Cassandra woke with the weighted awareness of being watched.
Not in a threatening way. More like the air in the room was tuned to a frequency only her body could hear — one that hummed across her skin, a low pull, as if someone's gaze had become gravity.
She blinked, consciousness weaving itself back together, and found Adrian leaning against the doorway of the bedroom, arms crossed, the early-morning light haloing him in gold.
He wasn't smiling, but something in his expression softened at the sight of her — something dangerous and warm and impossibly intimate.
"How long have you been standing there?" she asked, voice still sleep-rough.
"Long enough," he replied simply.
Her pulse tripped. There was no shame in the way he looked at her — openly, deliberately — like he was studying the contours of her face and committing them to memory. Like he had every right to look.
Which, technically, he did.
Wife.
The word still scraped across her thoughts like a spark waiting for fuel.
She pushed herself upright, tugging the sheet closer around her. "You know, most husbands would wake their wives up instead of staring like a Victorian ghost."
He tilted his head. "You're not most wives."
"And you're not exactly a standard husband."
"No," he said softly, the corner of his mouth lifting. "I'm very much not."
She couldn't decide if that reassured her or terrified her.
Maybe both.
He walked into the room with slow, unhurried steps that made her throat tighten. Adrian moved like someone who knew exactly what effect he had on a space — and on anyone watching him move.
Especially her.
He stopped at the edge of the bed. Not touching. Not even close enough for his clothes to brush hers.
Just close enough for her breath to catch.
"Cassandra," he said, voice low enough to vibrate under her ribs. "Last night… you asked me something."
She swallowed. The memory of their charged argument, their near-kiss, the way he'd pulled away because of his own iron control — it all flickered in her mind.
"I asked why you keep your distance," she murmured.
"No," he corrected gently, eyes dipping to her mouth before lifting again. "You asked what I want."
The room tightened around them.
Heat pooled low in her stomach, liquid and insistent.
"And?" she whispered.
His jaw flexed. "I'm trying very hard not to show you."
She hated how much she loved that answer.
"Why?" she breathed.
He exhaled slowly, as if steadying himself. "Because if I start… I won't be able to stop."
The admission hit her like a pulse of heat. Her fingers curled into the sheets. She felt the room spinning around a single truth — he wanted her. Badly. And he was hanging on by a thread.
She leaned forward.
"Then stop holding back," she whispered.
His eyes closed for one second — a single, tortured second — before he stepped back.
Not far. Just enough to make her ache.
"Cassandra," he said, voice like velvet wrapped around fire, "I told you before… I won't touch you until you ask. Clearly. In words. Not tension. Not longing. Not your heartbeat begging for me." His eyes opened, dark and molten. "Your voice."
Her breath shook. She wasn't used to wanting like this — wanting with her whole body, her whole mind, wanting in a way that felt like surrender and empowerment at the same time.
"And if I never ask?" she murmured.
He paused. Then he smiled — slow, devastating, confident. "Then I'll suffer for it."
A beat.
"But you'll suffer more."
Her stomach flipped, heat licking up her spine.
"Come downstairs," he said, turning toward the hallway. "Breakfast is ready."
"You made breakfast?" she asked, suspicion softening into reluctant amusement.
"No," he said. "I ordered breakfast. Let's not pretend I'm someone I'm not."
She rolled her eyes, but a smile tugged at her mouth anyway.
⸻
The dining room smelled like coffee, butter, and faint citrus — a combination she never knew could feel intimate.
Adrian sat across from her, sleeves rolled up, revealing forearms that should've been illegal at this hour. He ate quietly, but his eyes kept drifting to her — that same steady, consuming attention that made her shift in her seat.
At one point she lifted a strawberry to her mouth, and his gaze locked onto the movement like he was starving.
She let the fruit linger between her fingers, then pressed it between her lips slowly.
He inhaled sharply.
She smirked. Two can play this game.
Adrian set down his fork with precise control, but tension flickered in his jaw. "Are you trying to provoke me?"
"I don't know," she said innocently, licking a drop of juice from her thumb. "Is it working?"
His restraint cracked — not broken, but strained in a way that thrilled her.
"Cassandra," he warned.
"Adrian," she echoed sweetly.
His eyes darkened.
"If you keep testing my patience," he murmured, leaning forward, "I'm going to break my own rule."
"Is that a threat," she asked softly, "or a promise?"
"A reminder," he said. "That you're playing with fire."
"Good," she whispered. "I like the heat."
There.
A flicker of emotion in his eyes — desire, frustration, admiration, something he wasn't ready to name.
He pushed back from the table suddenly, walking around to her side. Her breath caught as he stopped behind her chair, close enough that she could feel warmth radiating from him.
His fingers didn't touch her.
But they hovered — inches from her shoulder, down her arm, following the line of her collarbone like a ghost tracing her skin.
Her whole body leaned toward him, instinctive, hungry.
"You want me to touch you," he murmured near her ear, "and you hate that you want it."
She swallowed. "You don't know what I want."
"Oh, Cassandra." His breath skimmed her neck. "I know exactly what you want."
Her throat tightened.
"And I could give it to you," he whispered, voice molten. "I could ruin every ounce of control you pretend to have."
Her knees wobbled under the table.
"But you're not ready to ask."
She hated him for being right.
She adored him for being right.
She burned for him because he was right.
"And what about you?" she whispered. "Are you ready?"
He exhaled a quiet laugh — dark, soft, devastating. "I've been ready since the moment you walked into my office."
A shiver rippled down her spine.
"But I won't touch you," he said again, pulling back just enough to make her gasp. "Not until you want me more than you want your pride."
The words hit her like a lightning strike.
Her breath shook.
He stepped around to face her, bending slightly so their eyes aligned.
"Look at me," he said.
She did.
And the world fell away.
"I don't want a wife in name only," he said quietly. "I want… this." He gestured between them. "The tension. The connection. The fire."
Her heart thudded.
"But I'm not going to take it," he said. "You'll come to me when you're ready."
"And if I never do?" she whispered.
"Then I'll wait," he said simply. "Even if it kills me."
Something tightened painfully, beautifully, in her chest.
Trust.
Fear.
Desire.
Possibility.
She stood abruptly, needing space she didn't truly want.
Adrian didn't move.
Her pulse throbbed in her throat, in her wrists, in the air between them.
"I need… some air," she said quietly.
"Take your time," he replied — not cold, not distant, just steady. Certain.
Like he already knew she'd come back.
She reached the doorway — and then stopped, because her body betrayed her, turning back to him as if drawn by gravity.
Adrian looked up.
And God help her… she felt it.
The pull.
The wanting.
The inevitability.
"Adrian," she whispered before she could stop herself.
He didn't move. Didn't speak. He just watched her with the kind of longing that melted her bones.
Her lips parted.
His breath hitched.
But she didn't say the words he waited for.
Not yet.
Instead, she whispered, "I hate how much I think about you."
His expression softened — painfully, beautifully.
"That's the beginning," he said.
She fled the room before she said something she couldn't undo.
And behind her, the air still pulsed with everything unsaid — the tension, the wanting, the inevitability.
The beginning of something neither of them could stop.