Chapter 18 When Control Broke
Knox POV
I had been in a foul mood for two days, and I knew exactly when it started.
The email came late at night. No subject line. No name. Just a link and a single sentence.
“Thought you should see what your analyst does after work.”
I should have deleted it. Closed the laptop. Gone to bed.
Instead, I clicked.
Ashley appeared on the screen. Different rooms. Different beds. Different men. A chain of grainy phone-camera clips cut together without context, short flashes that left no doubt what was happening.
I didn’t know the men. I didn’t know the place. I didn’t know who sent it.
But I knew the feeling that hit me.
A sharp, territorial fury that tightened my vision at the edges.
I snapped the laptop shut like it had burned me, then sat in the dark breathing hard, trying to make sense of the storm inside my chest.
Anger came first. Possessiveness came second.
The third thing didn’t have a name. Something colder. Coiled. Hungry.
It wasn’t my business. She wasn’t mine. I had no right to feel anything.
I didn’t own her time, her body, or her choices. She had every right to live however she wanted outside my company.
And yet the thought of someone else touching her, someone else seeing her like that, twisted something inside me until it hurt.
She owed me nothing.
I repeated it like a mantra.
It didn’t help.
The images clung to the inside of my skull. Every time I blinked I saw her again—her body, the way she moved for someone who wasn’t me. Something ugly began to bloom in my chest.
I tried tracing the sender. Dead end. I considered giving the file to IT. I didn’t.
No one else needed to see her like that.
I deleted the file, emptied the trash, blocked the address.
It didn’t matter. The damage was done.
After that, I started noticing everything. Who spoke to her. Who looked at her. Every man who stood a little too close.
It was irrational.
And I hated that it felt that way.
So when I walked into the break room and saw Jonah leaning toward her, touching her arm, smiling like he had a chance, something in me snapped.
I told myself it was about professionalism.
It wasn’t.
It was about the images still burned into my mind, the ones I couldn’t erase.
She stood there calm and unaware, while my brain kept overlaying those clips onto the woman in front of me.
By the time I called her into my office later, I was already wound tight enough to break.
I told myself I needed the report.
That part was true.
The rest was a lie.
When she leaned in beside me to point at the screen, close enough that I could feel the warmth of her, everything I had been forcing down surged back up at once.
Anger. Desire. Confusion.
A possessiveness I had no claim to.
I should have stepped away.
I didn’t.
And when she brushed against my arm like it meant nothing, it felt deliberate. Like she was testing me. Waiting to see what I would do.
So I reacted.
And when everything finally exploded in my office, it had nothing to do with Jonah.
It had everything to do with the fact that I had been losing control long before that email ever arrived.
And in that moment, control finally snapped.
I stood so abruptly the chair scraped across the floor. Ashley flinched but did not step away. She should have. Instead she remained where she was, boxed in between my body and the desk, close enough that I could feel the heat rising from her skin.
There was nothing polished left in me. Nothing controlled. Whatever mask I usually wore had cracked wide open. I could feel the hunger I had been holding back for months finally pushing to the surface.
I leaned closer, my voice low and rough from restraint I no longer cared to keep.
“We both know this is what you want. You pushed for this. So I’m going to take what you’re offering.”
Her eyes widened. That was the last clear thing I noticed before instinct took over.
I grabbed her and crushed my mouth to hers. The kiss was rough, messy, nothing like the controlled fantasies I had tried to bury. Shock, heat, weeks of tension that had been eating me alive. This was real. This was her.
My hands moved without restraint, gripping and pulling as I pressed between her thighs and pinned her against the desk.
“I’m going to take you,” I said against her mouth, my breath unsteady. “Tell me you want it.”
“I want it.”
The sound of it hit me like a match to gasoline. Every rule I had tried to follow, every line I had promised myself I would not cross, burned away in an instant.
She wanted it.
She wanted me.
And I was done pretending I could stop.
A low sound tore from my throat as I grabbed her blouse and ripped it open, silver buttons scattering across the floor.
She gasped but did not pull away. The heat in my chest surged even higher.
I tore down her bra and stared at the nipples that had been taunting me for weeks. Each one pierced with a small barbell.
Gold. Bright against her skin.
For a moment everything inside me went still. Shock. Hunger. Something darker.
My hands moved before my thoughts could catch up. I cupped her, feeling the warmth of her body beneath my palms, feeling the way she reacted even to the lightest pressure. My thumbs brushed over the metal and the sensitive skin around it. Her breath caught.
I tugged them, watching her face.
Her eyes widened, pupils dark. I saw the pulse in her throat jump faster and heard the shift in her breathing. She was just as affected as I was. The realization struck me hard and intoxicating.
She moaned and pushed her hips toward me as far as she could with my body pinning her against the desk.
One of my hands slid into her hair. That hair she always kept pinned up as if determined to hide it from me. I had imagined letting it loose more times than I cared to admit, imagined the weight of it in my hands and the way it would spill through my fingers.
One of my recurring fantasies had been pulling every pin free, stripping away that careful control, gripping a handful while I bent her over this very desk. I had told myself it was just a thought. A line I would never cross.
I decided to cross it.
My fingers found the clip buried in her hair. One sharp tug and it snapped loose. Her hair fell at once in a heavy cascade that slid through my fingers like silk.
I closed my hand around it and pulled her head back just enough to feel her breath stutter.
The sight of her like that, the feel of her hair in my grip, the knowledge that she was finally where I had imagined her for months snapped the last thread of restraint I had left.
I was no longer thinking.
Without warning I stepped back and hauled her upright, my grip firm enough that she gasped.
Before she could steady herself I twisted her and pushed her forward over the desk.
Her hands flew out to catch herself against the surface while my palm pressed hard against her shoulders, holding her where I wanted her.
Papers scattered. Containers tipped. The monitor slid across the desk.
I barely noticed.
All I could see was her.
The videos flashed through my mind again, sharp and poisonous. From them I knew she liked it rough. The thought stirred my anger again. I was punishing her for them. For making me want her. For making me lose control.
Still holding her down with one hand, I shoved her skirt up with the other, my movements rough with impatience. A low sound escaped me before I could stop it.
Stockings. Lace against her thighs.
Her white panties were already damp.
My grip tightened at the back of her neck, keeping her exactly where I wanted her. I pushed her feet apart and stepped between them.
“Don’t move.”
The words came out as a growl.
Her arms stretched forward, knuckles pale as she clutched the edge of the desk.
I pulled her panties aside and brushed my fingers over her bare sex, making her moan.
Waiting was impossible. Every rational thought had burned away, leaving only the need to claim her and erase the images burned into my mind.
I fumbled with my belt and zipper with one hand. I was big. Women had struggled with me before. She was wet, but not enough.
I freed myself and gave a rough tug, but it did not help. Leaning over her, I covered her mouth with one hand. I didn’t want anyone hearing her. I didn’t want anyone interrupting.
I didn’t want anyone taking this moment from me. I wasn’t sure I could stop even if someone tried.
With my other hand I guided myself forward and thrust inside.
At first it would not fit.
Somewhere in the back of my mind a warning tried to surface, thin and distant. I ignored it. All I could think about was having her, taking her, claiming what I had been denying myself for months. The need was blinding, a single, brutal command that drowned out everything else.
I pulled back and drove forward again. And again. Each thrust deeper than the last.
When I was finally fully inside her, my head fell back with a rough groan.
She clenched around me. Or maybe she was trying to keep me out.
The thought only made me harder.
Her hands grabbed my forearm, nails digging into my sleeve. I released her mouth and straightened, both hands locking onto her hips to hold her firmly in place.
I was rutting into her like a damn animal. I could not stop myself.
So I stopped trying. I let that raw, instinctive side take over, the need drowning out everything else.
The room filled with the wet sounds of sex, with broken moans and rough breaths.
She was heat and tightness around me, and I was lost in it—lost in her. Holding her down. Driving into her harder, punishing her for making me want her this much.
When I glanced down, I saw faint streaks of blood on my cock. The sight sent something sharp and electric through my mind, the instinct in me roaring louder.
She was hot and tight around me. Mine. No one else’s. The thought hit deep, making my whole body shudder.
Pleasure surged too quickly, building faster than I could control. A rough groan tore from my chest as my body tensed and finally gave in. I gasped, shuddering as the release hit and I emptied myself into her before I could stop it.
Exhausted, I slumped over her, my breath coming in harsh, uneven pulls. My mind felt scorched and empty, stripped down to the raw aftermath of what had just happened. The only thing left was the shock of it, how completely I had lost control.
After a minute I forced myself upright, still breathing hard.
She sagged slightly against the desk, unsteady, and I instinctively slipped an arm around her waist to steady her.
She felt soft and shaken, her long blonde hair falling in a wild tangle around her shoulders.
When she straightened, she tugged her skirt back into place and reached for her blouse, only to freeze when she realized every button had been torn off.
My thoughts felt hollowed out. I dragged a hand through my hair, trying to make sense of the last few minutes, but everything felt distant, like I was watching the scene from somewhere outside my own body. I had lost control. Completely. That had never happened to me before.
I moved on instinct, gathering scattered papers from the floor, setting the monitor back on the desk where it belonged. I didn’t even remember knocking it over. The room looked like a storm had passed through it, and maybe it had. Maybe I had.
When I noticed her heading for the door, holding her blouse closed with one hand, something tightened uncomfortably in my chest. I didn’t know what I was supposed to say. I didn’t know what she was thinking. For the first time in a long time, uncertainty hit me hard.
“You did want it, right?” I asked roughly. “I didn’t force you.”
The words came out sharper than I intended, edged with something I didn’t want to examine.
She cleared her throat and barely glanced at me. “Yep. All good.”
Then she walked out.
I sank back into my chair, staring at the Chicago skyline beyond the windows without really seeing it. My pulse was still uneven, my thoughts tangled with heat and disbelief.
What the hell had I just done.
And then the realization struck me like a blow.
Those videos couldn’t have been real. Not one of them.
She had been a virgin ten minutes ago.