Jake doesn't make me ask twice.
His mouth crashes into mine before the last syllable fades, and the kiss carries everything we couldn't say at the gala. Every stolen glance. Every forced distance. Every moment of pretending we were less than what we are.
"Zipper." His voice is rough against my throat. "Where's the goddamn zipper?"
"Back." I'm already working his buttons, fingers clumsy with urgency. "Left side."
He finds it. The sound of metal teeth separating feels like liberation—my armor falling away inch by inch while his hands chase the fabric down my spine.
"All night." He pushes the gown off my shoulders, letting it pool at my waist. "All fucking night I watched you shine for them. Couldn't touch you. Couldn't claim you."
"I know." I shove his shirt open, buttons scattering because patience died somewhere between the terrace and this bed. "I felt you watching."
"Did you feel this?" His palm presses flat against my chest, right over my hammering heart. "Because this is what you do to me. Every time. Every goddamn time."
The gala clothes become obstacles to be conquered. His jacket twisted beneath us. My dress bunched around my hips. Fabric pushed aside rather than properly removed because we need skin against skin more than we need order.
His mouth finds the hollow of my throat. Drags lower. Teeth grazing the swell of my breast before his lips close around my nipple, sucking hard enough to make me arch off the mattress.
"Jake—"
"Say it again." He switches to the other breast, tongue swirling, teasing. "My name. The real one. Not Mr. Sullivan. Not your father's friend. Mine."
"Jake." It comes out broken. Desperate. "Please."
His hand slides between my thighs, finding me slick and aching. Two fingers push inside without warning, and the stretch is exactly what I need—rough, demanding, nothing like the careful distance we've been performing.
"So wet." His voice is gravel and want. "All this for me?"
"Always for you." I grip his shoulders, nails digging in hard enough to mark. "Only you."
He works me with his fingers while his mouth continues its assault on my breasts. The dual sensation builds something white-hot in my core, pleasure coiling tighter with every thrust of his hand.
"I need more." I'm tugging at his belt, coordination shot to hell. "Need you inside me. Now."
He helps me free him—thick and hard and straining toward me like his body knows exactly where it belongs. The sight of him makes my inner walls clench around nothing, desperate to be filled.
"Look at me." He positions himself at my entrance, the blunt head pressing against my opening. "Eyes on me, Adison."
I meet his gaze. Hold it.
He pushes in.
The stretch burns in the best way—that initial resistance giving way to fullness as he seats himself completely. My body remembers him, opens for him, welcomes him home.
"Fuck." The word tears from his throat. "Missed this. Missed you."
"Show me." I wrap my legs around his waist, pulling him deeper. "Show me how much."
He does.
The first thrust drives the breath from my lungs. The second makes me cry out. By the third, we've found our rhythm—hard and fast and punishing, anger transmuting into something more honest.
Desperation. Hunger. The consuming need to be seen when you've spent hours being invisible to each other.
"Harder." I rake my nails down his back, feeling skin part beneath my fingers. "Don't hold back."
"Never." His grip on my hips tightens, hard enough to bruise. "Not with you. Never with you."
He changes the angle, and suddenly he's hitting that spot inside me that makes vision blur. Every thrust sends sparks shooting through my nervous system. Every withdrawal leaves me empty and aching for more.
"Close." I'm barely coherent. "Jake, I'm so close—"
"Let go." His thumb finds my clit, circling roughly. "Come for me. Let me feel it."
The orgasm crashes through me like a wave I can't outrun. My back arches. My walls clamp down around him. His name tears from my throat—his real name, the one I haven't been allowed to say in public for weeks.
"Jake!"
He follows moments later, shuddering, spilling inside me while my name falls from his lips like a prayer. "Adison. God, Adison."
We collapse together. Breathing hard. Hearts racing. Tangled in destroyed finery and sweat-dampened sheets.
His hand finds my hair, stroking gently. Such a contrast to the roughness moments ago. I press my cheek against his chest, feeling his heartbeat steady beneath my ear.
Neither of us apologizes for the gala. The fight. The jealousy.
The silence stretches, comfortable and uncomfortable in equal measure. His fingers trace patterns on my bare shoulder. My palm rests flat against his ribs, counting breaths.
Something has shifted. I feel it in the spaces between heartbeats. Some wall rebuilt itself between the anger and the making up—invisible but present, like scar tissue forming over wounds that never fully heal.
I look at the ceiling. White plaster. Expensive crown molding. My father's penthouse, where I'm performing one role while hiding another.
When did survival start feeling like slow suffocation?
Jake holds me tighter. His arm bands around my waist, pulling me closer like he can feel me drifting.
He doesn't say what he's thinking.
But I know anyway. Can feel it in the desperate grip of his hands, the slight tension that never quite leaves his shoulders.
I'm slipping away from him. Inch by inch. Into a world where he cannot follow.
And neither of us knows how to stop it.