Chapter 19
NINETEEN
Anders
The hallway was a tunnel of shadows, but the figures emerging from it were illuminated by the dying embers of the firelight in the living room.
Simon walked with a stagger, looking like a man who had touched a live wire and liked it. His dark hair was wild, his chest heaving, his scent of burnt sugar scorched so overwhelming it smelled like a refinery fire.
But it was Tessa who unmade me.
She walked beside him, her hand laced in his, but she wasn't the trembling creature who had tried to retreat behind her own eyelids.
She was ruined. Beautifully, devastatingly ruined.
Her lips were swollen, bit-red and slick.
A silk robe hung open, revealing the flush that mottled her chest like a map of the violence we had inflicted upon her.
Her legs shook with every step, but her chin was up.
She looked like a queen who had just survived a coup by seducing the executioner.
And she was still burning.
I could smell it from twenty feet away, a sharp, high-frequency spike of blackberry and brine that cut through the heavier, muskier scent of Simon’s claim.
The secondary spike hadn't broken; it had just been fed.
Biology was a cruel architect; it didn't care about exhaustion. It only cared about completion.
Simon had drawn the art. Daniel had laid the foundation.
But the house was still shaking.
"The authority is calling," she had whispered to Simon.
Authority. That was what I was supposed to be.
The shield. The man who managed the logistics so the talent could bleed onto the page.
For years, I had defined authority as distance.
I thought power meant staying clean, staying seated, staying behind the podium while the girl in front of me fell apart.
I looked at her now, at the messy reality of her need, and I realized I had been wrong.
Authority wasn't distance. Authority was contact.
"You look..." I started, my voice failing me, cracking into gravel.
"Like a mess?" Tessa supplied, coming to a stop near the heavy dark desk that dominated the far corner of the living room, her workspace, the altar where she sacrificed herself daily for the bestseller list.
"Like a riot," I corrected.
I crossed the room. I moved with a purpose that felt foreign to the man in the charcoal suit, but native to the animal currently clawing at the back of my throat.
"Bradlee," I said, not looking at him. "You’re done. Your hands are shaking so badly you’re going to pull her apart."
Simon let out a breath that was half-laugh, half-sob. "I’m tapped out, Anders. I gave her everything."
"I know," I said. "Go to the perimeter. Stand with Daniel. Don't let the world in."
Simon nodded, pressing one last, desperate kiss to Tessa’s knuckles before retreating into the shadows where Daniel stood guard. The pack was forming a circle, and I was stepping into the center.
Tessa looked up at me. Her grey eyes were blown wide, pupils swallowing the irises. She swayed on her feet, grabbing the edge of the desk for support.
"And you, Anders?" she rasped, a challenge curling the corner of her mouth. "Are you going to audit me next? Check my vitals? Send me an email about breach of contract?"
"No more emails," I growled.
I closed the distance. The scent of her hit me, and then my scent was colliding with her ocean storm, creating a pressure system that cleared my head instantly.
"You've been the strong survivor for years," I told her, reaching out. I didn't touch her face. I didn't touch her hands. I gripped her waist, my thumbs digging into the soft flesh above her hipbones. "You built this fortress, wrote the books, and protected the ghost."
She trembled in my grip, her breath hitching. "I had to."
"Not tonight," I said. "Tonight, you don't have to survive anything. You don't have to be strong. You don't have to be the genius author."
I tightened my grip.
"Tonight, you are just you. You are just biology. And I am the one who manages the asset."
I didn't give her time to process the shift in my tone. I didn't ask for permission; she had already given the command to the room. Fill the void.
I bent my knees and picked her up.
She gasped, clutching my shoulders as I deposited her onto the surface of the massive oak desk. She landed among the scattered papers, the ergonomic mouse, and the cold coffee mug. I swept my arm across the surface, sending a stack of papers and notes fluttering to the floor.
"Anders!" she yelped, trying to scramble backward, but I stepped between her spread knees, locking her in place.
"This desk," I said, leaning over her, planting my hands on either side of her hips, trapping her against the monitor stand. "This is where you control everything, isn't it? This is where you play god with your characters."
"Yes," she whispered, her chest heaving.
"Not anymore," I said. "Right now, this isn't a workspace. It's a claiming ground."
She looked at me, her eyes darting over my face, looking for the rule-follower. He was gone. The class president was dead.
"Flip over," I ordered.
She hesitated, blinking. "What?"
"Turn over, Tessa," I said, my voice dropping that octave into the register usually reserved for hostile acquisitions. "Hands on the desk. Arch your back."
A shiver ripped through her, violent and visible. "Why?"
"Because you're spinning," I told her brutally. "Your mind is trying to write the scene instead of living it. You're analyzing Simon's angles. You're analyzing Daniel's pacing. I need you out of your head and in your skin."
She bit her lip, a flush rising from her neck to her cheeks. Slowly, agonizingly, she turned.
She positioned herself on the desk on her hands and knees, facing the dark window that reflected the room back at us. The posture exposed everything, the curve of her spine, the pale mounds of her buttocks, the slick, swollen reality of her heat displayed between her thighs.
"God," I choked out, the sight nearly breaking my resolve.
I reached into my pocket, my hand shaking as I pulled out the single foil packet I had grabbed from her nightstand supply, the responsible businessman, even in the hormone apocalypse. I ripped it open with my teeth, the sound sharp in the quiet room.
"Stay still," I warned.
I moved behind her. But I didn't enter. Not yet.
I raised my hand and brought it down on the soft flesh of her ass.
Smack.
The sound was shocking. Sharp. Loud.
Tessa cried out, a startled, affronted yelp, and tried to scramble forward.
"Stay," I roared, grabbing her hips and hauling her back.
Smack.
"Anders!" she gasped, her body bowing, her hips instinctively twitching.
"Ground yourself," I commanded, striking her again. Not to injure, but to mark. To sting. To draw the blood to the surface and force her focus into a single, stinging point of reality. "Right here, Tessa. Feel that? That is real. That is happening now."
Smack. Smack.
"Yes!" she sobbed, dropping her head to the desk, her forehead resting on her crossed arms. Her hips began to roll, grinding against the empty air, seeking. "I feel it. I feel it."
"Good."
I smoothed my hand over the reddened skin, soothing the sting I had created. My touch was reverent now, possessive. I traced the dip of her spine, feeling the tremors racking her frame.
"You aren't alone on this stage," I murmured, leaning down to bite the sensitive skin at the base of her neck, right over the scent gland. I didn't break the skin, but I scraped my teeth against it, a warning. "I am right behind you."
"You... you stayed seated," she whispered, the old trauma surfacing even now.
"I know," I admitted, the guilt tasting like ash on my tongue. "I sat in my chair and I watched you break because I was terrified of the mess."
I adjusted myself, rolling the protection on, feeling the savage, painful pressure of my own arousal. I was hard enough to break glass.
"I'm standing up now, Tessa."
I grabbed her hips, my fingers digging into the muscle, bruising the skin.
"And I love the mess."
I drove into her.
It wasn't the fluid, artistic slide of Simon. It was structural. Absolute. I buried myself in her to the hilt in a single thrust, forcing the air from her lungs in a shouted gasp.
"Anders!"
She was so tight it made my vision blur. The interior of her was a velvet vice, hot and slick and clamping down on me with a desperation that mirrored my own.
"Take it," I snarled, my forehead resting against her spine, my sweat mingling with hers. "Take every inch of it."
I began to move. Efficient and punishing.
I drove her forward with every thrust, her body sliding on the smooth wood of the desk until she hit the edge of the computer setup.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
The rhythm was a war drum.
"Is this better?" I demanded, punctuating the question with a snap of my hips that made her scream. "Is this better than silence? Is this better than the polite applause?"
"Yes!" she wailed, reaching back blindly, her nails clawing at my thighs. "It fills it! It fills the noise!"
"I am the noise," I growled.
I leaned back, pulling her with me, changing the angle so I hit the deepest part of her. The friction was incredible. Bourbon and sea salt swirled in the air, creating a scent that was pure intoxication.
I felt the change before she did.
The base of my cock began to swell. The biological imperative, the one I had suppressed with cold showers and strict rules for fifteen years, woke up and took the wheel. The knot. The lock. The evolutionary guarantee that the Omega wouldn't escape until the job was done.
"Tessa," I warned, my voice strangled. "I'm swelling. I'm going to knot you."
"Do it," she begged, pushing back against me, her internal muscles fluttering, trying to milk the release from me. "Lock me down. Don't let me leave."
"Never," I vowed.
I let go. I stopped thinking about the bridge, the contract, the leak, the career. I held onto her hips and poured myself into her.
The climax hit me like a grand mal seizure. White light exploded behind my eyelids. I roared, a guttural, animalistic sound that had no place in a boardroom. I emptied myself into the protection, trusting the latex, trusting the moment.
And then, the catch.
The knot flared, expanding rapidly at the base, sliding past the ring of muscle and catching.
Tessa screamed, a high, sharp sound of being stretched to capacity, and then collapsed onto the desk.
We were stuck.
I panted, my chest heaving against her back, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. The silence rushed back into the room, but it was different now. It wasn't empty. It was full.
"I can't move," she whispered, a note of panic creeping into her voice as the reality of the biological lock set in. She tried to shift forward, but my body held her fast. "Anders, I'm stuck."
This was the moment.
This was the nightmare scenario for the teenage boy on the stage. To be trapped, forced to be part of the spectacle and unable to walk away.
I leaned forward. I draped my upper body over hers, covering her completely. My chest pressed against her back, my cheek resting against her damp hair. I wrapped my arms around her, crossing them over her chest, creating a cage of bone and muscle.
"I know," I murmured into her ear. "We're locked."
"It's... it's intense," she gasped, the aftershocks of the pleasure rolling through her. "I feel full. Too full."
"Breathe," I instructed, syncing my breathing with hers. "I've got you. I'm not going anywhere."
"You can't go anywhere," she pointed out shakily.
"I wouldn't if I could," I said.
I lifted my head and looked at the others.
Daniel was standing by the hearth, watching us with dark, heavy eyes, his chest rising and falling. Simon was seated on the floor, sketching in the air with a trembling finger.
"Pack," I said to them.
Daniel nodded. He walked over, slow and heavy. He didn't try to touch her sexually, I was occupying that space entirely, but he placed a massive hand on her head, stroking her hair.
"Good job, Tessa," Daniel rumbled. "You did so good."
"Simon," I called.
Simon crawled over. He knelt by the desk, right in Tessa's line of sight. He took her hand where it clutched the edge of the desk.
"I'm here," Simon whispered. "I'm watching. You're okay."
Tessa let out a long, shuddering sigh. The tension drained out of her frame. She melted into the mattress of the papers and the wood, and she melted back against me.
"You stayed," she whispered, the realization hitting her.
"I'm right behind you, Tessa. And I'm going to hold you until the shaking stops," I told her, pressing my face into her neck, inhaling the scent of her sweat and our sex.
"It might never stop," she said, a tear leaking onto the desk.
"Then I'm never leaving," I promised.
The knot pulsed, a steady, rhythmic throb that bound us together. I closed my eyes, feeling the storm outside battering the glass, feeling the heat of her body warming my own.
For years, I had been the savvy businessman, or the man who made problems go away.
But as I held her there, locked deep inside her, I realized I didn't want to fix her. I just wanted to be the wall she couldn't break. I wanted to be the authority she finally yielded to.
And for the first time in my life, everything was exactly where it was supposed to be.