Burning in Madness Chapter 08
In the dim office, Arthur’s knee wedged unforgivingly between my thighs. The possessiveness swirling in his dark eyes was terrifying.
“Answer me, Chloe,” he demanded, locking onto my gaze. “Tell me I’m not the only one losing my mind.”
Before I could even speak, he shredded the saintly mask he’d worn for a year.
With a violent sweep of his arm, expensive pens and stacks of files crashed off the walnut desk. He pinned me to the cold wood, his silk tie tangling in my fingertips.
“Arthur… there are people right outside,” I gasped, my hands pressing weakly against his hard, racing chest.
“Let them listen.”
Like a starved hound, he buried his face in my neck, inhaling my scent as if drawing breath straight from my lungs. His raspy voice bled a year’s worth of repressed obsession.
“I’ve spent every waking moment of this past year going insane, imagining bending you over this exact desk. You struck the match, Chloe. Don’t expect me to let you walk away from the fire.”
He seized the lapels of my button–down and ripped. Buttons burst, clattering across the hardwood.
There was no gentle prelude.
His bandaged hand clamped around my waist like a vice, and
with one brutal thrust, he claimed me to the hilt.
A sharp gasp tore from my throat, tears stinging my eyes as my neck arched back. My nails dug savagely into his spine.
It was a claiming so deep and ruthless it felt like he was trying
to devour me whole.
“Does it hurt?” Bloodshot eyes locked onto mine. Sweat slicked down his jaw and splashed onto collarbone.
my
He rasped the question, yet his hips launched into a fiercer, punishing rhythm. “Take it. You provoked me, Chloe. Now you‘ re never walking away clean.”
His hand cradled my head as his mouth crashed down,
swallowing my broken moans in a brutal kiss. That tearing ache was swiftly eclipsed by a mind–numbing tide of pleasure.
He was thrashing on the edge of losing control, yet in the same breath, offering me absolute indulgence.
“I never planned to…” I wrapped my legs tightly around his waist, meeting his relentless thrusts.
Catching his earlobe between my teeth, I breathed out a taunt. Harder, Arthur. Show me how badly Wall Street’s favorite
tyrant wants me.”
That was the spark hitting the powder keg.
A feral growl ripped from his throat. The heavy desk groaned beneath us, highly classified documents crushed under our
sweat–slicked bodies.
“Want you? I’m losing my fucking mind!” He flipped me over, pinning me face–down against the desk in a display of pure
dominance as he took me from behind.
It was a primal, naked mutual possession.
He ground against my most sensitive nerves until I screamed his name.
Right as the pleasure crested its peak, he pressed his face tight
against my temple. His voice, shattered and tender, trembled against my skin:
“Mine… You are mine.”
As a blinding climax shattered my sanity, the ruthless predator held nothing back, pouring a year’s worth of dark, buried
desires deep inside me.
By three in the afternoon, the heavy scent of sex and sweat finally settled.
I lay languidly against his chest, draped in his tailored suit
jacket.
Arthur’s carnivorous ferocity had faded. Resting his chin on my head, his hand–marked with old bruises and fresh scratches- stroked my hair with devotion.
“So,” I mused, tracing the ‘C‘ tattooed on his chest. “You first noticed me at that Paris gala?”
“No.” His arm tightened, pressing a heavy kiss to my forehead. ” It was when you were sixteen. Your runway debut.”
My head snapped up.
Sixteen?
Back then, I was a struggling rookie scraping by for fifteen seconds of stage time. He was already the terrifying leader of the Rothwell empire.
“You were so radiant,” he murmured, a dangerous undercurrent in his eyes. “But I couldn’t touch you. You were too young, my world too filthy. I had to play the voyeur in the shadows- buying your endorsements, funding your agency, just to watch you grow up.”
I froze. The top–tier agency that made my career… was his?
“But…” The question burst out. “If you wanted me that early, how could you watch me get engaged to Liam three years ago?”
With his terrifying possessiveness, it made no sense.
Then came Liam’s Vegas sex scandal on the eve of our engagement, his bizarre disappearance, and Arthur stepping in as the “substitute groom” to save the family stock.
It was all too coincidental.
At Liam’s name, Arthur’s hand stilled. The lingering warmth vanished, replaced instantly by the cold–blooded shark of Wall Street.
“I was going to endure it. As his fiancée, you’d still be in my territory,” he admitted, his grip turning bruising.
“But at the banquet, I saw him corner you in the hallway. He tried to force a kiss, and I saw the sheer disgust on your face.” His gaze turned colder than ice. “In that second, my moral boundaries went out the window. That useless piece of shit didn‘
t deserve to touch you. No one does. Except me.”
My breath hitched as insanity crashed over me. “The Vegas scandal… his disappearance…”
Arthur didn’t deny it. He brushed his lips against my ear, whispering with twisted delight.
“I had my men spike his drink. I sent those escorts to his penthouse. I severed his offshore funds, revoked his passport, and had him dumped naked on an off–grid island in Bermuda.”
With every word, my heart hammered against my ribs.
“He didn’t run away, Chloe. I orchestrated his ruin.” Arthur drank in my trembling, his tone a chilling mix of madness and devotion.
“It was all premeditated so I could walk toward you in broad daylight. I plotted against my own nephew, manipulated the conglomerate’s stocks–all to engineer a dead end where only I could play the savior.”
He stared into my eyes, zero remorse in his bloodshot gaze. Only suffocating hunger.
“Now you know. Your husband is a ruthless monster who will stop at absolutely nothing to have you.” His muscles coiled visibly. “Do you still want me?”
Dead silence.
Two seconds passed. Then, a brazen laugh burst from my chest.
I laughed so hard tears pricked my eyes. Staring at this unparalleled lunatic–a man who gambled his bloodline and empire just to steal his bride–a year’s worth of suppressed heartache evaporated.
“Not want you?”
Like a predator locking onto prey, I straddled his lap, fiercely
cupping his stunned face. A wilder, brighter gleam ignited in my own eyes.
“Arthur Rothwell, you really are the most glorious fucking psycho.”
Without hesitation, I bit down hard on his bottom lip. Tasting blood, I claimed my absolute sovereignty over him.
“Tearing down your own family just to steal me… Knowing you used all those dark manipulations just for me?” I smiled against his mouth. “It’s a fucking turn–on.”
In this shadowy cage of power, there were no victims. Only the perfect collision of two twisted souls.
From this day forward, Wall Street’s merciless predator was officially a wild hound, collared and answering only to me.