Two Little Secrets From My Boss

Chapter 137

Xander’s POV

The house settles into silence like a held breath.

I stand in the doorway of the twins' bedroom, watching my daughters sleep. The hallway light casts a soft glow across their beds—enough to see by, not enough to disturb.

The party decorations have been cleared away, the guests have departed, and the elaborate castle cake has been reduced to crumbs and memories. What remains is this: two small bodies, breathing softly in the darkness.

Nina sprawls across her mattress, limbs thrown wide, claiming space even in dreams.

Her blanket has been kicked to the floor—she runs hot, always has—and her new telescope sits on the nightstand beside her, close enough to touch.

Even in sleep, she takes up room, demands attention, and makes herself impossible to ignore.

Lisa curls tight beneath her blanket, a small comma of a child, one hand tucked under her cheek. Her lips move silently—counting, perhaps, even now.

Her journal rests on her pillow, the colored pencils arranged in precise order on her nightstand. She's already filled three pages with patterns I don't fully understand but recognize as beautiful.

My daughters, my blood, my heart, walking around outside my body in two small, vulnerable forms.

Daphne appears beside me, her shoulder brushes mine as she settles into the doorframe, her presence warm and familiar.

Neither of us speaks. Words feel inadequate for this moment—this quiet vigil over sleeping children, this shared guardianship of something precious.

The gratitude is almost unbearable.

It rises in my chest like a tide—so sharp it cuts, so vast it drowns. These two small lives, breathing softly in the darkness, are everything.

Everything I almost never had. Everything I came within inches of losing before I even knew it existed.

Five years. They lived for five years without me knowing their names. First steps, first words, first everything—all of it happening in a world I wasn't part of, because I didn't know, because I gave Daphne a fake name and walked away from the best thing that ever happened to me.

I could have missed this entirely, could have gone my whole life without standing in this doorway, watching my daughters dream. The thought is a blade pressed against my throat.

Fear coils beneath gratitude.

The notes, the watching eyes, the threat is still lurking beyond these walls, patient and hungry.

Robert's assessments echo in my mind—former associates, debts believed owed, a network that didn't collapse when Gerald went to prison.

Someone out there knows about my daughters. Someone wants to use them as leverage, as weapons, as tools to hurt me.

I can build fortresses, hire armies, burn empires to ash. And still I cannot guarantee their safety. The powerlessness tastes like poison on my tongue.

"Stop." Daphne's voice is soft but firm. "I can hear you spiraling."

"I'm not spiraling."

"You're clenching your jaw so hard I'm surprised your teeth haven't cracked." Her hand finds mine in the darkness.

Her fingers intertwine with my own, warm and steady. "We did good today. Let yourself feel that."

"I'm trying."

"Try harder." She squeezes. "They're safe, happy. They had a birthday party with grandparents and cake and presents that actually meant something. That's a victory, Xander. Let it be a victory."

I turn to look at her.

The woman who gave me these children. Who kept them safe alone for five years—not because she wanted to, but because she had to.

Who chose me despite every reason not to, despite the lies and the complications and the impossible circumstances that brought us together.

Who stands beside me now, fierce and tender and completely mine.

Something breaks open in my chest.

"Daphne." Her name comes out rough, urgent.

"I know." She's already turning toward me, her eyes dark with understanding. "I know."

I pull her from the doorway. Down the hall, into our bedroom. The door barely closes before my mouth finds hers.

The kiss is not gentle. It is claiming, desperate, incendiary—five years of almost-loss transformed into possession.

Her back hits the wall, and she gasps against my lips, her hands fisting in my shirt, pulling me closer. I pin her there with my hips, letting her feel exactly what she does to me, and the sound she makes—half moan, half whimper—goes straight to my blood.

"Xander—"

"I need you." The confession tears from somewhere deep. "I need you so much it terrifies me."

"Then have me." Her voice is breathless, demanding. Her fingers work the buttons of my shirt with frantic urgency. "Stop thinking and have me."

I don't need to be told twice.

My hands find the hem of her dress, dragging it up her thighs, bunching the fabric at her waist. She's warm beneath my palms—so warm—and when my fingers brush the edge of her underwear, she shudders against me.

"Off," she demands, yanking my shirt from my shoulders. "I want to feel you."

I pull back just long enough to strip her completely—dress over her head, bra unclasped and discarded, underwear sliding down her legs until she's bare against the wall. The sight of her steals the air from my lungs. Five years of this woman, and she still devastates me.

"Beautiful." I trace the curve of her breast, watching her nipple tighten under my touch. "So goddamn beautiful."

"Less talking." She reaches for my belt, unbuckling it with hands that tremble slightly. "More doing."

I let her push my pants down, let her wrap her fingers around me, and the groan that escapes my throat is almost feral. She strokes once, twice, her thumb sliding through the moisture already gathering at the tip, and my control splinters.

I lift her against the wall. Her legs wrap around my waist immediately, heels digging into my back, her heat pressed against me with nothing between us.

"Now," she breathes. "Xander, please…"

I slide into her in one long thrust.

We both freeze, overwhelmed. She's so tight, so wet, so impossibly perfect that I have to grit my teeth against the urge to move too fast.

Her head falls back against the wall, exposing the long line of her throat, and I can't resist—I press my mouth there, tasting the salt of her skin, feeling her pulse race beneath my lips.

"Move." Her nails rake down my back. "God, please move."

I do.

The first thrust is slow, deliberate—pulling nearly all the way out before sinking back in, making her feel every inch. She moans, her body arching into mine, her breasts pressed against my chest. The second is harder. The third harder still.

Then I stop thinking entirely.

I take her against the wall with everything I have—deep, relentless strokes that make her cry out with each one. Her fingers dig into my shoulders. Her thighs clench around my waist. She's saying my name like a chant, like a prayer, like I'm the only thing keeping her tethered to earth.

"Look at me." My voice is rough, commanding. "Daphne, look at me."

Her eyes open—dark, dazed, blazing with the same fire that's consuming me from the inside out. I hold her gaze as I thrust into her, watching pleasure ripple across her features, watching her come undone in my arms.

"I love you." The words come out fractured, urgent. "More than I know how to say. More than I thought I was capable of feeling."

"Show me." Her hands grip my face. "Don't stop, don't ever stop—"

I carry her to the bed without breaking our connection, laying her down and following her, never stopping the rhythm we've built. The new angle lets me go deeper, and she gasps, her back arching off the mattress.

"There," she breathes. "Right there…"

I give her what she needs. Harder. Faster. My hand slides between us, finding the spot that makes her shake, and I work her with my fingers while I move inside her. She's close—I can feel it in the way her body tightens around me, hear it in the desperate pitch of her moans.

"Come for me." I press my forehead to hers. "Let go, Daphne. I've got you."

She shatters.

Her entire body convulses, her walls clenching around me so tight I see stars. She cries out my name—loud, unrestrained, the sound of a woman completely lost to pleasure. The feel of her coming undone drags me over the edge with her.

I bury myself deep and let go, spilling into her with a groan that tears from somewhere primal. Wave after wave crashes through me, pleasure so intense it borders on pain, until I'm emptied completely—wrung out and remade in her arms.

We collapse together, breathing hard, bodies slick with sweat. I'm still inside her, neither of us willing to break the connection yet. Her fingers card through my hair, gentle now, soothing.

"I love you," she whispers against my temple. "I love you so much."

I press a kiss to her heart, feeling it race beneath my lips.

"Again," I murmur, already stirring inside her. "I need you again."

Her answering smile is wicked and wanting. The night is far from over.