18. Sloane #2
This isn't the press conference. It isn't one of those charged almost-moments where neither of us quite crossed the line. It's what happens after we stop pretending the line still exists.
He turns us, backing me against the edge of his desk, one hand braced beside my hip while the other slides into my hair. The motion is still careful enough that I know he’s holding back, even now, and something reckless in me hates that.
I bite his lower lip lightly. His entire body goes still for a fraction of a second before his mouth comes back to mine harder.
Good.
My knees weaken, and I hate that too, but Marcus catches the shift instantly. His hands settle at my waist, lifting me onto the edge of the desk with an ease that sends heat spiraling through me. Papers slide beneath me. Something falls to the floor.
Neither of us looks.
His mouth moves along my jaw, then lower, and my head tips back before I can stop it. The city glows behind him through the glass, a whole world still watching Crossridge burn, and somehow none of it reaches this room.
For once, the noise outside can't touch us.
Marcus's lips pause against the side of my throat, his breathing rough enough to match the uneven rhythm of my own.
“We should stop,” he says, but the words sound like they cost him.
I slide my hands into his hair and pull him back enough to look at him. “Do you want to?”
His expression is completely wrecked.
“No.”
The answer is so immediate that heat floods through me all over again.
“Then don’t.”
A muscle works in his jaw. “This changes things.”
I almost laugh, breathless and shaky. “Marcus, everything has already changed.”
Whatever final restraint he was holding onto snaps quietly, and he kisses me again like the last couple of weeks has been building inside him with nowhere to go.
His hands move with more certainty now, over my back, my waist, my thighs, still giving me enough time to stop him and clearly praying I won’t.
I pull at his tie until it loosens, then start on the buttons of his shirt with fingers that are not nearly as steady as I want them to be.
Marcus catches my wrist gently, and I freeze.
His gaze locks on mine. “Not because I’m stopping you.”
My breath catches.
“Because I need to hear you say this isn’t anger.”
For one second, the old instinct rises. The urge to snap at him. To accuse him of managing me even now. But then I see his face.
This is not control. This is care stripped down to something careful and scared and trying very hard not to become another kind of damage. My throat tightens.
“It isn’t anger,” I say.
His thumb moves once against the inside of my wrist.
“And it isn’t gratitude,” he says.
God. I close my eyes briefly. Because of course he would see that too.
“No,” I whisper. “It isn’t gratitude.”
“Then tell me what it is.”
I open my eyes to find Marcus looking at me like the answer matters more than anything happening outside this room. Maybe it does.
“It’s me wanting you,” I say, and the truth leaves me shaking. “Even after everything. Especially after everything. And I hate how much that scares me.”
The last word barely makes it out before his mouth is on mine again. This time, there is no hesitation. Only heat and motion and the sound of both of us finally stopping before the line, just long enough to choose crossing it together.
His shirt comes open beneath my hands. My dress slides higher beneath his palms. Every touch feels inevitable and impossible at once, like my body understood long before my mind admitted it.
Marcus moves slowly when it matters, carefully when it matters, but there is nothing controlled about the way he looks at me.
Like I'm not a strategy, fallout, or a problem he needs to solve. He's looking at me as though I'm something far more dangerous than that. Like I'm the thing that finally taught him what wanting costs.
When he finally carries me to the couch along the far wall, my arms locked around his neck and his mouth never far from mine, I don’t think about the statement or the emails or the fact that tomorrow will still be waiting when this ends.
I think about his hands, the rasp of his breath, and the way he says my name when I touch him back. It’s not polished, careful, or controlled.
By the time we come apart fully, there is no room left for pretending this is anything but what it is.
We undress each other slowly at first, each button a surrender, each slide of fabric a confession.
His hands map me like restraint still lives somewhere in him, but is losing ground with every shuddering breath I take.
My body answers before I can decide to be embarrassed by it, arching into him, pulling him closer, asking without words for things I am not ready to name out loud.
Marcus gives me all of it—his attention, his restraint, his complete focus. Nothing about him is hurried or careless. He never takes without checking, never assumes, and somehow that makes it hotter. More devastating.
Because every time his eyes find mine, I can see the question he isn't asking.
Are we still doing this?
Are you still sure?
Do you still want me after everything?
The answer must be written all over my face, because he never has to ask it out loud.
He lifts me, and my legs lock around his waist. My back hits the soft leather of the couch, and he follows me down, his body a warm, heavy weight that feels more like safety than a cage.
For a suspended second, he just looks at me, his hair disheveled, his chest rising and falling with a ragged breath.
He looks wrecked, and the realization that I did that to him sends another dangerous pulse of heat through me.
“Last chance,” he murmurs, his voice a low rumble against my chest. “Tell me this is a mistake.”
My fingers tighten in his hair, pulling him closer until our foreheads rest together. “The mistake,” I whisper, my voice shaking, “would be stopping now.”
His breath hitches. Something like relief and raw hunger flashes in his eyes, and then he’s kissing me again. This time, there’s nothing careful about it. It feels different now. Not because he's taking control, and not because I'm giving it to him. Because neither of us is pretending anymore.
Every kiss feels stripped raw from weeks of anger, want, frustration, and relief. Everything we've been carrying finally has somewhere to go.
His hands move with purpose now, sliding down my sides, gripping my hips, pulling me flush against him. The hard length of him presses against me, and the pressure building inside me turns almost unbearable. I shift my hips, a silent, shameless plea for more.
He groans, a low, broken sound that vibrates through my entire body. “Sloane,” he breathes against my mouth. "You're making this impossible."
“Good,” I gasp, as his lips trail down my jaw, along the sensitive skin of my throat.
His stubble scrapes delicately, and then his mouth is there, hot and open over the frantic flutter of my pulse.
He sucks gently, his tongue soothing the sting, and my whole body arches off the couch.
My fingers clamp on his shoulders, holding on, because I’m not sure I won’t fly apart.
He feels it. He feels everything.
“Easy,” he murmurs, but his hands are anything but. One slides up my ribcage, his thumb brushing the underside of my breast, sending a jolt of electricity straight through me. The other grips my hip, holding me in place as he grinds against me, a slow, deliberate friction that has me seeing stars.
“Marcus,” I gasp, his name a ragged plea. “Please…”
He doesn’t make me beg. He pushes up slightly, his movements clumsy with a sudden, urgent need.
His pants are pooled on the floor nearby, and he leans over, fumbling for the wallet in the back pocket.
The leather is worn and soft in his hands.
He flips it open, his fingers shaking just enough to betray the composure he’s fighting to keep.
He finds the foil packet, tearing it open with a soft snap that sounds absurdly loud in the quiet room.
My heart pounds against my ribs, a frantic, wild rhythm. I watch him, my body thrumming with a need so sharp it’s almost painful. He rolls it on, his eyes never leaving mine, and the sight is so intimate, so real, it steals my breath.
He leans back over me, bracing his weight on his forearms. “You with me?” he asks, his voice soft, but his eyes are dark, feral.
I reach up, tracing the line of his jaw, the rough stubble a stark contrast to the softness of his lips. “I’m here,” I whisper. “I’m not going anywhere.”
That’s all it takes.
He pushes into me, slow, deliberate, and the feeling of being filled by him, stretched around him, is overwhelming. A sharp, burning pleasure that steals the air from my lungs. I grab his shoulders, my nails digging into his skin, a strangled sound torn from my throat.
He freezes. “Breathe,” he murmurs, his voice shaking. “Just breathe, Sloane. I’ve got you.”
I drag air into my lungs, forcing myself to relax around him. He waits, patient and trembling, his thumb stroking soothing circles on my hip. The control he’s fighting for is right there, in the taut lines of his shoulders, the way he’s holding himself back for me.
“Okay?” he asks, every muscle tight as a wire.
I nod, my jaw clenched. “Yeah. Just… don’t stop.”
His mouth quirks, a strained, shaky smile. “I don’t think I can anymore.”
He starts to move, a slow, deep rhythm that builds a pressure deep inside me. Each thrust is a question, a confession, a prayer. He watches me, his eyes dark and intense, like he’s trying to memorize every expression that crosses my face.
“You feel…” he starts, his voice ragged. "God, Sloane."
His touch is devastating, but it's the words that undo me. I wrap my legs around him, pulling him deeper, urging him on. The pace quickens, the control shattering, until all that’s left is the sound of our bodies meeting, our ragged breaths, and the whispered fragments of each other's names.
His mouth finds mine again, and it's the look in his eyes that finally undoes me.
Not the relentless pressure building inside me. Not even the way he's holding me like he's afraid I'll disappear if he lets go.
It's him.
The complete absence of distance between us.
For weeks, Marcus has hidden behind strategy, responsibility, and the impossible need to protect everyone around him. But there's none of that left in his eyes now. No calculation. No restraint. No attempt to convince either of us this is temporary.
Just truth.
My name leaves his mouth rough and unguarded, stripped of every layer he usually keeps locked firmly in place, and something inside me breaks open.
Because for the first time since all of this started, I don't feel managed or protected or handled.
I feel chosen.
The realization hits harder than anything else, and the pleasure crashes through me before I can hold it back.
I cry out his name as my inner muscles clench around him, and that’s all it takes.
He drives into me one last time, deep and hard, and lets go, his release tearing through him in a blinding, shuddering wave.
He follows me over the edge with my name rough in his mouth like it’s the only truth he has left.
For a long time afterward, neither of us speaks.
I lie against him on the couch, my cheek resting against his chest while his hand moves slowly up and down my bare back.
The office is still too quiet, the world outside still waiting, and nothing about this situation is actually fixed. That should terrify me more than it does.
Marcus presses his mouth lightly to my hair, and the tenderness of it sends a different kind of ache through me.
I should move, but I don’t.
His voice comes after several minutes, low and rough. “I don’t know how to make this simple.”
My eyes close. That should be the worst thing he could say. Somehow, it’s the only honest thing left.
“I don’t think it is simple.”
His hand stills against my back, then resumes, slower this time.
“No,” he says. “It isn’t.”
I lift my head enough to look at him.
The man beneath me does not look like the man who controls boardrooms or issues statements or bends a room around his will.
He looks undone, not despite me but because of me. The thought is far more dangerous than it should be.
The realization should feel like victory after everything we survived to get here. Instead, it feels like standing at the edge of something deeper than either of us planned. Something neither one of us knows how to control.
Marcus brushes his thumb lightly along my cheek. “Are you regretting this?”
I should answer quickly, but I can't. Not because I regret what happened. The problem is that I don't, and that feels far more dangerous.
“No,” I say finally.
His chest rises beneath my palm.
“But tomorrow still comes,” I whisper.
His gaze darkens with understanding.
“Yes.”
The single word strips away the last place either of us could hide. Not as regret, but as truth.
Tomorrow is still waiting for us. The emails, Julian, the board, the fake engagement that suddenly feels far less fake than it was supposed to, and the reputation that one statement may not be enough to repair.
There is also the uncomfortable fact that I still don't know whether trusting Marcus is brave or reckless.
I lower my head back to his chest, listening to the hard, steady beat of his heart beneath my ear.
For tonight, I let myself stay. Let the truth be simple in the one way everything else isn't. I wanted him. He wanted me.
And now nothing about this arrangement will ever be simple again.