Wild winds whipped up dust across the ruins of the Sector One Manufacturing Plant.
Alternating red and blue police lights flashed along the edge of the night sky.
The massive rotors of a helicopter roared, landing smoothly on a patch of ground that could barely be considered flat.
The cabin door was pushed open from the inside.
Potts appeared on the gangway, stepping out in ten-centimeter red-bottomed heels.
She was wrapped in an extremely oversized, pure black men’s windbreaker—the spare coat Linus Vance had left behind in the hotel’s presidential suite.
The hem of the windbreaker fluttered loudly in the night wind, occasionally revealing the dark red silk slip dress underneath, which barely covered the base of her thighs.
Lying face down in the muddy water, Tony raised his head.
His gaze crossed the pile of scrap metal that used to be the Iron Monger, finally locking onto the woman stepping down from the gangway.
“Pepper…”
Tony’s voice was hoarse, his mouth filled with the metallic taste of blood.
Subconsciously, he still believed this woman was here to pull him back up.
Potts stepped through the oil-slicked, muddy puddles without looking in Tony’s direction once.
She walked straight toward the tall, upright man standing with one hand in his trousers pocket.
Linus took a step forward with his long legs to meet her, his large hand wrapping around her slender waist and pulling her in with a firm tug.
Potts gasped softly as her entire body crashed into the man’s broad, hard chest.
“I gave you ten minutes to change, and you arrived right on the dot.”
Linus lowered his head, his nose pressing against Potts’ cheek.
His warm breath brushed completely over her burning earlobe.
“Running out dressed in so little, who are you trying to seduce?”
Potts instinctively placed her hands on Linus’ firm shoulders, panting lightly, her ears turning completely red.
“You told me to change…
This was sent to me based on the measurements you set last night.
The dress underneath is too thin, so I had to wear your windbreaker.”
Linus let out a deep, low chuckle.
The vibration of his chest traveled through the shirt fabric to the fragile porcelain doll in his arms.
His rough fingertips gave the soft flesh of her lower back a firm squeeze.
“If you dare let anyone else take a second look at you besides me, I’ll lock you in the hotel room when we get back.”
Linus lowered his voice, biting her ear gently.
“I’ll punish you properly with all those untried positions, keeping you in bed for three whole days.”
Potts’ body went soft, tears of arousal welling in her eyes.
She bit her lower lip, letting out a whimper as faint as a mosquito’s buzz.
“I’ll do whatever you want.
Only you can look.”
Their intimate interaction, carried out as if no one else were around, reached Tony’s ears loud and clear from a dozen meters away.
Tony’s mouth fell open, his bloodshot eyes filled with absolute madness.
“Pepper!
What are you doing!
Why are you leaning into that monster’s chest!
Are you insane!”
Linus tilted his head, undoing the top two buttons of his white shirt with one hand.
He slipped off his Vibranium suit jacket, which had a few smudges of engine oil on it, gave it a casual shake, and draped it over Potts’ delicate shoulders.
He pulled Potts closer to his side and turned around, facing the loser on the ground.
“Brother Tony.
Why so loud?
You’re scaring my baby.”
Linus kept his hand firmly on Potts’ shoulder, his tone dripping with condescending mockery.
“Let me introduce you.
This is the new Global CEO of Star Umbrella Corporation.
In other words, she’s my woman.”
Tony slammed his fists into the mud, drawing blood.
“Linus!
What dirty, underhanded tricks did you use to force her?
Pepper has been with me for ten years!
She would never leave with someone else!”
“Force?”
Linus sneered.
His long fingers pinched Potts’ delicate chin, forcing her to look up.
“That trash mouth of yours could talk diamonds into turning to glass.
I spent the entire night holding and comforting her.
These are the basic skills of a high-tier player—you couldn’t learn them in eight lifetimes.”
Leaning against Linus, Potts finally got a clear view of Tony’s current miserable state.
Shattered armor, an extinguished reactor, and a face covered in mud and blood.
The once-invincible genius didn’t even have the strength to stand up.
There was no pity in her heart, only a very clear, hard boundary.
Potts took half a step back from Linus’ embrace.
Under Tony’s wide-eyed, horrified gaze, she turned around, cupped Linus’ cheeks with both hands, and stood on her tiptoes.
Her red lips pressed directly against Linus’ cheek.
She deliberately applied pressure, even parting her teeth to give the man’s jawline a soft bite, leaving a clear, unmistakable lipstick mark.
After making this possessive gesture, Potts’ cheeks flushed crimson.
She turned to look at her former boss on the ground, her voice steady, completely devoid of her past submissiveness.
“Do you see clearly now, Mr.
Stark?
I don’t owe you anything anymore.”
Potts’ tone was incredibly resolute.
“I’ll just pretend I threw those ten years to the dogs.
From now on, my time, my everything, belongs to my husband.
You aren’t even worthy of a single glance.”
To kill the heart after breaking the body—this sentence was far more effective than any physical blow.
His pride and joy, his technology, had been dismantled like scrap metal, and now the woman he trusted most had thrown herself into another man’s arms right in front of him, calling him “husband” so submissively.
Tony’s vision swam, and the last breath in his chest completely collapsed.
“Pfft—”
A large spray of blood splattered across the inside of his broken helmet.
The strength left Tony’s hands.
He collapsed heavily back into the puddle, his eyes rolling back as he lost consciousness completely.
“With that kind of fragile mental state, you still try to play the savior.”
Linus wrapped his large hand around Potts’ waist, not bothering to care whether the man on the ground was dead or alive.
He bent down and scooped Potts up in a bridal carry.
“Ah…”
With her feet off the ground, Potts could only cling tightly to Linus’ neck, burying her burning face in his collarbone.
Linus walked steadily up the helicopter gangway.
“We’re done here.
Let’s go back and collect your deposit.”
…
The cabin door slid shut, blocking out the night rain and the wailing sirens.
The interior of the cabin was an extremely luxurious, private space.
With the soundproof partition raised, the pilot in the front couldn’t hear a single sound from the back.
The leather sofa was incredibly wide.
Linus threw Potts onto the sofa.
His tall frame immediately loomed over her, one knee pinning the outside of her thighs, completely trapping her in this confined space.
“You were so bold in front of your former boss just now.
Why are you trembling now?”
Linus’ rough fingertips rubbed Potts’ swollen lips.
Potts’ chest heaved rapidly.
The intense masculine scent washed over her, leaving her speechless.
“I…
I’m just a little cold.”
Potts turned her head away, not daring to meet his highly aggressive dark eyes.
“Cold?”
Linus let out a low chuckle.
His large hand slid directly beneath the hem of the windbreaker, stopping at her slender waist, separated only by the thin layer of her silk slip dress.
“Then let me help warm you up.”
His palm was incredibly hot, kneading the sensitive flesh of her waist.
Potts let out a whimper, her hands weakly pushing against Linus’ broad chest.
“Don’t…
not here.
Didn’t we say we were going back to the hotel?”
“It takes forty minutes to fly back to Manhattan.”
Linus lowered his head, taking Potts’ delicate earlobe into his mouth, his tongue tracing its sensitive contours.
“With so much time on our hands, if we don’t do some adult warm-ups beforehand, how will you find the energy to cooperate with me during the main event tonight?”
The tingling sensation left her entire body limp and powerless.
She had no defense against this level of seduction.
“Hubby…
please, leave me some dignity.”
“Begging me is useless.”
Linus tilted his head and kissed her elegant neck, sucking hard on the fair skin to leave a red mark even deeper than the ones from last night.
“You defended me so fiercely down there.
Why are you acting so soft now?”
Shame and a strange sense of surrender warred within Potts.
She could only obey, letting Linus’ actions grow increasingly bold.
Linus cupped the back of her head with one hand, prying open her teeth to kiss her until she was nearly breathless.
The wet sounds of their tangled kiss were amplified endlessly in the quiet cabin.
Deprived of oxygen, Potts felt her brain spin, and tears welled up at the corners of her eyes.
Linus pulled back slightly, his long fingers sliding the thin strap of her silk slip dress off her shoulder.
The fabric slid down her smooth shoulder.
“You can’t even handle this much?
You seemed pretty brave when you were coveting my body earlier.”
Linus’ fingertips traced her delicate collarbone.
“If you dare cry for me to stop when we get back, you’ll see just how much more wicked I can get.”
Potts buried her face completely in Linus’ firm chest, not daring to reply.
Once they returned to the presidential suite tonight, she would definitely be consumed completely by this man’s unstoppable desires.
Just as the ambiguous tension reached its peak, a long-awaited, urgent system notification suddenly blared deep in Linus’ mind.