Chapter 6
ROGUE
Her door’s open. I don't knock. That would imply the open door wasn't an invitation, and I don’t feel like messing with passive-aggressive crap like that right now.
She’s sitting cross-legged on the floor with her father's papers spread out, organized in some system that makes sense to her.
There are papers on the bed, papers on the desk, two folders open near the wall.
She's got a pen behind her ear and another one in her hand, and she's reading something with the focus of a woman who’s going to figure shit out if it kills her.
She doesn't look up. "Close the door," she says.
I close the door and lean against it.
"I meant from the outside," she says. “With you outside it, in other words. Please.”
Damn.
She looks up and takes me in where I’m standing against her closed door in her closed room. Sighing, she goes back to her notes, which is either an invitation or dismissal. With Vi, it could be either.
"You went to see Fischer," she says.
"Yup."
"And?"
"Nothing yet. Guess he's thinking of the best way to save his own ass."
She puts her pen down on the paper in front of her. I brace accordingly.
"You're not telling me everything," she says.
"I'm telling you what I have," I lie.
“No, you’re not.”
She's right of course, and of course I’m not going to tell her that. "What do you want me to say, Vi?"
"I want you to tell me what's going on with the person in the east corridor." She looks at me steadily. "I know about him. Mara told me. Or actually, Mara told the room and I was in the room, so."
Fuck me.
Of course she knows. Jesus, what was I thinking? Vi’s in the loop and she’s going to know about shit as fast as the guys and I do, and I need to get used to that. But I make a mental note to have a conversation with Mara about operational security, even though it will probably accomplish nothing.
"Fine. Someone's watching the Rot," I say. "And we're handling it."
"We,” she says with raised eyebrows. "So you and Armen and Sting are handling it. And I'm on the floor here with my notes."
"You're always welcome to a chair. The floor’s awfully hard."
Snorting, she stands up in one motion, fluid and deliberate, and crosses her arms, which brings her to approximately chest height on me.
"Don't do that," she says.
"Do what?"
"Throw around a joke that isn't funny. It’s annoying. I'm fucking serious, Rogue. I have been in this building for months now. I helped blow Fischer's cover. I sat in that room last night and I heard what I heard and I am not—" She stops and resets. "I am not just a Runt anymore. You know that."
I do know that. But knowing it and acting on it are two different things.
"You'll be included when there's a reason for you to be included," I say. "Right now, there isn't."
"That is such bullshit—" She makes a short, frustrated sound and turns away from me, toward the desk. "You know what, just fucking forget it. Close the door on your way out."
"You already asked me to close it."
"On your way out, Rogue."
"Vi."
"I mean it, Rogue, I'm not in the mood for—"
I cross the room in three steps, maybe four, and my hand is in her hair, turning her, and whatever she’s about to say gets lost.
"You want to be in the room," I say, quiet. "Well, you are in the room, right here, right now. With me in it.”
"I told you to leave," she says, her voice shaking.
She looks at me for a long second, and something washes over her, a culmination of argument, frustration, and learning when to push and when to read the room.
She reaches up and grabs the front of my shirt.
I take her mouth, and she makes that sound I’ve been thinking about since the first time I kissed her. I knew I was screwed then. Months down the road, even more so.
While her fingers tighten in my shirt, my hand slides from her hair to her jaw, tilting her where I want her, and she lets me. That’s the thing about Vi that undoes me every single time, that she knows just what I want.
A bunch of her papers end up on the floor, though not all at once. A folder goes first, then those that were open on the desk, followed by the ones from the bed when we fall onto it, and she makes a noise about the mess that is half protest and half surrender.
"Those are organized," she says. “Well, they were.”
"I know," I say. “They’ll be organized again.”
"Rogue."
"Vi."
She gives up.
The thing about her, the specific, ongoing thing with her, is that she's been learning the Rot's ins and outs for weeks now. She knows how shit works. She knows the rules of this place and what it means to be ours, and she’s still here, anyway.
Not that she could or would leave. But she’s really in the fucking place.
I pull back just enough to look at her. Her hair is a disaster, half out of whatever she had it in, and she's got a crease on her cheek from where she was leaning on her hand reading her notes. She’s looking up at me with dark eyes and her shirt twisted sideways.
I have no interest in being anywhere else in the world right now.
"What?" she says.
"Nothing." I take the pen from behind her ear. "Just looking."
She rolls her eyes, which is extremely Vi, and reaches for me.
I catch her wrist. Hold it.
"Rogue—"
"We're doing this my way, Vi," I tell her. "Since you're so interested in being included."
The eye roll threatens to make a return appearance. I can see it coming. But when I run my thumb across the inside of her wrist, the eye roll loses the fight.
"That's what I thought," I say.
I get her shirt off and she immediately reaches for mine.
I let her have that because she needs to be doing something with her hands before she starts thinking or talking again.
Her fingers work my buttons while I put my mouth on her throat, and when she tips her head back against the pillow, I know I’ve got her.
She gets my shirt open and her hands are on my chest. She's thorough. Deliberate.
"You've been planning this," I say to her.
"Shut up, Rogue."
I shut up.
For approximately forty-five seconds.
She makes a sharp noise that turns into something much better when my hand finds her.
She grabs the sheets under us with both hands when, finally, I get my mouth on her. I say finally because in spite of our debate and standoff, the God’s honest truth is that this was in the back of my mind since the moment I arrived. Okay, maybe not just the back of my mind.
It’s what she does to me.
Her pussy’s wet, slick against my tongue, like I knew it would be. She might like playing the ballbuster in her day-to-day, but I know what gets under her skin and I love giving it to her. She can’t fool me. Ever.
I take my time because she’s so damn delicious and because the sounds she makes when I work her over are worth the patience she costs me.
Her hips roll up, demanding more, and I press her back down and hold her in place while I stroke her from top to bottom, unhurried, spreading her open with the flat of my tongue before I find her clit and plant myself there.
"Rogue," she breathes.
"Mmmm?"
The vibration makes her gasp. I do it again on purpose, sliding two fingers inside her while I work her with my mouth. I curl until she clenches around me, and her hand comes down into my hair and grips, hard.
"Please," she says, all breathless. "Rogue, please—"
That gets results. I suck her clit between my lips and work my fingers deeper into her pussy. She’s building toward her edge, her whole body bucking off the bed, saying my name while she rides against my mouth.
I give her about thirty seconds before she explodes.
Before she’s done coming, I slide over her, and she reaches for me before I've even settled my weight, her hand wrapping around my cock, stroking once, twice, her grip firm and deliberate.
"I want—" she starts.
"Yeah," I say. "I know."
I position myself and push into her slowly, feeling her stretch, watching her face while I do it. Her mouth falls open and her eyes go dark. I pull back and push in again, deeper this time, burying my cock, and she makes a sound low in her throat that will haunt me for all my days. In a good way.
"More," she says.
"Patience, pretty girl."
"Rogue," she says in a lower register now. Not a complaint but more of a demand.
I go in for the kill.
She arches up to meet me and I set the pace, pounding her hard and steady, her legs wrapping around my waist to pull me deeper.
Her nails find my back and her mouth finds my throat.
I get my hand between us, my thumb on her clit while I fuck her, and she clenches tight around me and comes again, shuddering, biting my shoulder to muffle it.
She doesn't entirely succeed.
Buried deep, I join her explosion, shuddering and spilling drops of sweat on the bed below us.
For a while, neither of us says anything.
Afterward, she's on her back staring at the ceiling and I'm next to her doing the same. One of the folders is definitely still somewhere in this bed and now probably has her ass print on it. Neither of us cares.
She turns her head. Looks at me. "You're still not telling me everything," she says.
I laugh. Actually laugh, which surprises us both. Her eyes widen slightly before she gets her expression back under control.
"No," I say. "Not yet."
"But you will."
I look at her. Hair is wrecked, sheet pulled up, completely unintimidated, already planning the next argument.
"Yeah," I say. "I will. Of course I will. But you’ve got to trust me, pretty girl."
She holds my eyes like she's checking for fine print. Can’t say I blame her. Then she nods and turns back to the ceiling.
"These papers are going to need reorganizing," she says.
"Probably."
"That's on you."
"Don’t think so."
She almost smiles. I catch the edge of it before she gets it under control.
I push off the bed and find my shirt. She doesn't watch me leave, or if she does, she makes sure I don’t see her.
I pull the door closed without a word.