The elevator chimed, a single, crystal-clear note that sliced through the silence.

Patricia's entire body went tight, a jolt of pure adrenaline lighting up her nervous system. The wine glass, forgotten, tumbled from her nerveless fingers, shattering on the marble floor. She didn't flinch at the sound.

She rose from the sectional, her body moving on pure instinct, the silk shorts riding high on her thighs, the camisole shifting against her achingly hard nipples.

Her bare feet touched the cool hardwood, and she started walking toward the entry, not with the nervous hesitation of a girl, but with the deliberate, predatory grace of a woman finally answering a summoning she hadn't felt in her bones for twenty-three years.

One step. Another. Each one a small act of surrender. The silk whispered against her heated skin, a constant, maddening reminder of her near-total nudity. Her toes curled against the cold floor, every nerve ending firing, hyper-aware of how exposed she was, how utterly, terrifyingly ready she was.

The door swung open.

And the world didn't just stop. It fucking rebooted.

He stood there. Eros. And he didn't just walk into the room; he brought the entire world with him, the scent of ozone and absolute command, a presence so dense it altered the air pressure. He was an apex predator entering his territory, and she was the willing, desperate prey.

She kept walking, her gaze locked on his, and they both froze in the center of the entryway, the shattered glass of her wine glass glittering at their feet like fallen stars.

He stared at her like she'd just stolen his ability to breathe.

It wasn't a look. It was a fucking siege. His eyes started at her face, and Patricia felt his gaze like a physical touch, like scorching fingers tracing the elegant column of his throat, the defiant line of her jaw.

Then his eyes dropped, slow, a devastatingly thorough inventory. They lingered on the black silk camisole, the tiny pearls winking from the lace trim, the fabric so thin her hard nipples were visible as dark, inviting shadows. They took in the naked plane of her stomach, the sharp, hopeful jut of her hipbones where the ridiculous, perfect shorts began.

They devoured the way the high-cut silk barely contained the curve of her ass, the long, toned line of her thighs, her elegant feet with their vulnerable, nude-polished toes.

And then his gaze crawled back up, even slower this time, a memorization, a branding. He was burning this image of her—the one she'd secretly prayed someone would one day see—directly onto his soul.

Patricia's breath hitched, a raw, audible sound in the charged silence.

'God, this.'

This feeling. She had missed it so much she'd almost forgotten its name. Being seen. Not looked at, but truly seen. Being worshiped with an intensity so pure it made her feel like the only woman who had ever existed. Her hands hung loose at her sides. She didn't cover herself. She didn't fidget. She let him look.

The silence stretched, thick and holy, charged with a tension that felt more sacred than any church. The only sounds were their twin, matching breaths—hers shallow and fast, his deeper but just as raggedly affected.

Eros didn't move. Didn't speak. Just stood there, his hands clenched into fists at his sides, like movement or words would shatter the spell and he couldn't risk it.

She felt his aura, his Taboo Presence, wash over her. It wasn't an invasive force; it was an invitation.

An invisible field of pure, uncut desire that slid across her skin, warmer than the silk, more intimate than a touch. It pulled at her, a deep, gravitational pulling, primal, animal part of her that had been hibernating for decades.

Heat bloomed from the inside out. A flush crawled up her chest, her neck. Her nipples hardened into almost painful points against the lace. The slickness between her thighs intensified, a slow, insidious flood, and she knew the silk of her shorts was absorbing it, a dark, damning testament to her want.

She wanted to run to him. To launch herself across the space and kiss him until they were both breathless and broken. To bury herself in his arms and find the safety, the want, the life she'd been starved of.

But she didn't. Because this— standing here, being broken down and rebuilt with nothing but the pure force of his gaze—felt too right, too necessary, to rush.

"Oh, Patricia~"

His voice was a rough whisper, reverent, filled with a worship so profound it made her eyes sting. The way he said her name—not the careful, clipped "Mrs. Morrison," not "Jack's mother," just Patricia, like it was a holy word, a prayer—made her knees threaten to buckle. Made her cunt clench, a hot, vicious pulse of pure, unadulterated yes.

"You're..." He shook his head, a slow, dazed movement, as if language itself was failing him. "Fucking beautiful is an insult. Gorgeous sounds cheap. Stunning feels… inadequate."

His eyes traveled over her again. Slower this time. Lingering on the details. "The way that silk falls against your skin like it was ashamed to be anywhere else. The way your hair catches the light, like liquid gold. The way you're just… standing there. Like you were fucking made to be worshipped."

Patricia's breath hitched. Her chest rose and fell, the silk dragging over her sensitive nipples.

"The curve of your neck," he continued, his voice dropping an octave. "Your collarbones, those perfect shadows. Your breasts in that silk—Christ, Patricia, I can see your nipples, and it's the most erotic thing I've ever seen in my life."

A sound escaped her, a helpless whimper she couldn't contain.

"Your stomach, flat and toned and begging to be kissed. Your hips in those shorts that barely even exist. The way the silk rides up, showing me these thighs that go on for-fucking-ever." His gaze found hers again, and the raw, naked need in his eyes almost made her come on the spot. "And your feet… so fucking delicate. Vulnerable."

He took a step forward.

And she ran.

Patricia closed the distance in three desperate strides, a wine-heated, need-driven instinct lunging forward. She threw herself at him, a reckless, total surrender of the control she had so carefully maintained for over two decades.

He caught her.

One arm banded around her waist, the other hooked under her thighs, and he lifted her. Not just held her, but spun her, lifted her completely off the ground like she weighed nothing, like she was something precious, something to be revered.

She wrapped her legs around his waist and buried her face in his neck, inhaling deeply.

His scent—clean, masculine, with a dark, spicy undertone that made her dizzy—overwhelmed her senses. She felt his body against hers, solid, warm, real. One of his hands splayed across her lower back, his fingers touching the bare skin where her camisole had ridden up.

The other gripped her thigh, his thumb pressing against the curve of her ass, a brand through the thin silk.

Safe. For the first time in years, she felt utterly, profoundly safe.

Eros groaned against her hair, his grip tightening. "Fuck, Patricia. I could feel how much you needed this from the fucking elevator. Your desire was radiating through the walls."

She couldn't respond. Just clung to him, her legs locked around his waist, her face pressed into his neck, breathing him in like he was the first clean air she'd had in a lifetime.

His hands tightened. "Do you know what you do to me? Just existing? Just being this fucking… perfect?"

He started moving. Not toward the bedroom. Not with any specific destination. He just started moving through the sprawling penthouse with her wrapped around him, carrying her with an effortless strength that made her feel both delicate and powerful. He spun her, slow and graceful, in the center of the living room.

A dancer with his prize. Her body pressed against his, her legs tight around his waist, his hands holding her secure. The world tilted and spun around them, but she felt more grounded than she had in her entire life.

"Do you know," he murmured against her temple, his lips a soft, searing brand, "how many men in this city would murder to hold you like this?"

Patricia made a sound, a muffled moan against his skin. She parted her lips, let her tongue dart out, and tasted him. Salt. Darker things. The taste made her pussy clench, and she ground against him, a slow, deliberate roll of her hips.

And she felt it.

Felt him getting hard against her. Felt his cock thickening and lengthening through his pants, pressing against the drenched silk of her shorts. The sheer, unyielding heat of him made her gasp.

"How many would give everything they own—their money, their status, their fucking souls —just to have you look at them the way you looked at me when I walked through that door?"

His words vibrated through her, a seismic event she felt in her chest, her stomach, her clit. He turned, still carrying her, and moved toward the windows. Each step made his cock press against her, made the silk pull and shift, a maddening, glorious friction that made her bite her lip hard enough to hurt.

He pressed her back against the cool, sprawling glass.

Patricia cried out, a sharp, explosive sound. The shocking cold against her nearly bare back, his searing body against her front, his iron-hard cockPressed right where she needed it—every nerve ending she owned exploded in a cascade of pure fire. Her legs loosened, feet touching the floor, but he kept her pinned, one hand on her waist, fingers splayed across her ribs, the other braced against the window beside her head.

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