Ch. My sister’s punishment, my billionaire prize 26 My sister’s punishment, my billionaire prize 26

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I had been studying under Master Montgomery in Florence for almost eight months when the first package arrived. No name, just a simple brown box with Italian postage stamps. Inside was a set of premium brushes I’d been eyeing in a specialty shop window the week before, but couldn’t justify the 

expense. 

There was no note, but the small rose charm attached to the case told me everything I needed to know. 

Alexander. 

I smiled, running my fingers over the brushes, wondering how he knew. I hadn’t mentioned them to anyone, not even in my weekly video calls with Olivia. 

The packages continued-always arriving precisely when I needed something: art supplies before a major project, a cashmere scarf as winter approached, gourmet chocolate during my first homesick week. 

Never with notes. Always with the small rose charm. 

It was three months after the first package when I spotted him. 

I was sketching in the Boboli Gardens, lost in the play of light through ancient cypress trees, when, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Someone was watching me. 

I turned, and there he was-Alexander Blackwood, leaning against a stone balustrade twenty feet away, no different than the last time I’d seen him at the airport. Tall, impeccably dressed in a light gray suit that somehow made him look both powerful and approachable. 

When our eyes met, he smiled but didn’t approach. Just a slight nod, acknowledging that I’d spotted him. Then he walked away. 

I almost thought I’d imagined him, except for the small package that appeared at my door that evening-a rare pigment I’d been struggling to find. 

“He’s been doing this from the beginning, hasn’t he?” I asked Olivia during our next call. 

She tried to look innocent, but Olivia had never been a good liar. “Doing what?” 

“Following me. The gifts. The way he always knows exactly what I need.” 

She broke into a grin. “I told him you’d figure it out eventually! He has business in Europe every month or so. He always adds a few days to ‘check on his investment,’ as he puts it.” 

“Investment?” 

“You, silly. The most important investment of his life, according to him.” 

“Why doesn’t he talk to me? He just… watches from a distance.” 

Olivia’s expression softened. “He doesn’t want to distract you. Says your studies are too important.” After that, I started looking for him. Sometimes I’d catch a glimpse in a café across the street from my studio, or browsing in the same gallery I was visiting. Always at a respectful distance, never approaching. 

It became a game. I’d pretend not to see him, but leave small sketches behind a quick rendering of whatever café he was sitting in, or the view from my window, signed with just a violet flower. Six months into this strange dance, Florence was hit with the worst flooding in decades. My tiny apartment near the Arno was in the evacuation zone. At 2 AM, as water seeped under my door, there was an urgent knock. 

I opened it to find Alexander, soaked to the skin, concern etched across his face. 

“We need to leave. Now.” His voice was exactly as I remembered-deep, calm, authoritative. 

I didn’t question how he knew. I just grabbed my go-bag and the case containing my most precious work. 

He led me through darkened streets, his hand firm around mine, to where a car waited on higher ground. The driver took us to a villa in the hills above the city. 

“You’ll be safe here,” Alexander said as we stood dripping in the entryway. “It belongs to a business 

associate.” 

“You’re soaked,” I observed unnecessarily. 

“So are you.” His eyes lingered on my face, then traveled lower, taking in how my thin white shirt clung to every curve. His gaze was no longer just respectful-there was unmistakable hunger there. “There are rooms upstairs. The housekeeper left fresh towels. Choose whichever you like.” 

I nodded, suddenly very aware of how my wet clothes revealed everything. The chill air had made my nipples harden against the transparent fabric, and I could see Alexander fighting to keep his eyes on my face. 

“Alexander,” I said, stopping him as he turned to leave. “Thank you. For tonight and… for everything else.” 

He paused, his back to me. “I promised I’d support you. That’s all I’m doing.” 

“Is it?” 

He turned slowly. The distance between us was charged with something that had been building for months-years, really. 

“What do you want from me, Violet?” The question was genuine, his voice rough with emotion. I stepped closer, leaving wet footprints on the marble floor. “I want you to stop watching from a distance.” 

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His breath caught, but he didn’t move. “Your studies-” 

“Are important,” I finished. “But so is this.” I gestured between us. 

“I’ve waited this long,” he said, still not moving. “I can wait until you’ve completed your training.” “I don’t want to wait anymore.” 

losed the final distance between us, placing my hand on his chest. Through the wet fabric, I could feel his heart racing. For all his power and control, Alexander Blackwood was nervous. 

When our lips finally met, it was like the culmination of a conversation we’d been having across continents and crowded rooms. His arms wrapped around me, pulling me tightly against him as the kiss deepened. 

His hands slid down my back, hesitating at my waist before continuing lower, gripping my hips and pressing me against him. I could feel how much he wanted me, hard against my stomach. “Violet,” he breathed against my lips. “I’ve imagined this so many times.” 

“Show me,” I whispered, tugging at his soaked shirt. 

That was all the invitation he needed. Alexander lifted me in one fluid motion, my legs wrapping around his waist as he carried me up the stairs. His mouth never left mine, kissing me with a hunger) that matched the storm inside me. 

The bedroom was grand-all antique furniture and silk bedding-but I barely registered it. Alexander set me on my feet beside the massive bed, his hands trembling slightly as they moved to the buttons of my shirt. 

“Are you sure?” he asked, pausing with the first button undone. 

My answer was to pull the shirt over my head in one motion, letting it fall to the floor. I stood before him in just my wet jeans and bra, the fabric now completely see-through. 

Alexander’s eyes darkened as he took me in. “You’re even more beautiful than I’ve dreamed.” 

I reached for him, unbuttoning his shirt with unsteady fingers, pushing it from his shoulders to reveal a chest more defined than I’d imagined. Droplets of water still clung to his skin, and I leaned forward to taste them, my tongue tracing a path down his neck to his collarbone. 

He groaned, his hands tangling in my wet hair as I explored his body. When I reached for his belt, he stopped me, lifting my chin to look into my eyes. 

“Slowly,” he said. “I’ve waited too long to rush this.” 

He laid me back on the bed, peeling the wet jeans from my legs with agonizing care. When I was down to just my underwear, he stepped back to remove his own pants, then joined me on the bed. His touch was reverent as he explored every inch of me, learning what made me gasp, what made me arch against him. When he finally removed my bra, his mouth closed around my nipple, drawing a moan from deep in my throat. 

“Tell me what you want,” he murmured against my skin, his hand sliding down my stomach. “You,” I breathed. “All of you.” 

His fingers slipped beneath the lace of my underwear, finding me already wet for him. The sensation of his touch where I needed him most made me cry out, my hips rising to meet his hand. 

“So responsive,” he said, his voice thick with desire. “So perfect.” 

He took his time, building me slowly toward release with skilled fingers and hot kisses until I was trembling, begging for more. Only then did he slide my underwear down my legs and position himself between my thighs. 

“I’ve loved you from the moment I saw you,” he confessed, poised at my entrance. “Every gift, every moment watching over you-it was all because I couldn’t stay away.” 

I reached up to touch his face. “I don’t want you to stay away anymore.” 

When he finally pushed inside me, the sensation was overwhelming-a perfect fullness that made me gasp and clutch at his shoulders. The initial stretch gave way to exquisite pleasure as he paused, allowing me to adjust to him. I felt completely filled, connected to him in a way that transcended the physical. His forehead rested against mine, our breaths mingling in the small space between us. “You feel incredible,” he whispered, his voice strained with the effort of holding still. “Like you were made for me.” 

I wrapped my legs around his waist, drawing him deeper, and he groaned, his eyes closing briefly in pleasure. 

When he began to move, it was with deliberate slowness-long, measured strokes that had me digging my fingernails into the muscles of his back. The soft light from the bedside lamp cast shadows across his face, highlighting the intensity of his expression as he watched me respond to each thrust. We moved together with surprising synchronicity, as if we’d done this a thousand times before. His hands seemed to know exactly where to touch, when to grip my hips to change the angle, when to slide between our bodies to circle that sensitive bundle of nerves that made me cry out his name. Rain lashed against the windows, the storm outside matching the mounting tension building inside me. Alexander’s rhythm grew more insistent, the controlled pace faltering as we both neared the peak. The sound of our breathing, punctuated by soft moans and the whisper of skin against skin, filled the room. 

“Alexander,” I gasped, feeling the familiar tightening low in my belly, the telltale trembling in my 

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thighs that signaled I was close. 

He sensed it too, his movements becoming more purposeful, hitting a spot inside me that had stars dancing behind my eyelids. I began to shake, my body arching involuntarily off the bed, seeking release. 

ook at me,” Alexander commanded softly, his voice husky with desire. “I want to see you.” It was difficult to keep my eyes open with pleasure building like a tidal wave, but I forced myself to meet his gaze. The naked emotion I saw there nearly undid me-desire, yes, but also tenderness, wonder, and something deeper that made my heart ache. 

Our eyes locked as the first wave crashed over me. My body clenched around him rhythmically as ecstasy radiated outward from where we were joined. I fought to keep my eyes open, to maintain that connection as pleasure crested through me in waves, each one making me shudder and cry out. “That’s it,” he whispered, his movements becoming erratic. “Let go for me, Violet.” 

The intensity of my release triggered his own. His expression transformed-control giving way to vulnerability in a way I’d never seen from him before. His brow furrowed, lips parted on a groan as he thrust deeply one final time, his body shuddering against mine. 

In that moment of complete surrender, with his defenses stripped away and pleasure etched across his features, I saw the real Alexander-not the powerful businessman or the careful protector, but simply a man lost in the most primal connection with the woman he loved. 

It was something I knew I’d remember forever-this perfect moment of shared vulnerability, more intimate than anything I’d ever experienced. 

As we both came down from the high, trembling and breathless, Alexander pressed soft kisses to my face-my eyelids, my cheeks, the corner of my mouth-before capturing my lips in a kiss so tender it brought tears to my eyes. 

“I love you,” he whispered against my lips. The first time he’d said those words. 

“I love you too,” I answered without hesitation, because in that moment, it was the simplest truth 1 knew. 

Afterward, wrapped in his arms as rain lashed against the windows, we talked until dawn-about his business, my art, the futures we’d both imagined. About how he’d fallen for me through my paintings first, then through Olivia’s stories, and finally through his own observations. 

“I tried to give you space,” he admitted, tracing patterns on my bare skin. “But I couldn’t bear the thought of you feeling alone.” 

That night changed everything. Alexander had to return to Boston the next day, but the pattern had been broken. No more hiding, no more watching from a distance. 

Now when he visited, he stayed at my apartment. He’d work while I painted, comfortable silences broken by conversations that could last hours. And at night…. 

At night, we explored each other’s bodies with increasing boldness. I discovered the sensitive spot behind his ear that made him growl when I kissed it. He learned how to use his mouth between my thighs until I was crying his name, begging for mercy. 

Sometimes we couldn’t wait-clothes pushed aside against the wall of my studio, or bent over my kitchen table, his hand covering my mouth to muffle my cries when neighbors might hear. Other times we took hours, teasing and exploring until we were both desperate with need. 

For the remaining years of my study, Alexander divided his time between Boston and wherever Master Montgomery’s tutelage took me. Sometimes weeks would pass with only video calls that often turned heated, the distance making our reunions all the more intense. 

“Next time, bring rope,” I texted him once, after a particularly explicit call where he’d described in vivid detail how he wanted to have me completely at his mercy. 

When he arrived the following week, he pulled a length of soft, black silk rope from his suitcase with a raised eyebrow. “As requested.” 

That night I discovered the exquisite vulnerability of being bound by someone I trusted completely, the heightened sensitivity of every touch when I couldn’t move, the freedom in surrendering control. The following month, he showed me a different kind of surrender when he guided my hands to bind him instead. 

“Tell me something,” I asked him once, as we lay tangled in sheets in a Paris apartment, my body still humming from the aftershocks of pleasure. “What would you have done if I’d never noticed you in Florence?” 

He traced patterns on my bare shoulder, his touch sending shivers down my spine. “I would have watched over you forever, Violet. From any distance you allowed.” 

When Master Montgomery pronounced my training complete, Alexander was there at the final exhibition. As I greeted admirers and potential buyers, I felt Alexander’s gaze-not from across the room, but right beside me, his hand warm against the small of my back, occasionally slipping lower in a possessive gesture that promised what would happen when we were alone. Later that night, after he’d made good on that promise-taking me against the floor-to-ceiling windows of our hotel suite, the lights of Paris spread below us he knelt before me, a small box in his hand. 

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“I’ve had this since before you left,” he confessed, opening it to reveal a ring with a violet stone surrounded by diamonds. “I was going to give it to you at the airport that day, but I realized it would have been unfair.” 

touched his face, remembering that jade bracelet I still wore every day. “And now?” 

Now I’m asking properly. Violet, will you marry me?” 

The answer was simple. It had always been simple. 

“Yes.”