Thursday Midnight — Leona's Apartment, Midtown Manhattan
Midnight draped the Manhattan skyline like velvet—dark, luxurious, and humming with secrets. In the tower's upper air, fifty-seven floors above a restless city, the world slowed.
Inside the bedroom, shadows and amber light curled against each other. The silk sheets were a whispered suggestion, not a cover. The air was fragrant—ginger, warm skin, soft perfume. Leona's scent lingered like a secret whispered too close.
Ethan lay still. Shirtless, breath even. But his thoughts circled like hawks.
Next to him, Leona moved.
Bare legs slid gently against his under the sheets. She hadn't put the towel back on—not since slipping beneath the covers earlier, not since their quiet, near-wordless decision to share a bed tonight. She hadn't needed to.
He felt her gaze before her voice.
"You're so composed," she murmured, her tone like warm wine. "But I can hear the noise behind your eyes."
Ethan turned just slightly. Her face was half-lit by the city's soft glow, her lips close, her breath sweetened by a trace of mint and wine. "You always want to read me like I'm some locked file," he said.
She smirked faintly, her finger grazing along his chest, tracing the sharp ridges of muscle. "No. I want to feel the parts of you you never log."
Her hand didn't retreat. It moved slowly, deliberately—dragging heat in its wake, not in search of pleasure, but power. A power she hadn't earned through dominance or games… but patience.
"I thought I was the one seducing people in boardrooms," she said, voice lower now. "But you... you don't even try."
"And that bothers you?"
"No," she whispered, leaning in, lips brushing the corner of his mouth. "It fascinates me."
Ethan didn't respond at first. But his fingers moved—lightly tracing the line from her shoulder to her lower back. She trembled, just slightly, as if being touched by something rare. "You're not used to wanting someone who doesn't fall apart for you."
"I'm not used to wanting someone," she corrected, softer now.
That stole the breath between them.
Their faces hovered close—warm, magnetic. Her body curled into his with a slow, reverent rhythm. She wasn't teasing. She wasn't pushing. She was... surrendering to presence.
Her lips met his again—longer this time. Hungrier, but not desperate. She melted into him with every slow inch, her chest pressed to his, skin burning where it touched. Ethan's arm wrapped around her waist—holding her firmly, but not possessively.
And when she whispered, "Sleep here tonight," it wasn't a question.
He didn't answer.
He simply stayed.
Her fingers traced circles on his stomach. Her thigh slid over his. And somewhere between silence and breath, their bodies locked—not in lustful frenzy, but in an intimacy rare enough to stun even Ethan's guarded heart.
He didn't touch her like a man taking.
He held her like a man choosing.
And she—naked, unhidden, and unafraid—let him.
---
Later, in the still of 2:40 a.m.
The silk sheets wrapped them like a ribbon binding opposites. Her head rested on his shoulder, one arm draped across his chest, fingers unconsciously gripping him like a dream she didn't want to wake from.
Ethan stared at the ceiling. Quiet. Fully awake.
A new asset had entered his life tonight—unmeasured, volatile, beautiful.
But it wasn't leverage.
It was Leona.
And maybe—just maybe—she wasn't a move.
Maybe she was a choice.