<h4>Chapter 46: Chapter 46: CAUGHT RED-HANDED</h4>


    <strong>IVAN’S POV</strong>


    The kiss was hungry. Painful. Perfect.


    I devoured her like a man starved, my tongue sliding deep into the honey of her mouth, my hands locked tight around her body.


    She gasped—startled—and, Goddess, I swallowed every bit of that sound like it was made just for me.


    I could taste her rage, her denial, her weakness, all of it reeling me deeper into the paradox that she was, drawing a feverish hunger from the depths of me.


    Goddess, I couldn’t stop even if I wanted to. I couldn’t listen to reason—that we were in a room anyone could walk into, that this was wrong, that she didn’t want this.


    None of it made it through the daze of primal desire bursting through me, through the heat curling in my abdomen and rushing straight to my cock.


    Mine. Maeve was mine.


    Her hands shoved at me once, weak, half-hearted, but I pinned her tighter. I wasn’t giving her space. Not when she was gasping for me. Not when she was this close.


    My tongue slid deeper into her mouth, tasting, sucking, dragging a groan out of my chest I couldn’t stop.


    She moaned—and fuck, it was delicious. A goddamn addictive sound, one that lit a fire in my insides, an unbridled desire to im her, to mark her, to hold her to myself forever.


    Maeve was a divine mix of sin and sweet pleasure—my undoing and my making in one person.


    When I finally tore my mouth from hers, I didn’t let her go.


    I pressed my forehead against hers, both of us panting, chests mming together like we’d gone ten rounds.


    For one brutal, fragile heartbeat, the world was quiet... so quiet that it was just her. Just me. Just this bloody bond between us.


    My voice came out small, desperate.


    "We don’t have to keep fighting each other. We don’t have to keep pretending. We could just... stop." My thumb stroked her jaw, my mouth so close to hers I could feel the feather of her breath. "I don’t care what happened in the past, just...e back to me, Maeve."


    Her lips parted, and for a second—Goddess, for a single devastating second—I thought she’d say yes.


    But she shook her head. Slow. Fragile. Like she hated herself for it. Like it was just as heartbreaking for her.


    "You can’t keep doing this, Ivan..." she whispered. "Kissing me, touching me, saying these things... I—I told you before. I have a mate now. I don’t want this with you."


    The words gutted me.


    "Then leave him," I rasped, my voice breaking at the edges. I cupped her cheek, desperate, aching, dragging her closer when she tried to turn away. "End it. Start over with me. Please. First dates. First kisses. First everything. Let us do it all over again. Let me know this version of you. Let me earn you back."


    Her eyes closed, her head bowing like my words hurt worse than a silver de.


    "I can’t," she whispered again, shaking. "I won’t. I don’t want to be that woman again." She swallowed hard. "I can’t forgive you, Ivan. I can’t forget. I hope you understand that it’s just not... possible. And my mate—he’s everything to me now. He’s the love of my life. I won’t betray him."


    Something snapped inside me.


    "Fuck him," I snarled, my hands locking on her hips, dragging her against the thick, aching length I’d been fighting since the second she walked back into my life. "Fuck him, for fuck’s sake. I don’t give a damn if he’s alive or dead or if he means the whole damn universe to you. Does he know what you look like when you moan my name? Does he know the sound you make when you’re about to beg for it? Does he know that right now, right here, you’re dripping for me?"


    Her breath hitched, eyes going wide.


    "Ivan—"


    I swallowed her protest with another kiss. But it was different this time. Slow. Tender. Fucking sweet.


    My lips brushed hers with fragile reverence, soft enough tomunicate the depth of my plea—the desperation tangled in the sweet tug of her bottom lip.


    I tasted her sigh, drank it down like poison.


    "Just for a moment," I whispered against her mouth, kissing down her cheek, along her jaw, to the soft curve of her throat.


    My hand slid lower, greedy, worshipful, memorizing her curves like I could brand them into me.


    "Let me have you for one more second. Let us pretend—for one more second—that it’s still us. Please."


    Her hands pressed against my chest, trembling, weak. Pathetic resistance. Not enough to stop me. Not enough to stop the bond that chained us both.


    I pinned her harder to the wall, my hips grinding against hers, drowning in the festering, consuming heat burning between us—fuck.


    The rigid length of my cock pressed into the soft heat of her core, and her gasp was the sweetest sound I’d ever heard.


    "Feel that?" I growled against her throat, my teeth grazing the ce where I used to mark her. "That’s what you do to me. Still. Always."


    Her body trembled under mine, betraying her even as she shook her head. Her pulse raced beneath my mouth as I kissed her neck, sucking just hard enough to make her whimper.


    "Fuck," I hissed, rutting harder, dragging the thick press of my arousal along her pussy until she squirmed. "You’re wet. I can feel it dripping down your thighs."


    Her nails dug into my shirt, half-push, half-clutch, and the delicious sound that spilled from her lips was the filthiest thing I’d ever heard.


    "You think he knows this side of you?" I rasped, my breath hot against her ear. "Does your precious mate know how easy youe undone when I grind you like this?" I rolled my hips again, slower this time, grinding her higher up the wall. "Does he know you choke on your own breath when I touch you?"


    "Ivan—" she gasped, but it was pathetic at best, a trembling mess of desire and resistance with no real bite left in it.


    "Shh," I hushed her, kissing her again, softer now, yearning and desperate. "Don’t say anything. Just let me... let me pretend. Just one more second."


    My hand slid up the inside of her thigh, forcing her legs wider until there was no space left to hide from me.


    When my thumb dragged through her slick heat, her whole body jolted, her lips parting on a cry I swallowed hungrily with my mouth.


    Fuck, she was soaked—just like I’d known she’d be.


    My fingers were coated in her juices, and I groaned into her kiss like I’d just stolen a glimpse of heaven.


    "Goddess, Maeve," I rasped, nearly undone myself at how wet she was, shamelessly aching to be inside this woman. "You can tell yourself you hate me all you want, but your body—your body aches to be fucked by me. Maybe right here. Maybe we should put your precious mate on a call, let him hear how well you take me—how fucking good I stretch you out, all the filthy, slutty sounds you make for another man."


    Her head tipped back against the wall, lips trembling, eyes ssy.


    Her resistance was there—weak—but the slow panting, the absence of another cutting word, and the way her legs lifted higher to give me better ess, wrapping around my waist, told me I had her exactly where I needed her.


    That I might’ve gotten away with it too if I’d mmed my length into her right there against that wall.


    And bastard that I was, I would’ve done it.


    I would’ve ruined herpletely, fucked her against the stone with not a single fucking care in the world, until she was screaming in my hands, desperate, begging, broken in the best way for me—


    If not for the violent m of the door.


    "NO!"


    Serena’s feral scream ripped through the air. She stood in the doorway, eyes wide, mascara streaking, staring at us like the sight alone had gutted her.


    In front of me, Maeve untangled her legs from around my waist with startling speed, shoving me back hard.


    Her thighs pressed together, as if she could erase the evident glistening wetness slicking down them. She wouldn’t meet my eyes.


    "Your shirt," she snapped, her voice detached, clipped—nothing like the moaning mess she’d been seconds ago.


    For a heartbeat, I almost yanked her back. Forced her to look at me the way she just had. But instead, I ripped off my shirt and shoved it into her hands.


    She slipped it on without another word and stormed out. Past Serena. Past me. Leaving her scent all over me. Leaving the taste of her on my tongue. Leaving me fucking ruined.


    I wanted to chase her. Drag her back in here and finish what we’d started, Serena be damned. The ache in my cock was enough to drive me insane.


    But the sound of Serena’s sobbing kept me rooted.


    She mmed the door shut behind Maeve, then turned on me, her face a grotesque mask of tears and rage.