“President Ethan, stop.” Grace Summers’s voice was faint and hollow.
Grace knew she ought to push him away--this was reckless, utterly unplanned.
Yet the moment she lifted her eyes, all her resolve crumbled into flustered chaos.
Above her loomed Ethan Hayes’s unparalleled good looks--the man who dominated every employee’s secret crush list, the elusive dream groom of every female staff at Sterling Enterprise.
Sharp, sculpted brows framed his deep icy blue eyes, clouded with a faint, drugged haze. His chiseled jaw bore the cold poise of a born tycoon.
Grace’s heart raced and her gaze locked on his face. She could look away, but she simply could not.
Every inch of her was hyper-aware of him, lured and spellbound.
Yet she still hesitated a little at the blurring line between boss and subordinate.
Suddenly, the intimate distance vanished. A deep, possessive kiss fell.
Her body betrayed her. She stopped fighting entirely--arms slackening, spine sinking into the sheets, defiance melting into compliance. Vision blurred as her glasses skittered away into the dark.
Ethan’s eyes, glazed with the drug’s potent haze, locked onto hers. He had no clue who she was--only that the feel of her unraveled the last thread of his control.
He moved like he owned the shape of her, each drive of his hips deliberate, heavy, dragging a sound from her throat she barely recognized.
“Feel me,” he growled, low and rough.
“You feel that? How deep I am?”
She couldn’t form words. Only a choked sound escaped as her fingers twisted in the damp strands of his hair.
Her legs hooked higher around his hips, heels digging into the tense muscle of his lower back, pulling him impossibly closer, until there was no space left between them.
“More,” she managed, voice splintered, raw. “Don’t--don’t hold back.”
He laughed once, dark and breathless, catching her mouth in a kiss that wasn’t soft.
“Wasn’t planning to,” he muttered against her lips--and proved it.
...
*****
Everything that had just unfolded traced back to half an hour earlier.
It was the holiday rush at Sterling Enterprise’s five-star hotel.
Working overtime as the on-duty guest room manager, Grace was wrapping up her final inspection on the tenth floor when she rounded the corridor corner and spotted Ethan’s assistant struggling to hold up a clearly unwell Ethan Hayes.
Ethan hung half-conscious, his face burning an unnatural flush, breath coming in ragged gasps. He staggered unsteadily, slurring soft, muddled ramblings that made no sense at all.
The assistant’s face was etched with urgent worry. His eyes locked with Grace’s as he spoke hurriedly.
“Ma’am, could you stay and watch over President Ethan for a moment? There’s an unexpected emergency with the banquet downstairs I have to rush to deal with right away, and there aren’t any other staff on this floor to cover.”
Grace frowned slightly, glancing at the delirious man leaning heavily on the assistant. “Is his condition serious?”
“He got dizzy and overheated halfway through the toasts,” the assistant rushed to explain. “I’m just about to get him settled in his presidential suite. I’ll only be gone a short while—please keep an eye on him till I return.”
Grace nodded gently. “As the floor manager on duty, it’s my job. Go resolve your emergency at once, I’ll look after him here.”
After the assistant hurried away, Grace escorted a dazed, unrested Ethan into the presidential suite alone.
It was inside this isolated, luxurious suite that his drug-induced frenzy finally flared out of control, spiraling into the heated, irreversible moment they had just shared.
*****
At five o’clock in the early morning, Grace slowly opened her eyes.
The room was dim and quiet. The man beside her was still asleep, his breathing steady now.
Both of them were bare, the messy sheets silently testifying to the night’s feverish chaos.
Grace sat up calmly and she knew exactly what had happened.
She had not been coerced completely--she had resisted rationally, yet surrendered to her own hidden desire halfway.
“It was an accident, a mutual impulsive mistake, not a loss.” She murmured quietly to herself.
She scanned the room thoroughly and realized her glasses were missing, presumably fallen somewhere in the suite during the night’s chaos.
With no time to search carefully, she chose to leave them for the time being.
Grace tidied her clothes, walked to the desk, and tore a sheet from the hotel’s monogrammed notepad.
She wrote, her script crisp and detached:
[Mr. Hayes,
10:40 PM: Assigned to night watch
Rm 1001
.
10:45 PM: Assistant summoned away for banquet emergency; I stepped in to oversee your condition alone.
10:50 PM: Your condition unstable
elevated temp, disorientation
.
11:15 PM: Physical altercation occurred.
This was an accident. No obligations, no debts.
G.S.
Room Manager]
She placed the note on the nightstand, and exited the presidential suite calmly and gracefully.
After returning home, she sorted through the night’s events briefly in her mind, brushed off the chaotic episode as an work-related mishap, and fell asleep peacefully.
She had walked away easy, oblivious to how everything would shift when Ethan roused an hour from now.