The CEO's Regret: Darling, Don’t Leave Me novel Chapter 64

CHAPTER 47 A KNOCK FROM REALITY

EMBER’S POV

I pant down at him, triumphant. “Ha.”

“I let you do that.”

“Sure you did.”

His grin is slow and wicked. “Want to know why I let you do that?”

“Because you’re a gentleman?”

“Because I like this view.” His eyes drag down my body-the shirt riding up my thighs, my chest heaving, my hair a disaster around my face. “Definitely worth losing on purpose for.”

“You’re such a liar.” But I’m grinning too, and my heart is racing, and everything feels bright and alive in a way I’ve never experienced before. “Admit it. I bested you.”

“You bested me,” he agrees solemnly. “The Lycan King, defeated by an omega in his own bed. The

scandal.”

“I’ll be merciful.” I lean down and kiss him, soft and sweet, a contrast to all the playful violence.

His hands settle on my waist, warm and possessive, and for a moment we just breathe together.

Foreheads touching. Hearts beating in the same rhythm.

“Payback,” I whisper against his lips.

Then I slide down his body with a wicked grin.

His groan when I wrap my hand around him is deeply satisfying.

He’s hard and thick and already leaking, and the knowledge that I did this to him-that all it takes is me in his shirt, laughing in his bed-makes me feel powerful in ways Nye never felt before.

ve

“Ember.” His voice is rough. Strained. “You don’t have to-”

r

“I want to.” I look up at him through my lashes, making sure he’s watching. “I want to make the Lycan King

beg.”

His pupils blow wide. “Fuck.”

“That’s the idea.”

I take my time with him. Kiss a trail down his abs, feel the muscles jump beneath my lips. Lick that sensitive line where his hip meets his thigh, hear his breath catch.

Nuzzle against the base of his c**k, let him feel my breath hot against his skin while he twitches with anticipation.

“You’re evil.” he grits out

“You love it.”

“I do. Fuck, I really do

17

When I finally take him in my mouth, his hand flies to the headboard and grips hard enough that I hear wood crack.

I work him slow and teasing, learning what makes him curse, what makes him groan, what makes his hips jerk despite his obvious effort to stay still.

I hollow my cheeks and take him deeper. Pull back to circle the head with my tongue Drag my nails lightly down his thighs and feel him shudder.

“Ember-” His voice is wrecked. “Baby, I’m going to-you need to-

I don’t stop. I speed up, working him with mouth and hand, feeling his thighs tense, feeling his whole body coil like a spring about to snap.

And when he comes with a sound that’s half my name and half a curse, I swallow everything he gives me and feel like a goddess doing it.

I crawl back up his body and collapse on his chest, both of us breathing hard, both of us grinning like

idiots.

“You’re going to destroy me,” he says to the ceiling. “Completely and utterly destroy me.”

“That’s the plan.” I press a kiss to his chest, right over his heart. “Any objections?”

“None whatsoever. Destroy away.”

We lie there longer than we should, tangled together, his fingers tracing lazy patterns on my spine while my ear presses against his heartbeat.

The morning light gets brighter. The world outside these walls keeps spinning. And I pretend, just for a few more minutes, that we can stay here forever.

r

It feels dangerous. Real. Like something I could get used to, which is the most terrifying thought of all.

The knock on the door startles us.

It is brisk and urgent. The kind that means whoever’s out there wouldn’t interrupt unless it was serious.

Knox goes rigid under me.

I feel the shift happen-feel the playful warmth drain out of him as something harder, colder slides into place. The Lycan King returning to his throne.

“Coming,” he calls, and his voice is already different.

He pulls on pants while I wrap myself in a robe, both of us moving with the efficiency of people who’ve been interrupted too many times.

25 Pints

The robe swallows me whole, falling to mid-thigh, and I probably look ridiculous but I’m too focused on the tension in Knox’s shoulders to care.

Nathaniel Reid is on the other side of the door, his expression tight with the kind of controlled urgency that makes my stomach drop.

“Council meeting in three hours,” he says by way of greeting, stepping past Knox without waiting for an

invitation. His eyes flick to me-sex-mussed hair, oversized tobe, obviously just-fucked glow-and he

doesn’t react beyond a slight raise of his eyebrow, “We need to talk strategy, and we need to talk it now.”

Knox closes the door. “What’s the situation?”

“Worse than we thought.” Nathaniel settles onto one of the leather couches and pulls out a tablet, swiping through documents with practiced efficiency. “Gale’s team has been busy. The charges they’re bringing are serious-violation of the marriage bond, abuse of power, conduct unbecoming a Lycan King. They’re going

for the throat.”

I sink onto the edge of another couch, pulling the robe tighter around myself. The playful warmth from minutes ago feels like it happened to different people.

“Walk me through the charges,” Knox says, moving toward the kitchen. “And the council composition.” “Elder James is presiding, which is bad news. He’s old guard, traditional values, very much a painn in the ass. Not sympathetic to anything that looks like rule-breaking, regardless of the circumstances.” Nathaniel accepts the coffee Knox hands him without pausing his briefing. “Elder Rothschild is more neutral-he’s the one who called you yesterday, so you know where he stands. Cautious but not hostile. Elder Catherine is the omega representative, which could work in our favor, but she’s unpredictable. She might sympathize with Ember’s situation or she might see this whole thing as an embarrassment to omega-kind. Hard to tell which way she’ll break.”

Knox presses a coffee cup into my hands. The gesture is so automatic, so thoughtful, that it makes my

chest ache.

“What’s Gale’s angle? His pack?” Knox asks.

“Total character assassination.” Nathaniel swipes to another document. “They’re painting you as a power-drunk lycan who used his position to steal another man’s mate. Ember gets cast as either a manipulative seductress or a confused omega who was coerced-they’ll probably play both angles depending on what’s more useful in the moment. Logan Reeves is backing them with money, connections, legal resources. Whatever they’re planning, they’ve got the firepower to make it hurt.”

I think about Logan’s offer from the Welcome Dinner. The way he slid that letter to me like it was a clear solution. How much lower can he go?

“If they win,” I say quietly, “what happens?”