Chapter 13 - Andrea
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Andrea
He drove me home. Neither of us said a word.
Fifteen minutes of silence with my pulse still going too fast, his cologne filling the car, the memory of his mouth on mine in a stopped elevator sitting between us like a third passenger. I stared out the window and pressed my thumbnail into my index finger to keep my hands from shaking.
He pulled up outside my house, put it in park, and the engine idled between us while I looked at my porch through the windshield. Empty steps, bare wood, the light on for nobody.
I should get out. Say goodnight. Go inside alone and process the fact that I made out with my boss in a stopped elevator and liked it and wanted to do it again and had completely lost control of my life.
He cleared his throat. “Can I walk you to the door?”
I looked at him. He was gripping the steering wheel, jaw tight, the tendons in his forearms taut under his rolled sleeves.
That was his version of asking to come in, wrapped in enough plausible deniability that I could say no without it being awkward.
Giving me the out while his whole body was clearly fighting to stay in that seat.
That restraint was somehow hotter than everything he did in the elevator, and I hated that about him.
“You already know where everything is anyway,” I said.
He turned his head. I watched him process whether I meant it, whether this was an invitation or a joke.
“Are you sure?”
“Don’t make me say it twice.”
I got out and walked to the door, fumbling with my keys because my hands were still shaking. He was behind me before I finished turning the lock, close enough that his breath moved my hair.
Inside, my house felt smaller with him in it.
Too tall for the space, too broad, his shoulders taking up the doorway before he stepped through.
He looked around, taking in the couch, the bookshelves, the kitchen counter, and I watched him catalog the space I’d been living in for two years with the expression of a man who wasn’t sure if he was allowed to sit down.
“Are you hungry?” I asked, because one of us needed to act normal. “I have leftover pasta. Or I could make eggs. I’m good at eggs.”
“You don’t have to feed me, Andrea.”
“I’m not feeding you, I’m feeding myself and offering you some because I have manners. Unlike some people who stop elevators without warning.”
His mouth twitched. “Eggs sound good.”
So I made eggs. Scrambled, because that was the extent of my culinary ambition at 10 pm on a weeknight, and he sat at my tiny kitchen counter on a stool that was comically small for him, watching me cook.
His knees were practically at his chest on that stool and I almost laughed but I was too aware of how close the kitchen was, how every time I turned from the stove I could feel the warmth of him two feet away.
“Your stove has a broken burner,” he said.
“I know. The left one’s been dead for six months. I keep meaning to call someone about it.”
“I could fix it.”
“You can fix a stove?”
“I can fix most things.”
“Big talk from a man who needed me to find a file on his own computer last week.”
He gave me a look that should have been annoyed but his eyes were warm and I turned back to the eggs before my face gave me away.
We ate on the couch because I didn’t have a dining table, plates on our laps, and the domesticity of it hit me somewhere unexpected.
Finneas Kingsley eating scrambled eggs on my secondhand couch with his sleeves rolled up and his knees bumping mine every time he shifted.
He ate everything, scraped the plate, and when I reached to take it from him our fingers touched on the edge and neither of us pulled away.
“Thanks,” he said. “For the eggs.”
“Don’t get used to it. My menu is limited. Eggs, pasta, toast, and cereal. That’s the full rotation.”
“I’ll take it.”
I set the plates on the coffee table and sat back. A foot of cushion between us. The couch that Fin used to curl up on, his head in my lap while I read, now occupied by the human version in a dark shirt and I really needed to stop staring at his goddamn forearms.
“So,” I said.
“So.”
“This is weird.”
“A little.”
I pulled my legs up and turned to face him. “Tell me about the bond. From your side. What does it actually feel like?”
He was quiet for a second, jaw working like he was choosing his words. “Constant. A pull in my chest that never stops. From the second I wake up, I know where you are. Not exact location, but direction. When you’re close, my wolf settles. When you’re far, it pushes.”
“At the office?”
“Worse.” His voice dropped. “You’re right there. I can hear your voice through the glass, smell your perfume when you walk past, watch you at your desk all day. My wolf shoves at me every second to go to you. And I can’t.”
I sat with that for a minute. Two years of him behind that glass wall, every second, holding himself back.
“Did you like it?” I asked. “Being Fin?”
He looked at me then, really looked, his expression shifting into that unguarded thing I used to catch through the glass. “It was the only time I got to be with you without performing. No CEO, no King. Just me, sitting on a porch listening to you read in a terrible Scottish accent.”
“My accent is excellent.”
“Your accent is a crime.”
“You loved it.”
“I did.”
The honesty in his voice hit me somewhere soft. I looked away because if I kept looking at his face while he said shit like that I was going to climb into his lap.
“I feel it too,” I said. “Didn’t know what it was. Thought it was just a crush, a stupid won’t-go-away crush on my boss who communicates through grunts and hand gestures. But it’s more than that. Has been for a long time.”
He didn’t say anything. His jaw worked, hands pressed flat on his knees, the muscles in his forearms taut, fingers digging into his own kneecaps. The self-control rolling off him was so thick I could practically taste it.
So I closed the gap.
I shifted on the couch until my knee touched his thigh. His whole body went rigid, every muscle locking, and I felt the tension roll through him.
“You can breathe,” I said.
“I’m trying.”
“Try harder. You look like you’re about to snap the armrest off my couch and I can’t afford a new one.”
His mouth twitched. I watched his hand lift off his knee, slow, careful, and land on mine.
Warm and large, his palm covering my whole kneecap, the contact sending a jolt up my spine.
His thumb traced a small circle on the side of my knee and my breath caught so hard he heard it.
Those dark eyes flicked to mine. Intent. His thumb stopped.
“Don’t stop,” I said, and I didn’t recognize my own voice.
His thumb moved again. Another circle. Then his hand slid up my knee to my thigh, just an inch, and the warmth of his palm through my clothes made my whole body flush.
Here’s what I was thinking in that moment: I’d spent two years wanting this man.
Two years of pretending I didn’t, of telling a dog about it instead of telling him, of going home alone every night to an empty porch and an empty bed.
Then I spent another week being angry about the lying, another week being confused about the bond, another week trying to keep my distance while he dismantled me with lattes and elevator whispers.
And now he was sitting on my couch with his hand on my thigh, shaking with the effort of not kissing me, giving me the choice because that’s what he always did, and I was tired.
Tired of fighting it, tired of being careful, tired of being the responsible one who thought things through.
Fuck it. I’d been responsible my whole life. Tonight I wanted to be reckless.
I grabbed his collar with both hands and pulled him in and whatever restraint he’d been white-knuckling just broke.
His hands went to my waist. He lifted me onto his lap and I straddled him on my couch, knees digging into the cushions on either side of his hips.
His forearms flexed under those rolled sleeves, the ones I’d been fantasizing about for two goddamn years, and our kiss turned frantic.
Tongues, teeth, his hands gripping me like I’d disappear if he let go.
Two years of stolen glances and accidental touches in the office and we were finally snapping.
“Bedroom?” I gasped against his mouth, fingers tangled in his dark hair.
He didn’t answer with words. Just scooped me up, muscles bunching as he stood, and I wrapped my legs around him, laughing breathlessly as he carried me down the hallway.
We didn’t make it. Halfway there he slammed me against the wall, his body pinning mine, those amber eyes locked on me, intense and wild, like the wolf side of him was clawing to get out.
“Fuck, Andrea,” he growled, his stubble scraping my neck as he kissed down my jaw. His hands shoved my shirt up, palming my breasts, rough but not too hard, attentive, like he was memorizing every hitch in my breath.
I arched into him, overwhelmed by how solid he felt, how hard he was pressing against me through our clothes.
“Don’t stop,” I muttered, yanking at his shirt buttons.
They popped open and there was that chest, the one I’d only glimpsed through dress shirts, all muscle and warm skin. My hands roamed, nails scraping.
He pulled back just enough to strip my top off, then his mouth was on my nipple, sucking hard.
I moaned, loud, unfiltered, my head thumping back against the wall.
His fingers worked my jeans open, shoving them down with my underwear in one go.
I kicked them off gracelessly and then he was lifting me again, kicking the bedroom door open, tossing me onto the bed.