yours," she sobbed out, the lie and the truth blurring together in the heat of the moment.
As they reached the peak of their shared, forbidden release, Julian leaned down, his lips pressed against her ear, his voice barely a ghost of a sound.
"The flash drive... it’s not destroyed. I hid it in the one place she’ll never look."
Elena froze, her body still trembling from the climax. "Where?"
Julian’s eyes met hers, cold and calculated once more. "In your sister's locket. The one you gave her before she 'disappeared' to London. Sarah isn't the traitor, Elena. She’s the courier."
[
Suddenly, the lights in the room flickered and died. A heavy, metallic grinding sound came from beneath the bed.
"Julian," Elena whispered, clutching his shoulders in the dark. "What is that?"
The floor beneath the bed began to tilt, a hidden trapdoor opening into a dark, vertical shaft.
"Change of plans," a voice crackled over the intercom—not Lydia’s, but her father’s. "The trade is off. I’m taking what’s mine."
The bed slid into the darkness.
- Writer
- chap_listContents
- likeADD