Chapter 9 Owen
OWEN
Toxic. That’s the only word for the air in the office today.
It’s not the ventilation system. It’s not the reek of tepid energy drinks and warm plastic from the developer pit.
It’s Ethan.
Since this morning’s strategy meeting, my brother has been a walking detonator. He stalks the perimeter of his glass office, radiating a frequency of rage that has every developer in the pit wearing noise-canceling headphones. He stares at monitors he isn’t reading.
And he completely ignores Tessa.
From my desk, I see her. She sits rigid in her chair, typing with a mechanical rhythm. She looks exhausted. Dark smudges bruise the skin under her hazel eyes, shadows that weren’t there at the start of the week. She hasn’t smiled since she stormed out of that conference room.
Ethan is breaking her.
He thinks he’s protecting the company. He thinks he’s “establishing boundaries.” But from where I’m sitting, it looks like he’s punishing her because he wanted to kiss her and didn’t.
“Enough,” I mutter.
I stand up and button my jacket. The “firewall” Ethan just ordered is a death sentence for morale, and I’m done watching the slow-motion crash.
“Where are you going?” Asher asks without looking up from the nest of Ethernet cables on the floor.
“I’m pulling the ripcord,” I say. “Before he fires her for breathing too loud.”
Asher pauses, holding a blue wire. He looks at Tessa, then at the closed blinds of Ethan’s office.
“The dragon is volatile today,” Asher notes.
“He needs to get laid,” I correct. “But since he’s too busy being a martyr, I’m going to go do the job he refuses to do.”
“Owen.” Asher’s voice carries a warning.
“Relax, Ash. I’m just taking the new hire for a drink. Someone has to remind her we aren’t all psychopaths before she quits.”
I wink at him and stride across the bullpen.
I stop at Tessa’s desk. She’s staring at a spreadsheet like she wants to set it on fire.
“Fatal error?” I ask softly.
She jumps, blinking rapidly as she looks up. “What?”
“You have the ‘murder face’ on,” I say, leaning my knuckles on her desk. “I assumed the printer was acting up again.”
Tessa looks at me, then back at her screen A slow, tired smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. “No. Just budget reconciliations. Ethan approved the campaign, but he just rejected the packaging designs. He said the font was ‘frivolous.’“
“He wears gray socks. Exclusively.” I lean a hip against her desk, lowering my voice. “You look like you need a drink, Tess. A real one. Not the sad office sludge.”
“I have work to do,” she sighs, gesturing to the screen. “And if I don’t finish this, he’s going to—”
“He’s not going to do anything,” I interrupt. “Because you are clocking out. You survived two weeks at Mosaic. You survived the ‘Shark’ pitch. You survived the ‘Cold War’ of the last few hours. That calls for a celebration.”
She hesitates. Her gaze drifts to the closed door of the CEO’s office. The blinds are drawn, but the weight of his presence presses against the glass.
“I don’t know, Owen…”
“Come on,” I coax, reaching out to tap her hand. “I’m stealing you. No arguments.”
She stares at my hand covering hers. I see the conflict in her eyes—the need to be professional, warring with the desperate need to escape.
Something in her expression hardens.
“Okay,” she says. She hits save and stands up. “Get me out of here.”
She grabs her purse. I take her arm, steering her toward the elevators before she can change her mind. I know Ethan is probably staring at us through his blinds, but I don’t turn around.
The elevator doors slide shut, cutting off the view of the bullpen. The silence is sudden and absolute.
Tessa leans back against the metal wall, letting out a breath that sounds like it’s been trapped in her lungs all day.
“He’s going to kill you,” she says softly.
“He’s going to try,” I correct, hitting the button for the lobby. “But right now, he’s too busy sulking in his glass cage.”
She looks up. Her eyes are rimmed with red.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine,” she lies.
“You’re a terrible liar, Tess.” I watch the floor numbers tick down. “Let’s go break some rules.”
The rooftop bar, Azul, is loud and packed with the Friday crowd, but I know the manager. We get a corner table away from the noise, overlooking the pool and the skyline bleeding purple into the dark.
The waiter pours the champagne. Tessa takes a long sip, closing her eyes as the bubbles hit. Her shoulders drop two inches.
“Oh my god,” she breathes. “I needed that.”
“Better?” I ask.
“Dangerous,” she admits, opening her eyes. “This feels like truancy.”
“It is.” I lean back, watching her. The wind picks up loose strands of her hair. She looks beautiful. And sad.
“He hates me,” she says suddenly.
“Who?”
“Ethan. I don’t know what I did wrong, Owen. This morning… We had a moment. A really intense moment. And since then, he’s been treating me like I’m invisible. Or worse, like I’m a virus he’s trying to quarantine.”
I sigh, twisting the stem of my glass. “He doesn’t hate you, Tess. He wants you.”
She laughs, a bitter sound. “Right. That’s why he won’t look at me.”
“That’s exactly why he won’t look at you,” I insist. “Ethan is a binary creature. Zero or One. He doesn’t know how to do ‘in between.’ He knows he can’t have you—because of Harper, because of the company—so he flipped the switch to ‘Off.’ But the wiring is frying.”
“He still thinks I’m a liability,” she mutters.
“He calls me a liability twice a week,” I grin. “It’s his love language.”
She smiles, shaking her head. “You guys are impossible. All three of you.”
“We are,” I agree. “But we’re loyal.”
She goes quiet again, looking at the bubbles in her glass.
“Why did you ask?” she says suddenly.
“Ask what?”
“To bring me here. Is it pity? Did Ethan send you to do damage control?”
I laugh, but it’s a dark sound. “Ethan doesn’t send me anywhere, Tess. And I don’t do pity.”
I lean forward, invading her personal space. The air shifts between us, thick with the heat radiating off the concrete.
“I’m doing this because, since that meeting this morning, I’ve watched you biting your lip and it’s driving me insane. I’m doing this because if I had to watch you type one more spreadsheet while looking like you wanted to scream, I was going to put my fist through a monitor.”
She stops moving. Her gaze drops to my mouth, then back up to my eyes.
“You’re the dangerous one,” she whispers.
“I thought I was the nice one? The one who lets you win at Mario Kart?”
“No,” she shakes her head. “Ethan is the wall. Asher is the ghost. But you… you make people think you’re safe. You make them think you’re just the charming guy who fixes the printer.” She takes a sip, her eyes never leaving mine. “That makes you the worst of them all.”
Guilt flickers in my chest, hot and sharp. She sees right through it.
“I’m not safe,” I admit, my voice dropping to a rough murmur. “I never said I was safe.”
“I know.” She sets the glass down. Her hand trembles slightly. “I don’t think I want safe anymore. I tried safe all week. It hurts.”
I reach across the table. I cover her hand with mine. Her skin is warm, electric against my palm.
“Then stop playing safe,” I say. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Where?”
“My loft. It’s two blocks away.”
She hesitates. I can see the war in her eyes—the sensible career woman versus the reckless desire that got us into this mess.
She stands up.
“Okay.”
I unlock the door and kick a stray sneaker out of the hallway.
My loft isn’t a museum like Ethan’s penthouse. It smells of old wood, coffee, and the expensive scotch I left uncorked on the counter. It’s messy and real.
The moment the door clicks shut, the dynamic snaps.
We aren’t colleagues anymore. We aren’t friends.
Tessa stands in the living room, clutching her purse like a shield.
“Do you want a drink?” I ask, tossing my keys into a bowl. “Water? Wine?”
“No,” she says. She sets her purse on the floor. She takes a step toward me. “I don’t want a drink.”
“What do you want?”
“I want you to stop talking,” she says breathlessly.
I grin. “Make me.”
She closes the distance between us.
She grabs my lapels, pulls me down, and smashes her mouth against mine. She kisses me hard. Like she owns me.
I groan, the sound tears from my throat, and I crush her mouth to mine. I’ve been wanting to do this for two weeks. I wrap my arms around her waist, hauling her flush against me. She tastes like champagne.
She makes a whimpering sound, her hands gripping my shoulders as I back her up.
I stumble back, hitting the wall with a thud that rattles the framed photos. I don’t care. I kiss her jaw, her neck, the sensitive spot behind her ear.
“Owen,” she gasps. “The office… Ethan…”
“Fuck the office,” I growl against her skin. “Right now, it’s just you and me.”
My hands shake as I reach for the buttons of her blouse. I rip one. It pings off the floor.
“Sorry,” I mutter, not sorry at all.
I part the fabric, expecting a plain bra. Instead, I find black lace. It clashes wildly with the sensible skirt. A secret she was keeping for herself.
“Jesus, Tessa.” I run a thumb over the scalloped edge of the lace. “You wore this to a strategy meeting?”
She flushes, her chest heaving. “It was laundry day.”
“Liar,” I whisper. “You wore this hoping one of us would see it.”
“Maybe,” she admits.
“Beautiful.”
I reach behind her without waiting, unhooking the clasp. Her tits spill out of the bra.
“Owen,” she breathes.
I take the left nipple into my mouth first. She cries out, tangling her fingers in my hair, her head falling back against the wall.
I suckle hard, listening to her inhale fracture.
I tease the hardened nub with my tongue, making her writhe, then switch to the right one, giving it the same punishing attention.
My hands slide up her thighs, bunching the skirt at her waist. I hunt for the edge of her panties—expecting a waistband, lace, something. But I find nothing.
I freeze, looking up at her.
My fingers graze her pussy. She’s burning hot. Slick. Soaking wet.
“Tessa?”
“I told you,” she pants, her cheeks flushed crimson. “It’s a bad laundry day.”
“You wore a black lace bra and no panties to work,” I say, my voice rough. “You walked around the office all day like this. You were already expecting this.”
“Maybe I was.”
“You are going to be the death of me.”
I drop to my knees and bury my face between her legs.
She screams my name as I taste her, flickering my tongue over her clit, drinking her down, feeling her thighs quake against my ears.
I stand up, shoving my pants and boxers down with trembling hands, leaving them bunched at my knees. I free my cock. It springs out, heavy and throbbing. I rip the drawer open. I grab a condom and roll it on.
I lift her leg, hooking it over my hip.
“Look at me,” I command.
She opens her eyes. They are blown wide, dark with lust.
“This stays here,” I say. “Whatever happens… this is ours.”
“Ours,” she agrees.
I thrust into her.
She’s tight. Wet and tight. The friction blinds me.
She gasps, her nails digging into my shoulders. “Owen.”
“I’ve got you.”
I start to move. Our bodies slap together, the sound echoing in the quiet loft. I drive into her, deep and hard, trying to erase the last two weeks of distance.
“More,” she begs, bucking against me.
“You like that?” I grind against her clit. “You like being reckless, Tess?”
“Yes,” she screams. “Yes!”
I let go. I stop thinking. I stop worrying about the company or my brothers. I just pound into her until her body arches and clamps down on my cock, milking me until I’m empty.
I groan, burying my face in her neck as I blow my load inside her.
The room is quiet, save for the hum of the refrigerator and our ragged breathing.
We lie tangled on the couch, limbs heavy, clothes scattered. Tessa rests her head on my chest. I trace the curve of her spine, my mind slowly rebooting.
“So,” she whispers, her voice hoarse. “That happened.”
“It did.” I kiss the top of her head. “You okay?”
“I feel…” She pauses. “Alive.”
I laugh softly. “Yeah. Me too.”
She shifts, propping herself up on an elbow to look at me. Her hair is a disaster. Her lips are swollen. She looks wrecked.
“What happens now? Does this mean I get fired on Monday?”
“No,” I say fiercely, my arm tightening around her. “No one is getting fired. You aren’t going anywhere.”
“Ethan isn’t going to like this.”
“Let him be angry. I don’t care.”
“He’ll know,” she says. “He always knows.”
“He won’t know unless we tell him.”
She looks at me, searching my face. “What about the fact that you’re brothers? You’re not going to tell them?”
I go completely still.
The Unit. We share debts, secrets, enemies.
But looking at Tessa, lying on my couch, smelling like sex and her perfume… a possessive growl rumbles in my chest.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “Usually… yes. But this feels different.”
“Different how?”
“Different like… I’m not sure I want to share,” I whisper.
She traces the scar on my chest.
“Maybe you won’t have to,” she says sleepily.
She rests her head back down. Within minutes, her breathing evens out. She’s out cold.
I stay awake.
I stare at the ceiling, the adrenaline fading into a cold knot of dread in my stomach.
My phone vibrates on the coffee table—one short, sharp buzz.
I don’t need to look to know who it is. Asher watches the grid. He knows we’re together. He knows I broke the treaty.