Page 49 of Double Standards
“Axel,” she murmurs, impatience and surrender bleeding through her tone.
Satisfied by the sound, I pull away just enough to remind myself of restraint—though barely. The primal urge to claim her right here, in this office, claws at me with relentless hunger. I study her eyes, glossy and heavy with want and disappointment all at once. And that look? It’s intoxicating. It fills me with a dark, twisted pride.
“Hmm,” I murmur, voice thick with promise, “better than I imagined.”
Chapter Seventeen
Axel pulls away, leaving me a hot, trembling mess. An itch under my skin that only he seems capable of scratching. My cheeks burn with a heat that climbs all the way to the nape of my neck, flushing me raw with embarrassment and desire. Just the press of his chest against mine is enough to set my skin ablaze, and now that space exists between us again, I find myself reeling.
To say he turns me on with nothing more than that raspy voice and those wicked, sultry words? That’s the understatement of the year. My thoughts are a chaotic blur, filthy and wild, and far too focused on the ache pulsing between my thighs. I squeeze my legs shut instinctively, trying to ease the pressure, the longing—but it does nothing. He’s left a storm in his wake, and I’m drowning in it.
When I dare to look up, he’s watching me with that damn smirk—deviant and self-satisfied. The stubble along his jaw looks like sin itself, like something I’d graze my fingertips over just to feel its texture scratch against my skin. He knows exactly what he’s doing. Every look. Every word. Every breath between us—it’s all calculated, a performance with one goal: unraveling me.
And damn it, it’s working.
He finally steps back, slow and deliberate, still watching me through those hooded eyes like he’s carved me into his possession. This wasn’t about conversation. It never was. It was a game. A power play. An attempt to keep me teetering on the edge.
“You’re an ass,” I snap, my voice sharp as I tug my skirt down, suddenly hyper aware of how disheveled I must look. I shove past him, angry at him and at myself, and sink behind my desk in an attempt to reclaim some semblance of control.
Because every time he walks into this room, I lose a little more of it.
I hate the way he affects me. I hate how my body betrays me, how much I crave his closeness. But most of all, I hate how much I love feeling wanted by him—how much I want to give in.
I know this is just Axel being Axel. He’s a storm—intense, consuming, impossible to ignore—but storms always pass. He’ll lose interest the second he gets what he wants. That’s who he is. And yet… despite knowing that, part of me still aches to be wanted like that. Craved like that. But I can’t. Not like this. Not while Cooper is still in the picture.
There’s a reason there’s distance between Axel and me. There’s a reason I keep a line drawn in the sand, even if it’s blurred more with every interaction. But the guilt gnaws at me all the same. It’s not just about temptation. It’s about everything I’ve neglected. The relationship I’m still holding onto in name, but not in effort.
Lately, I’ve buried myself so deep in work that the days have bled together. Case after case, late nights and court prep—I can’t even remember the last time Cooper and I did something that didn’t involve him staring at his phone or me falling asleep on the couch alone. I’ve let the silence between us grow, thinking it was temporary, fixable… but maybe it’s not.
Maybe I’ve been lying to myself just to avoid the truth. Andnow that truth is standing in front of me with dangerous eyes, a crooked grin, and a voice that makes my knees weak.
“Can you blame me?” Axel smirks, that familiar glint of danger returning to his eyes. The softness he just showed vanishes in an instant, replaced by the cold, ruthless man I know he really is. The one I’ve spent so long trying to keep at arm’s length. He’s a storm wrapped in tailored suits and twisted charm—exactly what I don’t need in my life.
“I’m busy, Axel,” I snap, forcing the words out as I tear my gaze away from him and glue it to the stack of papers on my desk. It takes everything in me not to look back up, not to let those dark eyes pull me back into whatever gravitational force he carries.
He grunts in frustration, the sound low and sharp, and then I hear the metallic click of the lock sliding back. His footsteps retreat slowly, each one more distant than the last, until silence fills the room like a balm.
I release a breath, sinking back into my chair as my hands clamp around the armrests. Finally, some distance. Finally, space to think.
But even now, with him gone, I can still feel the heat of his body lingering in the air. The scent of him, the sound of his voice—it all clings to me like a second skin.
He’s just playing a game, I remind myself. That’s all this is.
But it’s a game I can’t afford to play.
It’s almost midnight by the time I finally step through the front door—another late night swallowed by court prep and case files. Axel’s trial may be the one taking up all my time, but he’s far from my only client. Thankfully, the othershave court dates that aren’t breathing down my neck just yet.Small mercies.
I drop my bag onto the kitchen table with a soft thud, the weight of the day still clinging to my shoulders. Cooper glances up from his laptop, his face bathed in the glow of the screen. But the look he gives me isn’t the warm, welcoming one I used to know. It’s brief, unreadable—fleeting eye contact that vanishes almost as quickly as it appears.
Then he’s looking away again, fingers returning to the keyboard, expression unreadable as he leans back in his chair like I’m not even here.
A strange silence settles between us—thick, charged, and difficult to name. Not quite anger. Not quite indifference. But distant. Detached. It echoes louder than any argument ever could.
I stand there for a moment, frozen in the quiet, unsure whether to speak… or just disappear into the shower and pretend like we didn’t just pass like strangers in our own home.
But then my eyes land on the article lying beside Cooper’s laptop. I reach for it, fingers brushing the edges as I flip the page to read the headline—and then the blood drains from my face.
My breath catches in my throat.
