POV Adrian
I walked with Brittany down the hallway toward my bedroom, her gym-toned body pressed against my side, and my mind cataloged the tactical stupidity of how she'd ended up here.
She'd approached me in the gym after that scene with Mare Nero's men—batting her lashes, touching my bruised jaw with concern that was really just an excuse to touch.
"You looked like you needed some TLC," she'd purred, and in that moment of weakness, of needing something to stop the mental spiral of Mara's body against mine, I'd said yes.
Invited her up. A pressure valve. A distraction. A monumental fucking mistake.
Mara was driving me completely insane, and I needed to get my cock to stop making decisions my brain should be handling.
No woman after Hannah's death had made me hard the way Mara did—raw truth stripped of politeness.
Hannah and Mara shared nothing—Hannah with her Sunday watercolors and trust fund safety, Mara with her split knuckles and the way she moved like violence given feminine form.
But Christ, Mara made my body remember it was alive, made my blood run hot enough to burn through two years of carefully maintained numbness.
When she'd straddled me in that ring, I'd gotten so hard I thought I might come just from the pressure of her against me, the heat of her through those fucking layers of fabric that kept me from what I desperately wanted to taste.
The mental images were destroying me—Mara on her knees, Mara bent over that kitchen counter, Mara riding me until we both forgot our names.
My cock had been half-hard since she'd walked out in that towel, and now it was making all my decisions while my brain watched helplessly from the sidelines.
I needed release before I did something catastrophic like push her against the nearest wall and show her exactly how many ways I'd imagined taking her apart.
"So what exactly are we going to do in that bedroom?" Brittany giggled, her fingers tracing patterns on my chest that should have interested me but only made me think of different hands, scarred knuckles, the specific weight of Mara's touch.
Mara's voice cut through the hallway before I could manufacture an appropriate lie. "We have business, Adrian. This really isn't the moment for whatever this is."
We both turned. Mara stood in the hallway wearing nothing but a towel, her legs endless and bare, and my cock went from interested to painfully hard in the space of a heartbeat.
The physiological response was immediate—blood rushing south, pulse hammering, mouth actually watering at the sight of all that exposed skin I wanted to map with my tongue.
"Who's this?" Brittany's voice shifted from seductive to sharp, recognizing competition.
I forced my voice into something resembling control even as my body screamed for Mara. "A work partner. She's using the guest room for a while."
The lie felt strange, inadequate—work partner, as if that explained why my hands were shaking with the need to touch her, why I could barely breathe when she looked at me, why I'd spent the last night jerking off to increasingly elaborate fantasies of her mouth.
I was fairly certain Brittany had seen Mara with me at the gym—she'd been staring at me the entire time, first when I was with Mara in the ring, then when the Mare Nero men had approached.
Mara planted her hands on her hips, and the towel shifted dangerously, revealing another inch of thigh that made my mouth go dry.
"You need to leave. And forget this address exists."
"Excuse me?" Brittany bristled, her body language shifting to confrontation. "You're not his mother."
She looked to me for backup, for validation, for me to choose her over this half-naked woman commanding my hallway.
I hadn't even formed words when Mara moved—liquid predator, folding Brittany's arm behind her back with casual efficiency.
"Let me help you to the exit," Mara said, her voice honey over razor blades as she walked Brittany down the hallway.
At the end of the hallway, she released Brittany with a push that somehow conveyed more threat than fake politeness would have. "I'm sure you can find the rest of the way yourself."
Brittany's retreating footsteps echoed to the elevator, her indignant muttering fading into nothing. I doubted I'd be welcome back at that gym anytime soon, and found I didn't give a single fuck.
Mara returned with a smile. She flicked her hand toward my bedroom with ownership that made my chest tight. "You were headed for a shower, weren't you?"
The shock and raw want tangled in my throat. She'd just physically removed another woman from my apartment while wearing nothing but a towel, and my body's response was so intense I could barely stand.
I went to my bedroom because the alternative was dropping to my knees right there in the hallway and begging her to let me taste her.
In the bedroom, I stripped to my boxers, trying to calm my racing pulse, to get my cock to stop making demands my conscience couldn't cash.
The door clicked behind me and Mara entered like she owned the space, owned me, and God help me, she did.
"Cute," she said, the word carrying weight that pressed against my sternum.
"Do you have urgent business that overrides mine?" I managed, my voice rough with want I couldn't hide. "Professional or personal?"
"I do," she said, stepping closer, close enough that I could smell my soap on her skin, could see the faint marks on her throat from where the zip ties had been, marks I wanted to cover with my mouth until she forgot they'd ever existed. "I need another shower."
The invitation hung between us, and my cock twitched visibly in my boxers, betraying exactly how much I wanted what she was offering.
She moved toward the bathroom with deliberate slowness, each step making my hands shake with the need to grab her, to press her against the nearest surface and show her exactly how insane she was making me.
At the doorway, she paused. Her fingers found the towel's edge, and in one fluid motion, she let it fall.
The line of her back was perfect, the curve of her ass making my mouth water, every inch of exposed skin calling to the basest part of my brain that wanted nothing more than to mark her as mine.
My cock was so hard it hurt, straining against fabric that felt like prison.
Without turning, her voice floated back, casual as discussing murder. "You coming?"
I forgot how to breathe. My body moved without permission, shoving my boxers down, my cock springing free, heavy and desperate. Nothing else mattered—not the danger, not the guilt, not the fact that I was about to cross a line that would destroy us both.
My hand reached for the bathroom door handle, and for once, everything else wasn't my problem.