Chapter 40 – Aurora #2
He shifts me forward a fraction, creating space between my hips and the wood, his hand sliding up my thigh with that deliberate pressure, threading between coaxing and command, fingers rough from whatever scars he's earned, scraping my sensitive skin.
He's not rushed—never is, even when my body's screaming for it—and the slowness scrapes my nerves raw, like he's carving time into my flesh, making me feel every inch of exposure, every pulse of my soaked cunt clenching on emptiness.
“Tell me what you need,” he growls, that medic-turned-wolf edge in his voice, the man who's dissected panic from hunger and knows damn well which one's roaring through me now, my thighs trembling as I rub them together, chasing the friction that only teases the ache deeper.
“I need to forget the cameras,” I rasp, voice cracking. “I need to forget Caldwell’s smug fucking face. I need to forget the word you stamped on me like ownership.” My breath hitches, raw and exposed. “I need you to make all of it go quiet for five goddamn minutes.”
He makes a sound deep in his chest, a dark promise vibrating through me. “I can’t make it quiet,” he says, his lips brushing my ear, breath hot and invasive. “I can make it louder than everything else.”
“Then do it. Fuck me until I break.”
The tie bites lightly into my skin when I flex against it, testing the restraint, the silk warming with my sweat. He kisses me again—hard and brutal this time—my mouth breaking open like a ripped seam, tongue plunging deep as he shoves my dress higher, exposing my dripping cunt to the air.
His fingers find me first, parting my folds roughly, two digits thrusting in without preamble, curling hard against that spot that makes my vision blur, his thumb grinding my clit in merciless circles.
I gasp into his mouth, hips bucking, the wet sounds obscene in the quiet room, my arousal coating his hand as he pumps deeper, stretching me, ruining me already.
But it's not enough. He guides me down with a firm press of his palm on my shoulder, until my knees hit the carpet, rough and unforgiving, the dress pooling around me like spilled blood.
I look up past the silk of his tie, the crisp line of his shirt, the steady heave of his chest, locking eyes with him—he doesn't look away, he never does, that dark gaze holding me captive.
“You sure?” he rasps, last chance, voice edged with restraint.
I nod, throat tight and aching. “I came in here to fight you,” I say, breathless, my cunt clenching at the memory of his cock splitting me open before. “I’d rather suck you until you forget your own name.”
He exhales sharp, not smug, almost reverent, and unzips, freeing his cock—thick, veined, rock-hard and leaking pre-cum that beads at the tip like an invitation.
“Open,” he says, and when I obey, parting my lips wide, he slides in, filling my mouth with the hot, salty weight of him, the musky taste exploding on my tongue, mixed with that faint tang of skin and sweat.
His hand slides into my hair, not yanking but holding, guiding me to a rhythm that starts slow, matching the distant quartet's melody bleeding through the door, then climbs, his hips flexing as I take him deeper, my throat relaxing to swallow him whole, gagging just enough to make it raw, tears pricking my eyes from the stretch.
Footsteps scuff past the door. Laughter filters in, polite clatter of glasses.
The world's gala spins on while I kneel in this velvet hell, wrists looped in silk, mouth stuffed full of his cock, the wrongness twisting dark heat in my gut until I'm choking on it, my thighs slick and rubbing together frantically, clit throbbing for release.
He feels my falter; his fingers tighten then loosen, voice coming low and filthy.
“Breathe,” he murmurs. “Take what you want, you greedy little thing.”
I do, sucking harder, tongue swirling the underside, hollowing my cheeks until his restraint frays, a low groan escaping him, hips thrusting shallow but insistent.
The power's mine in this—choosing to devour him, to make that noise catch in his throat again, my bound hands twitching against the wood as I chase his unraveling.
He drags me up with a smooth, powerful pull, proving the brute strength under that polished exterior, turns me roughly, and lifts me so my ass perches on the credenza’s edge, the wood cold against my bare skin. It should be graceless; instead, it's primal, efficient.
He kisses me like I've stolen his control and he wants it back with interest, mouth hungry and devouring, teeth nipping my lip until I taste blood mingled with him.
His hands shove my thighs apart, dress rucked up like trash, and he lines up, the head of his cock nudging my entrance, slick and ready.
He thrusts home in one brutal stroke, burying himself balls-deep in my cunt, the stretch burning, filling me to the brink, walls clenching around his girth like a vice.
I cry out, muffled against his shoulder, nails scraping his back through his shirt as he starts pounding, raw and relentless, each snap of his hips slamming me against the wood, bruising my ass, the tie chafing my wrists as I grip the edge.
The room smears to nothing—the texture of his shirt rasping my nipples, the cool varnish biting my thighs, his breath hot and ragged at my cheek, grunting with every deep plunge, his cock dragging against my insides, hitting that spot that makes stars explode behind my eyes.
Something bangs softly in the hallway, then the rattle of a hand testing our doorknob. “Mr. Ward?” a voice calls, muffled but too close, polite intrusion inches away. “They’re ready for you at the dais.”
He doesn’t startle, doesn’t freeze—just locks eyes with me, dark and possessive, and clamps his palm over my mouth, not brute but deliberate, silencing me as his other hand grips my hip hard enough to leave fingerprints, owning me, keeping me safe in this madness.
He bends to my ear, cock still buried deep, pulsing inside me.
“Stay quiet,” he breathes, each word a hot, filthy thread.
“Or they’ll know what a slut you are for me. ”
The sound I make is primal, a muffled tremor of heat, the unlocked door igniting me like a live wire, my pulse slamming, cunt clenching reflexively around him in vise-grip pulses.
Everything—anger, shame, guilt, need—tips into a shuddering abyss, my orgasm crashing raw and violent, walls milking his cock as I come undone, soaking him, body shaking with the force of it, his hand trapping my screams while entitled voices call his name from the other side.
The hand on the knob stills, then retreats.
Footsteps fade. “Mr. Ward?” drifts toward the ballroom as the music surges.
He eases his palm from my mouth slowly, thumb dragging my lower lip, smearing my lipstick like erasing his mark.
He holds still for a moment, letting the world crawl back into my shattered edges, then slides out of my cunt with cruel control, leaving me empty and dripping.
He ties the silk ends into a neat loop around my wrist again, almost a bow, a twisted memento.
I sit there, knees trembling, dress hitched like a whore's, lips swollen and bruised, and my cunt still twitching with aftershocks. He takes the tie back and is already putting it back around his neck in one practiced motion, like we’d discussed budgets instead of him fucking me senseless.
He straightens his jacket, slides his cuff into place, then looks at me—not the mess, but me, eyes dark with something unspoken.
“Next time you want to challenge me,” he says, voice silk-smooth again, “do it when I’m not this close.”
I pull the tie free with a small, quick twist he’d shown me and toss it at his chest. “That wasn’t you winning,” I say, and the hoarseness in my voice does the lying for me. “That was a stalemate.”
He catches the tie, smiling with his eyes more than his mouth. “I don’t play for stalemates.”
“Of course you don’t,” I mutter, my breath trying to find its way back into a body that doesn’t feel like it belongs to me anymore.
He touches my cheek once, with two fingers. The gentleness after the hand over my mouth feels like being marked with a second kind of ink. “You okay?” he asks quietly, the tone meant for emergency rooms and stairwells.
I nod, and realize I mean it. The panic that had been building during the speeches, during Caldwell’s smirk, during the word girlfriend has burned off.
In its place is a humming thing I am not ready to name, because to name it is to admit how willingly I just stepped further into something I’ve been pretending I’m not already inside.
“Help me,” I ask, and the request isn’t about politics. He smooths the dress down over my thighs, his knuckles grazing my skin like an apology. He fixes a loose pin in my hair and then, with a thumb, cleans a smudge at the corner of my mouth I hadn’t known was there.
“I’m not your doll,” I snap, but it comes out weak, stripped of its teeth.
“No,” he agrees. “You’re my problem.”
He picks up my clutch from where it had slid and places it in my hand. Before we open the door he holds my gaze with a seriousness that cuts through the haze.
“If this ever stops being what you want,” he whispers, “you walk away. No locks. No debts. Do you hear me?”
“I hear you,” I growl. And I do. The consent isn’t a one-time ceremony with him. He keeps asking for it like he knows all the ways I’ve been taught not to have any.
We step back into the hum. The quartet has switched to something light; waiters navigate the marble like dancers; a cluster of donors clap politely as Caldwell says something self-flattering into a microphone.
The chandelier light hits my eyes hard. I take one breath, then another, then lift my chin and slide my hand through Cassian’s arm.