Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
VIDAR
The ride back to the penthouse was a tomb of silence, the only sound the muffled hum of tires against asphalt.
Beside me, Addie sat rigid, her gaze fixed on the passing skyline.
I didn't need to look at her to know she was bracing herself.
Her scent was a metallic anxiety sprinkled with a heavy dose of desire.
It made sense. She thought this was a transaction. She thought I wanted the mindless oblivion of a random mouth, the kind of friction that numbs the brain until the world stops buzzing. If she were any other woman, that’s exactly what I’d take.
But the scent of her had been eroding my self-control for three days.
I didn't want her mouth on me. I wanted to bury my face between her thighs until the scent of her sex replaced the smell of blood and old-money rot that followed me everywhere else.
It wouldn't settle the ache in my cock—if anything, it would make it an agonizing roar—but it would silence the noise in my head.
As the elevator climbed toward the penthouse, I stopped looking at the floor numbers and started looking at her.
I was already calculating the logistics.
I mapped the hidden zipper of that green dress, estimating the tension required to slide it down without snagging.
I counted the hairpins anchoring her dark hair, determining the exact angle to pull them so her curls would spill over my pillows.
Five minutes. I could have her stripped bare in under five minutes.
I’d leave the heels on. I liked the feel of something sharp pressed against the small of my back. Since I planned to have her lower body pinned beneath me, it wouldn't be her nails.
The doors slid open. We stepped into the foyer, the air conditioning humming in the sterile silence of the apartment.
Addie turned to me, her green eyes flat and expressionless; the strategist had put on her armor.
Without a word, she began to sink to her knees, her hands reaching for the belt of my trousers.
I caught her wrists, my grip firm as I hauled her back to her feet. "What are you doing?"
She looked up at me, genuine confusion flickering across her face. "I’m giving you what you asked for. I’m giving you head."
"We agreed on oral sex, sweet Addie." I stepped into her space until she was forced back against the cool marble of the wall.
"I never said I wanted your mouth on me.
I want my nose between your legs. I want my tongue on your clit and my lips on your labia.
I want to drown in your honey. That is what will relieve my stress. "
Addie let out a staccato, hitching breath. She gulped, her pulse visible and frantic in the hollow of her throat.
"Do you mind?" The question was a low, dangerous challenge.
She swallowed hard, her eyes searching mine for the lie. When she found none, she gave a wobbly shake of her head.
I started the timer in my mind.
My fingers found the end of the zipper at the base of her spine.
I traced it up with my fingers, finding the top and tugged.
The sound of it sliding down was a long, slow sigh.
I moved to the hairpins, plucking them one by one and letting them clatter onto the floor until her hair cascaded over her shoulders.
The green knit pooled at her feet, leaving her in nothing but the dark lace I’d imagined since the morning.
The timer was still running. I had two minutes to spare. I intended to spend every second of the rest of the night making sure she knew exactly who owned the air she was breathing.
I guided her to her bedroom, my hand firm on the nape of her neck until we reached the edge of the mattress. I tossed her back. Her ass bounced in the dark lace that struggled to contain the curves I’d been mapping all day.
I stripped off my jacket. The heavy fabric hit the floor with a muffled thud. The jacket was followed by my tie. I didn't take my eyes off her. I wanted her to see my lack of hesitation. I wanted her to see that while I valued her mind, right now, I was coming for the rest of her.
"Don't close your legs."
She didn't. She lay there, her chest heaving, her dark hair fanned out against the white silk of the pillows.
The scent in the room had changed; the anxiety was gone, replaced by a heavy, musk-sweet aroma that told me everything I needed to know.
She was wet; her body betraying the strategist's logic, writhing with a restless anticipation that made the bedsprings groan.
I stepped out of my trousers and knelt between her knees. I didn't go for her mouth; I didn't go for her breasts. I reached down and spread her legs wider, pinning her ankles to the mattress until she was completely open to me.
I didn't bother with foreplay. We’d been doing foreplay for three days. With a flick of a claw, I destroyed her underwear. I'd bought it, so technically it was my underwear. She didn't complain.
I leaned down and took one long, slow lick from her perineum to her hood.
Addie let out a choked, broken sound. Her whole body shuddered beneath me as if I’d struck a match in a room full of gasoline.
I didn't give her time to recover. I centered myself, my nose brushing against the soft curls I’d been dreaming of, and wrapped my lips around her clit.
I pulled—hard.
Addie jackknifed off the bed, her back arching into a bow as a raw, high-pitched scream caught in her throat.
Her fingers clawed at the sheets, her heels digging into my shoulders.
There was no strategy to her moves. There was no Vane, no Blackwood, and no Sterling merger.
There was only the wet, rhythmic friction of my tongue and the way her body came apart under the pressure.
I drank her in, the stress of the packs and the weight of the empire finally falling away. It was replaced by the only thing in the world that felt real: the taste of my mate's surrender.
Addie’s first orgasm didn't just break; it detonated.
It was the kind of release that only comes from months of starvation—a violent, rhythmic pulsing that gripped her entire body and didn't let go.
She let out a jagged, sobbing breath, her fingers tangling in the silk pillowcases as she shook beneath the onslaught.
I stayed right where I was, drinking in the salt and the heat, feeling a rare, sharp pang of guilt.
I’d denied her this for three days. I’d watched her pace that penthouse and navigate those office floors, keeping my hands off her to prove a point about power.
Seeing her this undone made the point feel hollow.
I was going to make it up to her. I was going to drown her in it.
As she began to come down, her muscles twitching with the aftershocks, she tried to pull her knees together. Fuck that. I looked up, a low growl vibrating in my chest as I glared at her. I felt like a child being denied a favorite toy. I wasn't finished playing.
"Don't. I'm not done with you yet."
"I'm too sensitive. I can't—"
"It’ll pass." I ignored her protests as I hooked my elbows under her knees and spread her even wider.
I started again. Out of deference to her swollen kitty, I kept the strokes long and agonizingly slow at first. She squirmed, her head thrashing from side to side as she tried to escape the sensation.
Then the rhythm took her. The squirming turned into a desperate, seeking motion.
She began to move with me, her hips lifting off the mattress to meet my tongue.
The second orgasm hit her even harder than the first. It was a seizure of pure pleasure that left her legs shaking for long, sobbing moments. Her eyes were rolled back, her breath coming in tiny, pathetic hitches.
I shifted, turning over on my back and bracing my head against the headboard. I looked up at her, my own blood thundering in my ears, and motioned for her to move.
"Climb up," I commanded. "Sit on my face, sweet Addie."
She looked shell-shocked; her pupils were so blown they swallowed the green of her irises.
She looked as if she didn't have the strength to crawl, let alone dominate the space above me.
But she did as she was told. She was trembling so hard I had to reach up and grip her hips just to keep her steady as she hovered over me.
I went back to work. With every slick, heavy lap of my tongue, I felt the stress of the day simply evaporate. My mind cleared, the static replaced by a singular, focused vision of the future.
I wanted to trust her. I wanted to wake up to this scent every morning for the next fifty years.
I wanted the life my parents had: the laughter in the kitchen, the pack loyalty, the children with her eyes and my temper.
I wondered, as I felt her start to build toward a third peak, if I licked her hard enough, could I make her want those things too?
If I made her shake hard enough, if I stripped away every defense she had until she was nothing but nerves and need, maybe I could knock the sense into her that I wasn't just her husband by contract. I was the best thing that had ever happened to her.