Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
NELL
In the last forty-eight hours, I had learned that wolves didn't announce themselves with footsteps the way humans did. It was a change in the air pressure. A swelling of scent, like when incense is lit. A rise in temperature by a few degrees.
I had also learned in the last four hours that there were wolves working in this building.
I had been working at Sterling for ten years.
Ten years of conference rooms and client calls and late nights and the indignity of watching James Sterling Jr. present my work as his own.
Ten years of knowing every face in this building, every personality, every one who-was-sleeping-with-who and who-was-looking-for-the-exit and who would throw whom under the bus when the quarterly numbers came in soft.
Apparently, this whole time, some of those faces had been wolves. In business clothing. Attending the same Monday morning all-hands and complaining about the same broken coffee machine on the third floor and submitting their expense reports through the same portal as everyone else.
I had not known. I hadn't even known the woman I was closest to in the world was a damn wolf.
What I had known about was the humans who wore wool but would've bitten the hand that was feeding them.
Derek Paulson, Senior Vice President of absolutely nothing he claimed to have built, had walked past my open office door for the third time without making eye contact.
Patricia Hendricks from Mergers had laughed just a little too loudly at something in the break room the moment I walked in and gone quiet the moment I sat down.
Derek had been at Sterling for two years. He had been mediocre for both of them. He had also, at three separate company functions, cornered one of the interns. He had also hit Reply All and addressed Patricia about how I had been sleeping with not only Sterling Jr., but Sterling Sr. as well.
Patricia had not replied. Didn't matter. The damage had been done years ago. The difference between then and now was that then I had to pretend I didn't hear it. Now I was writing their severance package in twelve-point Times New Roman with great personal satisfaction.
"What the hell are you doing here?"
I didn't startle at Magnus’s growl. I'd been expecting him.
My body had known the instant he'd walked into the building.
The change in air pressure had necessitated my crossing my legs.
The spicy scent of him had me rolling my head around my neck and inhaling deeply before I typed the final paragraph in the severance letters.
My nipples went hard as he shut the door behind him, quietly, even though his presence was loud in my office space.
"I'm reorganizing our company to work more efficiently."
His steps stuttered. I wasn't sure if it was at the word our or efficiently. I inhaled again and knew that the man was turned on. Which was hot. If a man had ever said those two words to me in this office, then I definitely would have banged him on my desk.
"I told you it wasn't safe."
"Relax. I came with Addie. She left me with a football team of security."
"You're in a building with a big bull's-eye that has your name on the sign."
"Thank you for that. I didn't realize you'd move so quickly."
Magnus’s jaw worked. I would've sworn he wanted to say something like That's the only thing that moves quickly with me. He just gritted his jaw.
"Want to know what I figured out?"
I walked him through Vantablack R one sliding into my hair, the other finding the arm of my chair, bracketing me in.
He pulled back an inch. His breathing was not entirely steady, which I found to be a small, satisfying victory.
He reached past me and moved everything to the side.
Not swept — moved. The legal pad squared neatly against the monitor.
The coffee cup relocated two inches to the left.
The pen was capped and placed parallel to the pad's edge.
Then his hands were on my waist. He lifted me onto the desk surface with an ease that reminded me that he was not entirely human.
My mind was still on the consideration he gave to my things.
There was something about a man who wanted you badly enough to clear a desk and still took the time to make sure your work was undisturbed.
Like the passion was urgent, but your legal pad was also important.
Like both things could be true simultaneously.
That hit differently than a dramatic sweep would have.
Magnus Blackwood wanted me, and he respected my workflow. I was done for.
He stood between my knees, his hands framing my hips. I think his gaze was asking for permission. But the set of his jaw suggested that he was not taking no for an answer.
I spread my thighs.
His hands moved to the hem of my skirt.
He worked slowly. That was the thing nobody told you about a man with complete control; he would use it against you.
Magnus used it to take his time, to find every place that made my breath catch.
His hands were warm and certain, moving with a focus that told me he had been thinking about this. He had been thinking about me.
It was that thought — him taking me into consideration — more than him taking my clit between his thumb and forefinger and gently squeezing that had me coming embarrassingly fast. My hips jerked.
My heels dug into the backs of his thighs, trying to pull him closer.
My channel was gasping like it was parched.
It was grasping around emptiness. He was still rubbing me as I convulsed, I needed him to fill me.
"Magnus—"
"Again," he growled against my jaw.
The fuck? I was still basking in the glow of aftershocks. What did he mean again? Apparently, he meant he wanted me to come again because he did not stop toying with my clit.
The left side of my brain said it wasn't possible. That I was too sensitive to achieve another climax so quickly. That I should be closing my legs to him. Even being polite and offering to suck him off as a thank you.
The right side of my brain said, shut the fuck up and let's get back in line for another ride!
The first time I'd came I hadn't made much of a sound.
I'd been too busy gasping for breath. The second time was different.
The second orgasm was slower and more deliberate and significantly more devastating than the first. When it broke over me I made a sound that would have embarrassed me if I'd had the cognitive capacity for embarrassment. Which I did not. I pressed my forehead against Magnus’s shoulder and let out a keening cry, sounding almost like a cat.
I pawed and clawed at him. Rubbing myself against him like I was in heat. All while mewling my pleasure. I definitely was going to suck him off now. I was going to lick at that thick straining cock like it was catnip. I was going to swallow his climax down like it was cream.
His hand was still moving. In slow, diminishing strokes until the last tremor worked its way out of me. He pressed his lips to my temple once — brief, almost careful — and then he straightened.
I heard the small, precise sounds of him putting himself back together. The jacket adjusted. The cuffs smoothed. I kept my forehead down for another moment, looking at the surface of my desk, getting my breathing under control; a woman reassembling herself from the inside out.
When I looked up, Magnus was standing at a distance, composed, aloof even. The only evidence that anything had happened was the slight unevenness of his breathing.
He put his fingers in his mouth and sucked.
I slid off the desk and smoothed my skirt, searching for the button to release me from the garment.
"I'm not going to fuck you." He said this as he licked under his fingernail, all while looking at my crotch and not in the eyes.
"Do you want me to suck you off?"
"No, I want you to go home."
I blinked. My right brain and left brain were still arguing with one another about how soon my clit could take another pounding, be it manual, oral, or with that thick length pressing against Magnus' fly.
"Your detail will rotate every night. You won't see them but they'll be there." He straightened his jacket one final time, the gesture so controlled it was almost a performance.
"You want me to go home and then you'll come over and fuck me?"
"We're business partners now. Officially. A wise person said they don't fuck where they file."
"That was before she knew what you had in your filing cabinet."
He grinned, taking his last lick of his fingers. "I'll be in touch when there's something that requires your attention, Ms. Odhimabo."
"Of course, Mr. Blackwood," I said. "Business partners."
He held my gaze for one beat too long. Then he walked to the door, opened it, and was gone.
I stood in my office — my office, my name on the door, my nameplate catching the lamplight, my desk with all my tools still neatly arranged — and listened to the elevator arrive and depart.
Business partners. Alright, Magnus Blackwood. Game on. Because I was going to fuck that man, and then file the experience away.
I went back to my desk. Sat down. And resumed working.