Chapter 184: More of him

NOAH

The transition from the backseat of the car to the interior of Cassian’s penthouse was a blur of friction and heat.

We hadn’t even made it past the foyer before the door clicked shut with a heavy, final thud, and then Cassian was on me.

There was no preamble, no polite transition from “boss” to “lover.” He pinned me against the cool wood of the door, his hands tangling in my hair, his mouth crashing against mine with a hunger that felt like it had been building since the moment he stepped into that karaoke bar.

It was Intense, the kind of kiss that makes your toes curl and your brain short-circuit. I was lost in it, my hands clutching the lapels of his charcoal coat, pulling him closer, wanting the solid weight of him to crush the last of my breath away. We were heading toward the bedroom, or the floor, or the nearest flat surface, I didn’t care, until the silence was shattered.

His phone.

It wasn’t a subtle vibrate. It was a loud, insistent ringtone that cut through the haze like an ice pick.

We both froze. I could feel the tension in Cassian’s jaw, the sharp intake of his breath against my lips. He didn’t move for a second, clearly debating whether to ignore it, but the persistence of the caller suggested otherwise.

He pulled away, his chest heaving. He reached into his pocket and checked the screen. His expression shifted instantly, the heat died down, replaced by that impenetrable executive mask.

“I have to take this,” he said. His tone left no room for argument. It wasn’t an apology; it was a statement of necessity.

“Okay,” I managed to say, my voice sounding breathy and pathetic even to my own ears. I tried to hide the sharp sting of disappointment, turning away to adjust my shirt.

Cassian was already walking toward the floor-to-ceiling windows, the phone pressed to his ear. His voice dropped into that low, clipped business tone, discussing quarterly projections or acquisition risks as if he hadn’t just been trying to devour me seconds prior.

I stood there in the middle of his vast, expensive living room, feeling ridiculous. I was still aroused, my heart was still hammering against my ribs, and I was thoroughly confused.

The whiplash of being his focus one moment and an afterthought the next was starting to give me a headache.

“Shower,” I muttered to the empty air. “I’ll just… shower.”

I needed to clear my head. I needed to wash the scent of that bar, and the scent of him, off my skin. It was two birds with one stone: a physical reset and a mental escape.

The bathroom was a temple of marble and chrome, larger than my entire kitchen back at my apartment. I stripped off my rumpled clothes and stepped under the rainfall showerhead, cranking the handle until the water was borderline scalding.

Steam began to fill the room, thick and white, obscuring the mirrors and the expensive toiletries. I leaned my forehead against the cool, dark tiles, letting the spray pour over my shoulders. The heat was punishing, but I welcomed it. I needed something to distract me from the recursive loop of my own thoughts.

I couldn’t stop thinking about what he had said in the car.

“I think I just want you to tell me yourself.”

I replayed the sentence over and over, dissecting the inflection, the weight of his voice, the way he had looked, vulnerable for a terrifying half-second. It had felt like a confession. It had felt like he was finally looking at me as something other than a contract or a curiosity.

But the denial that followed had been just as sharp. When I’d asked “What?” with my heart in my throat, the shutters had slammed shut.

“Nothing. Forget it.”

He’d been too dismissive. Too quick. The rest of the drive had been an agonizing stretch of silence, with me pretending I didn’t care while my mind raced a hundred miles an hour. I’d looked away, staring at the neon lights of the street, playing the part of the casual, unbothered assistant.

The truth was, I cared. I cared so much it felt like a physical ache in my chest. What did he mean? Was he actually interested in me, the person who likes bad TV and gets stressed over to-do lists, or was it just another layer of the game?

I squeezed my eyes shut, and even through the hot water, I felt the familiar, treacherous crawl of a blush rising up my neck. I was alone in a shower, and I was blushing because of a sentence a man had retracted an hour ago. It was pathetic.

The feeling in my gut was changing. For weeks, it had been a knot of anxiety, a flutter of nerves whenever his name appeared on my phone. But now, it was a slow, spreading warmth that felt much more dangerous.

It was a twist of recognition. I was beginning to realize that Cassian Wolfe was becoming more than just a boss. He was becoming more than the man I was sleeping with to satisfy some strange, unspoken agreement.

There was a greed growing in me, a dark, insistent hunger that surfaced every time we were together. I didn’t just want the sex anymore. I wanted the moments in between. I wanted the way he looked at me when he thought I wasn’t watching. I wanted the dry wit and the possessive touches. I wanted more of him.

And that was the scary part. In the safety of the steam, where no one could see the terror on my face, I had to ask the question I’d been avoiding.

Am I falling for him?

“Fuck,” I whispered, the sound lost to the roar of the water.

I leaned my weight against the tile, my forehead pressing harder against the stone. What was I doing?

He was Cassian Wolfe. He was a titan of industry, a man who viewed the world as a series of transactions

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