Page 53 of Filthy Rich Silver Foxes

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I wake with my hand wrapped around my hard cock and her name on my tongue.

The sheets are damp. My breath is ragged. The pulse throbbing behind my eyes matches the one in my balls.

I drag my free hand down my face, then into my hair, gripping hard enough to ground myself. My other hand gives my cock a squeeze before I force myself to let go.

It’s leaking. Throbbing. The head is flushed, angry.

I could finish it. Wouldn’t take much—just a few strokes and a groan into the darkness. I could pretend it’s a release. Pretend it’s enough.

But I don’t deserve to come to the memory of her.

Not after what I did.

Every inch of me aches—from the restraint, from the memory, from the lie I’ve been feeding myself since I left that goddamn island.

That this is over.

That it meant nothing.

That I can forget her.

The image won’t leave me. Her mouth, soft and open beneath mine. Her thighs shaking under my hands. Her eyes when she came, wide and pleading, like I was giving her something no one else ever had.

And I was.

And now I’m pretending she doesn’t exist.

I sit up slowly, one hand braced on the edge of the mattress. My body is tight, heavy, strung so fucking tight it feels like my nerves are lined with wire.

She shouldn’t still be in my head. I cut the cord. I did what I always do—what works. I stepped back before the line blurred, before the complication became permanent.

But this time it wasn’t just lust. It wasn’t just control or curiosity or even the goddamn power trip of watching a woman come undone under me.

She got under my skin. Somehow.

And I walked away anyway.

The dream returns in fragments every time I close my eyes. It feels as though it's been branded on my eyelids. Her voice, breathy and broken as she begged for more. The way her hips arched up, greedy for it, greedy for me. The sound she made when I wrapped my hand around her throat and pressed inside of her, deep and deliberate until she shattered in my arms.

I see her on her knees, skin flushed and marked, blinking up at me like I’d hung the fucking stars.

Then she was beneath me again, thighs spread, her wrists pinned to the mattress as she writhed. No fear. Just hunger. Pure, desperate hunger.

I’d whispered her name against her jaw.

She whispered mine back. And then she said she was mine.

I reach for my phone out of habit. Thumb the screen to life. It’s past four a.m., but my inbox is already full. Proposals. Confirmations. One new inquiry from Heather Langley.

Jesus Christ.

You’d think that my early denials and continued silence would be clear enough. But apparently not. The last time I saw her, she made some comment about how she was always available for late-night brainstorming. Translation: hire me or fuck me. Either’s fine.

I didn’t respond then, and I won’t now.

I pull up Genevieve’s messages. Again. There’s a moment—just a breath—where I hover over the message thread, thumb poised to call. I imagine what she’d sound like if she picked up. Sleep-warm, a little cautious, hurt tucked behind her voice. I imagine saying her name. Just once. Soft.