Emilia leaned her entire body weight against the cold wall outside the penthouse door. Her chest rose and fell in erratic, shallow jerks, each breath a ragged, desperate gasp. Her vision doubled, the dark hallway splitting into two wavering images. Black spots danced at the edges of her sight. She weakly lifted her trembling hand and pressed the doorbell.
Inside, the chime echoed through the silent apartment. Clifton, who was still standing by the window holding her worn shoe, whipped around, his heart lurching.
He crossed the living room in long, urgent strides, nearly knocking over a side table. He grabbed the handle and yanked the heavy door open with enough force to send a gust of air rushing past him.
The moment the door cleared, Emilia's legs completely gave out beneath her. She pitched forward, falling like a broken marionette with its strings cut, directly toward the hard marble floor.
Clifton dropped the shoe. He threw his arms out and caught her solid against his chest, her body slamming into his with enough force to make him grunt.
Emilia crashed into his hard, warm body. The scent of cedar and tobacco enveloped her like a dark blanket. Her blood sugar had plummeted so severely that the logical, reasoning part of her brain simply shut down. Instinct took over—animal instinct, survival instinct. Her hands flew up, her cold fingers gripping the front of his silk shirt with desperate, bone-white strength.
Clifton felt the unnatural, burning heat radiating through her thin tank top, searing against his chest. Her breath hitched against his collarbone in shallow, rapid puffs. His medical training kicked in instantly, overriding everything else.
He looked down. Emilia's face was flushed a deep, unnatural crimson, her cheeks blazing with fever. Her eyes were glazed over, unfocused, the pupils blown wide. Her lips were cracked and bleeding, a thin line of red tracing down her chin.
"What kind of pills did they give you?" he demanded, his voice thick with a raw panic he didn't know he possessed, didn't recognize in himself.
Emilia couldn't answer. She was slipping into a semi-conscious haze, the world dissolving into heat and sensation. The cheap black-market hormones—designed to hyper-stimulate ovulation—mixed with her physical exhaustion and starvation, had ignited a violent, uncontrollable fever in her blood.
The drug didn't just make her dizzy. It flooded her nervous system with an intense, burning, physical need that consumed everything else.
She whimpered, twisting uncomfortably in his arms, her body writhing against his. She tried to push the thin straps of her tank top off her shoulders, her skin burning up from the inside.
Clifton's breathing turned ragged. His chest heaved against hers. He grabbed her wandering, feverish hands and pinned them against his chest, his grip iron. "Stop moving," he ordered harshly, his voice a rough growl.
But Emilia was completely gone, lost in the chemical fire. She tilted her head back, looking up at his blurred, impossibly handsome face, her eyes dark and unseeing.
Driven entirely by the drug blazing through her veins, she pushed up on her toes, her body pressing flush against his. She pressed her cracked, dry lips clumsily against his jaw, her breath hot and uneven.
The sudden, soft, desperate touch was a spark hitting a pool of gasoline. The frustration, the guilt, the dark, suppressed desire Clifton had been fighting all night—all of it exploded at once.
His hand, which he had been about to use to push her away, froze in mid-air. His dark eyes turned pitch black, a violent storm raging in his pupils.
Emilia wasn't satisfied with his jaw. Her hands slid up his chest, trembling, wrapping around the back of his neck. She blindly searched for his mouth and pressed her lips to his—soft, clumsy, and utterly devastating.
The last thread of Clifton's control snapped with an almost audible crack.
He took over. His large hand slammed into the back of her head, his fingers tangling in her sweat-damp hair. He crushed his mouth against hers, kissing her with a brutal, punishing hunger that bordered on violence.
He kicked the front door shut with his heel, the heavy wood slamming into the frame. He walked her backward, pinning her spine against the cold wall of the entryway, his body caging hers, stealing the air right out of her lungs.
Emilia let out a soft, breathless gasp and instantly melted into his aggressive assault, her body going pliant against his.
Clifton slid his arm under her knees and lifted her off the ground as if she weighed nothing at all. He carried her through the dark apartment, his long strides eating up the distance to the bedroom.
He dropped her onto the massive black bed. She bounced once on the soft mattress, her hair fanning out around her head like spilled ink. He followed her down, his hands violently ripping his silk tie from his neck, the fabric hissing.
The darkness swallowed her fear. The drugs erased her logic. There was only the heat of his skin and the desperate, primal need to feel something other than pain.
The room filled with the sound of heavy breathing and clothes hitting the floor. The temperature skyrocketed, the air thick and stifling.
Hovering over her, his control completely and utterly shattered, Clifton ground out in a rough, gravelly whisper against her ear, "You asked for this."
Emilia closed her eyes. A single, silent tear slipped down her flushed cheek, disappearing into her tangled hair, as she pulled him down and fell completely into the dark.
