Claimed by My Bestie's Alpha Daddy novel Chapter 96

Cameras flashed as we entered, the room’s collective energy shifting to follow us like a tide turning.

And then Richard kissed me.

There was no subtlety. He took my face in his hands and kissed me like we were the only people in the room. No apology. No hesitation. It wasn’t staged or practiced. It was possession.

We broke apart only when the crowd stirred, the moment loud and bright and too full to hold.

“Too much?” I asked, voice quiet and breathless.

He smiled, eyes dark with something dangerous. “Come with me.”

We slipped through a side door, past catering staff and servers balancing trays. He guided me into the kitchen, then to the walk-in fridge at the back. The stainless steel door clicked shut behind us, sealing us into a space that felt colder and quieter than anything outside.

The air hit me first. Crisp. Cutting. I shivered through the velvet, my skin erupting in goosebumps as the chill sank in. It made everything feel more real. More alive.

Metal shelves surrounded us, stacked with fruit crates, dessert trays, and endless bottles of champagne. The hum of the compressor filled the silence, a steady background rhythm to the sharp anticipation rising between us.

Richard stepped in close. His palms ran up my arms, trying to warm me, his breath steady as he leaned in and pressed his mouth to the side of my neck. Everything about the moment felt suspended, like we had stepped into a separate world held in frost and fire.He lifted my dress inch by inch, hands reverent but unrelenting. My thighs trembled as the air kissed bare skin, the exposure making every nerve hyperaware. Every inch he revealed heightened my awareness, the cold only magnifying the heat curling in my core.

When he dropped to his knees, the metal floor echoed beneath him. He kissed up the inside of my leg, stow and deliberate, until I had to steady myself with both hands gripping the nearby shelf. His tongue traced a path up my inner thigh, warm against the shocking chill, a contrast that made my whole body flinch with want.

“I want you like this,” he said, voice rough against my skin. “Trembling.

Overwhelmed.”

He took his time, worshipped me with slow circles, each pass making my legs weaker, my breath shorter. The contrast was unbearable in the best way. The chill on my thighs, the heat of his tongue, the way the air felt like static brushing over soaked skin.

When I came, my whole body jerked. I couldn’t help the cry that slipped out, my hips twitching forward, my hand muffling my mouth. He stood quickly, his mouth still slick with me, and kissed me like he had waited hours for it, fingers already fumbling at his belt.

I wrapped my arms around his neck, clinging to him, and let him lift me. My legs locked around his waist. The cold shelf bit into my back as he pushed inside me in one long, hard thrust.

1 gasped at the stretch, the delicious pressure, the fullness. He started slow, deliberate, but it didn’t stay that way. He moved faster, rougher, his hands gripping my thighs to keep me stéady while his hips slammed into mine with rhythmic intensity.

“You feel, God Amelia, you feel incredible,” he said, voice hoarse and breathless.

Every movement sent my body arching, the shelf behind me creaking under the weight of it all. The cold metal shocked my skin, but all Icould focus on was the burn between us, the friction, the sharp slam of bodies meeting with nothing held back.

I buried my face in his shoulder. He groaned when I clenched around him, the pleasure rolling over me in waves that kept cresting higher.

“Don’t stop,” I whispered, the words breaking apart as I felt it build again. “Please. Don’t stop.”

He kissed me again, lips hard and hungry, and thrust harder. When I came the second time, it was a lightning bolt that ripped through me, hot and devastating. My voice caught in my throat, echoing in the cold space. He followed soon after, groaning as he stilled, his breath catching against my neck, every muscle pulled tight.

We stayed there, tangled in heat and breath, surrounded by the scent of citrus and frost. Our bodies pressed together, trembling from both cold and aftershock.

Eventually, he kissed my temple. Then my jaw. Then the corner of my mouth, softer now.

“Next time,” he murmured, “we take our time.”

“Next time,” I whispered, “we don’t hook up in a walk-in refrigerator”

He chuckled, his voice low and warm. “Let’s go get you a drink.”Amelia

The gala still glittered behind me, chandeliers spilling golden light across polished floors, when I felt her presence. Jenny stepped from the shadows near the grand staircase as though she had been waiting-all night for this moment, her eyes sharp and predatory, her lips curled in a smile that promised damage.

The grand hall behind me buzzed with music and polite laughter, but the air shifted with her arrival, and I could feel the tension prickling across my skin before she even spoke. Cameras were still flashing in the ballroom, catching the final notes of speeches and toasts, but some of the hungrier reporters had already trailed after her, sensing blood in the water.

Richard carried me to a bench tucked into a recessed alcove, a forgotten corner of the hall hidden behind velvet curtains. He lowered me carefully onto the seat, then crouched before me so that we were eye to eye. His large hands framed my face, thumbs brushing away tears even as more fell, unstoppable. His eyes held me captive, fierce and unrelenting, daring me to contradict him.

“Listen to me,” he said, his tone hard as steel wrapped in velvet. “You are cléver. You are strong. You are the bravest woman I have ever known. You are the only one in this building who has ever dared to speak to me without fear. You are not defined by her venom or by their cameras. You are mine because you chose me. And I am yours because I have no other choice and never will.”

His words struck me like a lifeline cast into a storm, yet the cruelty of Jenny’s voice lingered, twisting her insult into something almost believable. My throat burned with sobs I couldn’t contain, and I buried my face against his chest, whispering into the darkness between us. ” want to believe you. I just don’t know how.”

“Then let me show you,” he said, his voice steady, unyielding. He rose and lifted me into his arms again, carrying me through the corridors where portraits of past rulers looked on in silent judgment. Each step he took felt like an act of defiance against every whisper, every rumor, every headline. By the time we reached the private stairwell that led to his suite, my breathing had begun to slow, steadied by the cadence of his heartbeat beneath my ear.

His chambers glowed softly in lamplight when we entered. He placed me on the bed as if I were something precious, smoothing stray strands of hair from my face with a tenderness that disarmed me more than his fury ever could. The quiet of the room wrapped around us like a shield, muffling the chaos still raging downstairs.

1 reached for him then, desperate to silence the shame another way,pulling him down to me, pressing trembling lips to his shoulder. My hands roamed across his chest, offering myself because it was the only way I knew to prove I was more than her cruel word. But he caught my wrist and pressed my palm against his heart, stilling me with a kiss to my forehead.

“Not tonight,” he whispered, his lips warm against my skin. “Not like this. You don’t have to earn me with your body. You already have me.”

So he held me. He stretched out beside me and gathered me into his arms, strong and steady, curling his body around mine like a fortress against the storm that threatened to consume me.

His breathing slowed until mine followed, each inhale and exhale syncing, every beat of his heart reminding me that I was anchored. My sabs softened into shallow breaths, then into silence, the weight of Jenny’s words stripped away by the patience in his embrace.

Time blurred as I rested in his hold. The world outside his chamber could have been falling apart and I wouldn’t have known, not while his arms circled me, not while his warmth pressed against my spine and his voice murmured softly into my hair. At last, when the silence deepened, I tilted my façe up to him and whispered into the space between us, my words fragile but certain. “I believe you.”

The weight in my chest loosened. Not gone, but lighter, no longer crushing. For the first time since Jenny’s ambush, I closed my eyes without fear.

He held me as though he would never let go, and I let myself rest inside that truth until sleep claimed me, carrying me somewhere

Jenny’s words could no longer reach.