Chapter 12 #2
She was so tight. Fantastically, maddeningly tight. She clamped down on my fingers, her interior muscles pulsing in a way that threatened to make me lose my mind right there on the Persian rug.
"Stephen!" She grabbed my hair, pulling hard, trying to leverage herself against the sensation. "I’m close. I’m... I’m so close. I feel like I'm going to crash!"
"Don't crash," I growled, looking up at her from between her legs, my face wet with her. "Soar."
I increased the pressure. I sucked her clit into my mouth and used my tongue to flutter against it while my fingers drove deep, hitting the G-spot with a rhythmic, ruthless precision.
It was too much. It was exactly enough.
She broke.
It was a beautiful thing to watch. Her head fell back, her spine bowed, and a long, broken wail tore out of her throat.
Her inner muscles seized around my fingers, milking me, fluttering in violent, rapid spasms. I stayed with her, drinking every drop of her pleasure, feeling the vibrations travel through her body and into mine.
I worked her through the peak, not stopping until the spasms faded into weak, fluttering pulses and her legs went lax against my shoulders.
Only then did I pull back.
I rested my forehead against her thigh for a moment, catching my breath. The room was spinning slightly. My own blood was roaring in my ears, a heavy, pounding demand that hadn't been met yet.
I stood up.
Rowan was slumped on the desk, her chest heaving, her eyes half-closed and glassy. Her skirt was bunched at her waist, her shirt open, her hair a disaster. She looked thoroughly dismantled.
I felt a surge of pride so intense it was nearly blinding.
"Systems check," I said, my voice rougher than usual.
She cracked one eye open. A slow, lazy smile spread across her face, a look I hadn't seen on her before. It wasn't the sharp, shark-smile of a victory in court. It was soft. It was pliant.
"Catastrophic error, brain missing," she whispered.
"We can rebuild it," I said, stepping closer, moving between her open legs again. "But first..."
I reached for my belt buckle. My hands were shaking, just a fraction. Analysis was over. The theory had been proven. Now it was time for the practical application.
"First," I said, undoing the leather strap. "I need to take care of something."
Rowan looked at my hands, then up at my face. Her eyes cleared, the hazel darkening with renewed interest. She reached out, her ink-stained fingers brushing the front of my trousers.
"I want to help," she murmured, gripping my zipper.
I groaned, a sound torn from the back of my throat, and lifted her off the desk. I spun her around and walked us behind the desk where I sat down in the heavy leather chair, letting her choose what to do next.
Her fingers were usually so precise. Over the last few days I’d watched them navigate complex legal documents and execute perfect espresso pulls, but at that moment, they fumbled against the zipper of my trousers. The tremor in her hands wasn't fear anymore; it was urgency.
The sight of Rowan Quill, the woman who weaponized paperwork, reduced to frantic, tactile need was a victory I hadn’t known I was fighting for until that exact moment.
"Allow me," I choked out, my hands covering hers to stop the erratic tugging.
I dealt with the zipper in a sharp, efficient movement. The release of pressure was immediate, but it was replaced by a different, maddening kind of tension as I freed myself into the cool air of the study.
Rowan didn’t hesitate. She didn’t shy away. She looked down at what she’d uncovered with the same intense, dilated scrutiny she applied to a contract loophole, assessing the dimensions, calculating the fit. Then she adjusted her hips, the black skirt bunching around her waist, and sank down.
I hissed a breath through my teeth, my head falling back against the leather headrest.
The fit was tight. Impossibly so. She encased me in wet, searing heat that felt like it was fusing our nervous systems together. She took me slowly, inch by agonizing inch, her hands braced on my shoulders, her nails digging into the hidden seams of my shirt.
When she finally bottomed out, sitting flush against my lap, the air left the room. We paused there, suspended in a moment of total, paralytic alignment. I gripped her hips, my thumbs digging into the soft skin just above the bone, keeping her anchored.
"You fit," I groaned, opening my eyes to look at her. "Perfectly."
She gasped, rolling her hips experimentally. The friction nearly ended me on the spot. It was a direct current to the base of my spine.
I gritted my teeth, forcing my brain to stay online, forcing the strategist to override the animal. If I let go now, it would be over in seconds, and that was something I couldn't abide.
I snapped my hips upward.
Rowan cried out, her head falling forward onto my shoulder.
I buried my face in the curve of her neck, inhaling the complex, heady mix of peppermint, sex, and the fading cedar of Mateo.
I bit down lightly on the tendon there, marking her, layering my own claim over the others.
Not a true claim, but enough to make her body react of its own accord and let me know that she liked it.
She began to move, crying out softly with each downward slide.
It wasn't the rhythmic, steady pace of a marathon runner; it was the frantic, jagged tempo of a sprinter.
Her breasts bounced in my face and I longed to suck on one of her pert nipples, but doing so would end everything entirely too quickly.
I let her set the pace for exactly thirty seconds before I took executive control.
"Too fast," I growled, clamping my hands on her hips and forcing her to a halt.
"Stephen!" She whined, a sound of pure frustration, trying to grind against me. "Let me—"
"No. You're rushing this." I held her still, despite the tremors running through her thighs. I looked up at her, forcing her to meet my gaze. Her eyes were glazed, blown wide, swimming in lust. "Look at me, Rowan."
She focused on me, struggling. "I'm looking."
"Slow down. Feel the friction. Feel me. Don't just run to the finish line."
I lifted her hips an inch, then pulled her back down. Slow. Deliberate. A grinding drag that maximized contact.
Her breath hitched, turning into a broken sob. "That... god, that feels..."
"Better," I finished for her. "Efficiency isn't about speed, Rowan. It's about impact."
I established a new rhythm. Deep, rolling thrusts that aimed for maximum internal displacement.
I watched her face as I worked inside her.
I watched the way her brow furrowed, the way she bit her lip until it turned white, the way the mask of the unflappable manager slipped and shattered, revealing the raw, wanting woman underneath.
It was the most honest data I had ever collected.
She was tightening around me, her internal muscles clamping down in rhythmic spasms that mirrored my own escalating heart rate. I moved my hand between us, finding the slick heat of her clit again.
"Stephen," she warned, her voice tight, vibrating with tension. "If you touch me there while you're... I can't..."
"Come for me, Rowan," I whispered. "Feel my cock inside you, stretching you, while I play with that pretty pussy. Let go for me."
I circled her with my thumb.
She disintegrated.
It was immediate and violent. She screamed my name, her body bowing backward, her fingernails scoring down the front of my shirt. Her inner walls spasmed around my cock, milking me with a terrifying, rhythmic strength that stripped away the last of my control.
I groaned, a guttural sound torn from the bottom of my lungs, and drove into her one last time, deep and hard. I poured myself into her, my own release hitting me and wiping my mind completely clean.
For a long time, the only sound in the room was the harsh, ragged tearing of our breath and the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner.
Rowan slumped against me, her forehead resting on my damp collarbone. Her heart was beating against my chest like a trapped bird. I wrapped my arms around her, one hand stroking the length of her spine, the other resting possessively on her hip.
My brain slowly began to reboot. Systems coming back online. Sensory input stabilizing.
The smell of sex was heavy in the air, mixing with the scent of old paper and ink. It was a perfect, chaotic perfume.
"Rowan? Everything okay?" I murmured into her hair, kissing the top of her head.
Rowan let out a long, shaky breath, her breath hot against my neck through the fabric of the shirt I hadn't even bothered to take off.
"More than okay," she mumbled. "So much more."
"Glad to hear it."
She lifted her head slowly. Her hair was a wild halo of static and curls. Her lips were swollen, red and bitten. There was a smudge of ink on her collarbone that I hadn't put there, a remnant of her work.
She looked at me, her hazel eyes clearing, the sharp intelligence slowly flickering back to life behind the haze of dopamine.
"You talk too much during sex," she accused, though there was no heat in it. She traced the line of my jaw with a trembling finger.
"I prefer 'verbal guidance,'" I corrected. "And you seemed to respond well to the directives."
A small, genuine smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. "You're insufferable."
"I'm thorough."
She glanced down at the desk, at the scattered pages of the Anchor Protocol that had survived our upheaval. One page was crinkled under her knee. Another was perilously close to the edge.
"We wrinkled the draft," she noted, reaching out to smooth a piece of paper. The action was purely reflexive, the manager trying to tidy the workspace even while still straddling a partner.
I caught her hand, tangling our fingers together.
"It adds character," I said. "Proof of concept. The protocol withstood the pressure test."
She laughed, a low, throaty sound that vibrated against my chest. She looked down at where we were joined, then back up at me, a sudden flicker of vulnerability crossing her face.
"So," she whispered. "This... complicates everything."
"It was already complicated," I said, shifting slightly in the chair, feeling the velvet slide of her skin against mine. "This just clarifies where I stand."
"And where is that?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.
"You are aware of my interest, Rowan. You know how far I'm willing to go, though we have yet to establish a limit to what I'll do for you," I brought her hand to my lips, kissing her knuckles.
"This was just you showing your interest, hm?" she mused.
"The most effective way for me to show you, yes." I grinned, unable to help myself.
She started to move, intending to climb off me. The loss of contact was an immediate, physical ache. I tightened my grip on her hips for a fraction of a second, an instinctive protest, before forcing myself to let go.
She slid off my lap, her legs wobbling slightly as her bare feet hit the Persian rug.
She grabbed her panties from the floor, clutching them in one hand while she used the other to try and pull the edges of her shirt together.
It was a futile gesture of modesty after what we’d just done, but it was endearingly human.
I adjusted my own clothing, re-fastening my trousers with a dignity I didn't entirely feel. My shirt was wrinkled, likely missing a button, and smelled entirely of her. I had no intention of changing it.
Rowan leaned against the desk, watching me. Her gaze was soft, contemplative.
"Mateo grounded me," she said quietly, echoing my earlier observation. "He stopped the shaking."
"I know."
"But you..." She paused, searching for the word, tilting her head as she analyzed the data of her own body. "You didn't stop the shaking. You just gave it a different frequency."
I stood up and walked over to her. I removed my glasses from the desk where they had been knocked askew and slid them back onto my face. The world sharpened back into distinct edges and lines.
"Stillness is useful for survival," I said, reaching out to fix the collar of her shirt. "But vibration is necessary for movement. If you're going to tear down an industry, Rowan, you can't be still."
I smoothed the fabric over her shoulder, letting my hand linger on the side of her neck.
"I don't need to fix you," I told her, my voice low and serious. "You aren't broken. You're just running a high-energy program on hardware that wasn't built for it. I intend to upgrade the hardware."
She looked at me, her eyes shining. She grabbed my lapels and pulled me down for a short, searing kiss.
"Thank you," she whispered against my mouth.
"For the orgasms?"
"For the upgrade."
She stepped back, turning to the door. "I think we should rewrite clause six, by the way."
"Go to bed, Rowan," I said. "Clause six will be there in the morning."
She hesitated, clutching the drafted protocol to her chest like a teddy bear.
"Stephen?"
"Yes?"
"We might need to revisit that topic of tonight's, uh, discussion again. I feel the sample size was... insufficient," she said, a wicked glint returning to her eyes as she backed toward the door.
My blood warmed again instantly.
"I'll be ready whenever you wish to continue the discussion," I promised.
She grinned, turned, and walked out of the study. She walked with a sway I hadn't seen before, loose-limbed and alive.
I stood alone in the quiet room, listening to her footsteps fade down the hall. I looked at the leather chair, at the slight indentation we had left.
Juno was right. We were in trouble.