Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
ADDIE
Iwoke up with a heavy, restless heat coiled deep in my belly. It was a buzzing beneath my skin that had nothing to do with the city noise outside. It was a pulsing ache that had everything to do with the man in the other room.
Vidar Blackwood and I had been married for three days, and we still hadn't consummated the union.
I hadn't dated in months—I hadn't had sex in longer than that—so technically, this shouldn't have mattered.
I was used to the dry spells. But those dry spells didn't usually involve sleeping a few feet away from a man who looked like a fallen god and moved like a predator.
My wolf was not having the separation. She clawed at my skin all night long, aching to nose her way into his room. Or just to be let out. She still remembered that run, his dominance. She wanted to feel his claws in her fur, his teeth on her neck.
If I were honest, I wanted that too. But my husband wasn't anywhere near as ravenous as we were. And the hell if I was going to cave first.
The irony was a jagged pill. I swallowed it to add to my bitterness. All my life, I had fought to be recognized for my brain, not my body. I wanted to be the strategist, the one at the head of the table, not the trophy on the arm of a man who only saw what my last name could do for them.
Vidar Blackwood was giving me exactly what I’d asked for. He saw my intellect. He valued my logic. And yet, he seemed to find it infuriatingly easy to keep his hands off me. Asshole.
I groaned into my pillow; the frustration peaking. If he wasn't going to do anything about this, I was going to have to take matters into my own hands, starting with the pad of my index finger.
I slipped my hand beneath the heavy duvet.
The prick of my nails left faint trails on my fair skin.
The scrape of my index finger turned to a soft press as my thumb and middle finger joined the parade.
My thighs parted, ready to receive the eager little marching band.
My hypersensitive skin hummed with the memory of the way he’d watched me at the keyboard last night.
I made my way across the manicured landscape of my core, my eyes drifting shut as I imagined his calloused hands replacing my own, when a sharp, rhythmic knock sounded at the door.
I jumped, my hand jerking away as if I’d been caught in a crime.
"What are you doing in there, sweet Addie?"
"Sleeping." I let the annoyance come through.
"Get dressed," Vidar’s voice rumbled through the wood, low and authoritative. "We’re headed into the office. The car leaves in twenty minutes."
I sat up, my chest heaving, the sexual tension curdling into a frustrated pout. "I'm coming," I called out, my voice sounding more breathless than I would have liked.
He chuckled.
I climbed out of bed and walked into the massive closet.
Row after row of new clothes hung there, all perfectly tailored to my measurements.
It was a curated identity Vidar had bought for me.
Most were sensible, high-necked, and professional.
Tucked near the back, I found a knit dress in a deep hunter green.
It was a little risqué for the office. Technically, it covered everything from my neck to my knees, but the fabric was a second skin. It hugged the swell of my hips and the curve of my waist with a precision that left absolutely nothing to the imagination.
He wanted the strategist? Fine. But today, I wanted him to see the woman, too. Let's see if he can keep his hands off me now.
When I stepped into the living area, Vidar was leaning against the kitchen island, glancing at his phone.
He looked up as the click of my heels echoed on the slate floor.
His gaze didn't just meet mine; it traveled.
It lingered on the slope of my breasts, traced the dip of my waist, and mapped the curve of my thighs as though the dark green fabric wasn't even there.
The heat in his eyes was unmistakable, a flash of primal hunger that made my skin prickle. Then, with an infuriatingly steady hand, he glanced back down at his phone.
"Do you need breakfast?" he asked.
"I’m not hungry."
He nodded once and turned toward the entrance. As we left, I noted that the heavy door was unlocked. He wasn't caging me in anymore. Good. He’d learned that I could escape, and he was smart enough to realize that a locked door was just an invitation for me to break it.
We stepped into the elevator in silence.
The hum of the lighting fixtures held their own conversations.
The descent began, but Vidar didn't look at the floor numbers.
He stood close. The scent of him wrapped around me like the belt I'd considered accessorizing with this outfit, but decided it would be too much.
"You forgot to wash your hands."
I stiffened. "What?"
"I can smell your scent on your fingers, sweet Addie. You didn't get to finish what you started."
A hot, stinging blush flooded my face. I rubbed my hands against the tight fabric of the skirt, a frantic attempt to wipe away the evidence of my morning frustration.
Vidar reached out and snatched my hand, his grip like iron. He didn't pull me closer. He brought my hand to his face. Slowly, deliberately, he took my fingertips into his mouth.
My knees buckled when my fingertip met the soft pressure of his bottom lip.
I locked my joints as he tongued underneath my nail, around the finger pad, between my knuckles, before flicking the tip of his tongue into the nail bed.
He kept his eyes locked on mine the entire time—a predatory, unblinking stare that demanded I watch him claim me.
My core clenched in time to his flicks. He sucked, and the unclaimed orgasm from this morning sat up like an eager puppy whose master had picked up its leash. He scraped his teeth along the side of my finger and I couldn't swallow. I couldn't inhale. I was lightheaded with need.
The elevator dinged.
Vidar let go of my hand as if nothing had happened.
His expression smoothed back into the mask of the professional CEO, though the fire in his eyes remained. He stepped out onto the street level, where a black town car was waiting, its engine idling. He gestured for me to precede him.
It took everything in me to take that first step. I swatted my panting orgasm with a mental newspaper, telling it to behave. I would take it out later since our new owner was a sadist.
My husband may have won that round, but as I settled into the leather seat and felt the tight pull of the green dress against my skin, I knew the day was far from over.
The drive to the office was a battle of wills. Vidar sat beside me, his attention fixed on a tablet, but I saw his nostrils flare as the fabric pulled even tighter across my thighs. He didn't say a word, but his knuckles were white as he gripped the edge of his tablet.
Once we reached the Blackwood headquarters, the dynamic shifted. Vidar didn't tuck me away in a corner or treat me like a guest. As his department heads approached him with questions on the Ironwood accounts and the Sterling transition, he barely spared them a glance.
"This is my wife, Addie Blackwood. She’s the one who mapped the secondary encryption on the Ironwood accounts. She’s also the lead on the Sterling transition. Any questions defer to her."
Half a dozen eyes went to me. Many with the flash of shifter behind the irises, many humans who recognized power when they saw it. Vidar pointed me to a corner office with a breathtaking view of the skyline, then he disappeared across the hall.
For the next four hours, I was on top of the world.
People moved in and out of my office as I solved bottlenecks, rerouted logistics, and watched the respect on the faces of seasoned analysts as I dismantled their problems with a few sentences.
This was what I was made for. This was the power I’d always craved: the respect of a room full of people who actually listened.
I was leaning over a terminal, explaining a tax-shelter pivot, when I saw the glass doors to the executive suite slide open.
Magnus walked in. He moved with the same commanding grace as Vidar.
His eyes scanned the space until they landed on me.
He gave me a polite, professional nod—a silent acknowledgement of my presence—but he didn't stop to chat. He walked straight past my office, pushed open the door to Vidar’s office, and shut it firmly behind him.
The click of the latch sounded like a gavel. The high I’d been riding plummeted. I sat there, the glow of the monitor suddenly feeling cold against my face.
I was "The Wife." I was the strategist they used to fix their ledgers.
But as the door to my husband's office closed, I was reminded that I was still not wholly a Blackwood.
There were secrets kept in that office that I wasn't allowed to hear, and a family bond that my marriage hadn't quite managed to bypass.