EPISODE 10- He Can't Have You
(Ethan's POV)
The shrill ringtone died as I swiped to answer, leaving only the sound of my own blood roaring in my ears. Layla was motionless on the bed behind me, a pale shape in the tangle of black sheets.
"Father." The word tasted like ash.
"Ethan." Gregory Marshall's voice was a perfectly modulated baritone, devoid of heat. It was the voice he used in boardrooms right before he dismantled an opponent. "I trust you enjoyed your evening at The Beacon."
Every muscle in my body locked. He knows. He's seen it. The silence stretched, heavy with his disapproval. I could picture him in his study, the glass of bourbon untouched on his desk, his gaze fixed on some distant point as he calculated the damage.
"It was… a miscalculation," I said, forcing my voice to stay even. My mind raced. Denial was useless. Explanation was weakness.
"A miscalculation." He let the word hang. "The video has been viewed over eighty thousand times. It's been picked up by a campus gossip blog with ties to the Avalon Chronicle. Your 'miscalculation' has traction, Ethan."
A cold sweat broke out on the back of my neck. Eighty thousand. I'd thought it was a few thousand kids. This was bigger.
"Marcus is handling it," I said, the name sounding hollow. "It'll be scrubbed."
"Marcus is a blunt instrument. He suppresses symptoms. I deal in causes." A pause, the kind he used to let his words sink in. "Who is she?"
The question was a trap. To name her was to mark her. To not name her was an act of defiance he'd dissect. My eyes flicked to Layla. She'd pulled the sheet to her chin, her eyes wide and fixed on me. Mine.
"A girl from school," I said, deliberately vague. "It doesn't matter."
"It matters a great deal if she's the reason my son is trending on social media for behaving like a common fraternity brute. Your image is not your own, Ethan. It is an asset of this family. Of the empire you are expected to steward." His tone shifted, a fraction colder. "This ends. Now. You will be seen in public this week with Veronica Thorne. The dean's daughter. It will provide a suitable… counter-narrative."
Veronica. Plastic smile, empty conversation, a pedigree as polished and cold as marble. A prop.
"I understand," I heard myself say. The obedient son. The lie tasted bitter.
"Good. I've arranged for a car to collect you tomorrow at ten. We'll have lunch. We will discuss your focus. Or lack thereof." The line went dead.
I lowered the phone. The silence in the room was absolute, broken only by the frantic pounding of my heart. The afterglow of sex was gone, replaced by a familiar, icy cage settling around me. I could still feel Layla's warmth on my skin, the echo of her climax clenching around me. It felt like a dream already slipping away.
"Ethan?"
Her voice was soft, tentative. I turned. She was sitting up now, the sheet pooling in her lap, her dark hair a messy cascade over her bare shoulders. She looked utterly ravished. And utterly mine. The sight of her, here, in this house my father's money bought, was a rebellion in itself.
The fear in my gut twisted, mutated. Into something darker. More desperate. I couldn't control the video. I couldn't control my father. But I could control this. I could lose myself in her. I could make us both forget.
I didn't speak. I just looked at her, letting her see the storm in my eyes—the fear, the anger, the possessiveness that was now the only thing holding me together.
She read it. Her breath hitched.
I crossed the room in three strides. I didn't kiss her. I gripped her chin, tilting her face up to mine. "He knows," I said, the words gritty. "He saw."
Her lips parted. "What does he want?"
"He wants it to go away. He wants you to go away." My thumb stroked her lower lip. "But you're not going anywhere."
It wasn't a question. It was a decree. For me as much as for her.
I released her chin and my hands went to the sheet, yanking it from her grasp. It whispered to the floor. She was naked, exposed, beautiful. I drank in the sight—the gentle curve of her waist, the dark thatch of hair at the junction of her thighs, the soft swell of her breasts still marked faintly from my mouth.
"On your knees," I said, my voice low and rough. "At the edge of the bed."
A flicker of uncertainty in her eyes, then a slow, dawning heat. She understood. This wasn't about tenderness. It was about reclamation. About defiance. She moved, turning gracefully and sliding to her knees on the floor, her forearms resting on the mattress, her back arched, presenting herself to me.
God. The view was breathtaking. The elegant line of her spine, the perfect, lush curves of her ass. I was already painfully hard again. I stepped out of my discarded boxers and came up behind her, my hands smoothing over the cool skin of her back, down to grip her hips. My cock nestled against the cleft of her ass, and she shivered, pushing back against me.
"Tell me you want this," I growled, leaning over her, my mouth close to her ear.
"I want it," she breathed, her voice trembling with need. "I want you."
That was all I needed. I reached between her legs, finding her already slick and swollen. My fingers slipped through her folds, gathering her wetness, stroking her clit in a few quick, rough circles that made her gasp and push her hips back. Then I guided myself to her entrance.
I didn't tease. I pushed in. One deep, relentless thrust that buried me to the hilt in her tight, welcoming heat.
We both cried out. Her head dropped between her shoulders, a low moan vibrating through her. The angle was deep, perfect. I held there for a moment, savoring the feeling of being sheathed inside her, of being connected in the most primal way possible. This was real. This was mine.
Then I began to move.
My thrusts were hard, measured, each one a deliberate punctuation. My hands held her hips firmly, controlling the rhythm, pulling her back onto me as I drove forward. The slap of skin against skin filled the sterile room. Her moans became a continuous, pleading soundtrack.
"Yes… Ethan… just like that…"
I leaned over her, my chest pressing against her back, my mouth finding the sensitive skin of her shoulder. I bit down, not hard enough to break the skin, but enough to make her yelp and clench around me. The sensation was electric. "You feel that?" I rasped in her ear. "That's me. That's where you belong. No matter what he says. No matter what anyone sees."
"I know," she sobbed, her body beginning to tremble. "I know, I know…"
I could feel her tightening, the first flutters of her climax beginning to build around my cock. It spurred me on. I straightened, changing my angle, driving into her with even more force. One hand slid around her hip, my fingers finding her clit. I rubbed hard, in tight circles, in time with my thrusts.
"Come for me," I commanded, my own release coiling tight in my gut. "Now, Layla. Let go."
Her orgasm hit her like a tidal wave. She screamed, a raw, unfiltered sound of pure pleasure, her body bowing as she convulsed around me. The intense, rhythmic squeezing was my undoing. With a guttural groan, I slammed into her one final time and let go, my own climax erupting in hot, pulsing waves as I emptied myself deep inside her.
For a long moment, we stayed like that, joined, trembling, our harsh breaths the only sound. The world, with its videos and its fathers and its expectations, was locked outside.
Slowly, I pulled out. She slumped forward onto the bed, spent. I sank to my knees behind her, my arms wrapping around her waist, my forehead resting against the small of her back. I felt her heartbeat slowing against my cheek.
The silence was broken by my phone buzzing again on the floor. A text. I ignored it, holding her tighter.
"He can't have this," I whispered into her skin, the words a vow. "He can't have you."
She shifted, turning her head to look back at me, her eyes soft and sated. "Then don't let him."
Another buzz. Then another. The outside world was knocking, hard. I knew what it was. Marcus. Updates. My father's people. The "counter-narrative."
I pressed a kiss to the base of her spine. "We should get you back to campus," I said, my voice already shifting back into the cool, controlled register I used as armor. "Before it gets late."
It was a lie. It was already late. For everything.
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