The Oblivion

Chapter 13.

Layla lay perfectly still on the vast expanse of the bed, staring at the shadowed canopy. The room had finally stopped its slow, nauseating spin, leaving behind a hollow, sick-throated shame that was somehow worse. The acrid taste in her mouth was gone, washed away with the entire contents of the fancy water carafe, but the memory of it, of him, was branded into her senses.

She replayed the sequence on a loop, each iteration a fresh torture. The pressure of his hand on her back, guiding her. The brief, dizzying freedom of the spin. The shock of that almost-smile. Then the catastrophic, humiliating plummet. She had vomited on Kieran Valerius. In public. In Silva. She squeezed her eyes shut, but the image of his polished shoes, defiled, was etched on the backs of her eyelids.

He was her boss. That was the foundation of this impossible situation, the bedrock fact she kept trying to build a wall on. He was also a scion of the Valerius family, a name spoken in boardrooms and ancient groves with equal parts reverence and fear. She was a human, a temporary asset, a blemish on his otherwise flawless record. Tonight had proven that spectacularly.

Her body, traitorous and still humming with the after-effects of that damned wine, refused to align with her logic. The memory of his arm around her, the unyielding strength of him as he lifted her, the cool solidity of his chest against her back—it didn't repulse her. It ignited a low, persistent heat in her belly that shame couldn't extinguish. He had been furious, yes. But he had carried her. He'd told her not to die. A horrifying, clumsy parody of care that nonetheless sent a shiver through her that had nothing to do with fear.

What would it be like?

The thought slithered in, uninvited. Drunk, disgraceful, lying in the dark, she had no defences left. What would it be like to sleep with a Fae? Not just any Fae. Him. Kieran. With his meticulous hands and that voice that could slice through steel. Would he be cold like his demeanour? Or would there be a furnace beneath that polished marble exterior?

Her breath hitched. Her own hand, which had been lying limp on the coverlet, moved. It was a faint, tentative crawl over the silk of her nightgown, down the plane of her stomach. She thought of his commanding posture in the conference room, the way he dominated space without raising his voice. She thought of the look in his stormy eyes just before she'd ruined everything—a look that hadn't been disgust, but a raw, startled intensity of want.

Her fingers slipped beneath the hem of the nightgown, finding the soft skin of her inner thigh. The touch was electric. A low throb of need pulsed between her legs, a stark, physical counterpoint to the chaos in her head. She was wet. The realization was another jolt of shame, hot and sharp. She was lying here, disgrace fresh, thinking about the man whose shoes she'd just defiled, and her body was readying itself for him.

She let her head fall back into the pillow, a soft, frustrated sound escaping her lips. Her fingertips drifted higher, through the neat triangle of curls, and found her c**t. It was swollen, sensitive. A gasp punched out of her at the contact. She was so aroused it was almost painful.

She began to touch herself, slowly at first, circles that were too timid. Her mind supplied the images. Not romantic, soft-focus fantasies, but sharp, fragmented pieces of him. The line of his jaw when he was annoyed. The latent power in his shoulders as he shrugged off his coat. The implicit threat—and promise—in his complete control. What would that control feel like in this? Here, in this dark room, would he be demanding? Would he tell her how to touch herself? Would he watch with that cool, assessing gaze as she came apart?

"f**k," she whispered into the dark, the word harsh and real. Her strokes became harder, faster. She imagined it was his hand, his long, elegant fingers doing this to her. He wouldn't be gentle. He'd know exactly how much pressure to apply, where to focus, how to draw it out until she was begging. She pinched her n****e through the nightgown with her other hand, the sharp bite of pain mingling with the building pleasure, making her hips arch off the bed.

She was chasing it now, her breath coming in ragged pants, the silk sheets growing damp beneath her. She thought of his mouth, that stern, beautiful mouth, on her neck, her breasts, lower. She imagined his voice, a dark whisper in her ear, telling her she was his, that her pleasure belonged to him, that she would come only when he allowed it.

The orgasm broke over her like a wave of silent lightning. Her back bowed, a choked cry tearing from her throat as her walls clenched around nothing, pulses of intense, shame-soaked pleasure radiating out from her core. She bit her own fist to muffle the sound, her body shuddering through the aftershocks.

When it was over, she collapsed into the mattress, sweat cooling on her skin. The hollow feeling was back, magnified. She felt raw, exposed, and profoundly alone. She had just gotten herself off thinking about the man who represented everything precarious in her life. It was a new level of professional and personal disaster.

Sleep, when it finally came, was thin and restless.