13. Cloe
CLOE
The office felt wrong after eight p.m.
It wasn’t just the silence.
It was the kind of silence. The sterile kind. The kind that crept along the floor and settled between the ribs. The kind that only existed in places meant for ambition and violence—where worship was performance and failure was foreplay.
My screen was the only light left on the floor. The overhead fluorescents had gone to sleep an hour ago, triggered by motion sensors that assumed no one in their right mind would stay this late.
Maybe they were right.
But I wasn’t staying to impress anyone.
I was staying to survive.
The file on my screen blurred. Numbers. Names. Projected metrics. I tried to read it again. For the fourth time. The fifth. My vision didn’t cooperate.
Neither did my breathing.
I wiped my palms down the sides of my skirt. The red one. Tight. High-waisted. The one Wolfe didn’t tell me to wear—but I knew he’d notice if I did.
I shifted in my seat. My thighs rubbed together, bare under the desk. He hadn’t said anything about panties this morning. So I wore them.
But I thought about not.
God, I thought about not.
The silence cracked.
The copier powered down three rooms over. No one had used it in hours.
I froze.
My eyes flicked to the hallway. Nothing.
No shadows.
No footsteps.
Just stillness.
I shook my head and looked back at the screen. Shifted my weight. Reached for my pen?—
Ding.
The elevator.
I stopped breathing.
My chest rose once. Shallow. Again. I listened.
The doors opened.
Hiss.
Silence.
No footsteps.
No voice.
No one came out.
My fingers tightened around the edge of the desk.
Still nothing.
The elevator doors hissed shut again.
I blinked.
“You’re being paranoid,” I whispered.
But the air didn’t agree .
The air felt watched .
My hands shook.
I shut the laptop. Closed the file. Grabbed my bag. Stood too fast. My chair scraped back with a sharp sound that made me flinch.
I turned to go.
And froze.
He was there.
Wolfe.
Standing ten feet from my desk. Half in shadow. Black button-down, sleeves rolled. Collar open. Veins visible along the inside of his forearms.
He didn’t move.
He didn’t speak.
He just was .
Like the room belonged to him.
Like I did.
My heart slammed into my ribs.
He tilted his head. Just a fraction.
“You always this jumpy when no one’s watching?”
His voice was a knife dipped in velvet.
Low.
Deadly.
“Or do you just feel me first?”
I opened my mouth. Closed it.
Wolfe took one step forward.
And the air shifted .
Not warmer.
Not colder.
Claimed.
“Sit back down, Cloe.”
My knees obeyed before I did .
I sank into the chair like gravity had changed just for him.
He moved closer. Slowly. Like he had all the time in the world to ruin me.
The air around him changed shape as he walked—folded in, wrapped tight, pressed itself into the gaps between my ribs.
Wolfe didn’t look at the screen on my desk. He didn’t glance at the files. His eyes were fixed on me.
Like he already knew I hadn’t been working.
Like he knew I’d been waiting .
“You think if you stay late enough, you’ll earn your way out of being prey?”
I opened my mouth to speak. I didn’t know what I was going to say. Something flippant. Something stupid. Something that might distract him from the way my thighs were pressed too tightly together, or the way I was already trembling.
But no sound came out.
Wolfe circled the desk.
Didn’t sit.
Didn’t touch.
He leaned one hand on the corner of the desk, the other hanging at his side. Every line of him was still. Tense. Waiting.
I stared at his hand.
The way the veins moved. The way the knuckles shifted as he flexed once. Just once.
A warning.
Or a promise.
“I told you to wear red.”
I swallowed. “I did.”
His gaze moved to my lips.
The lipstick was still perfect. Reapplied twice. Once in the lobby. Again when I realized I wasn’t alone.
“I told you no bra.”
I nodded. “I didn’t. ”
His stare dragged down my chest. My nipples hardened under the thin fabric. His eyes flicked lower, pausing just long enough to make my skin tighten.
Then back to my face.
Back to my mouth.
“Then why do you still smell like defiance?”
He took one step closer.
I tipped my chin up. “I’m not defying you.”
He didn’t blink. “You’re not obeying either.”
My breath hitched.
“You don’t get to live between obedience and denial, Cloe.”
His voice dropped lower.
Darker.
“Choose.”
I didn’t answer.
But my knees parted.
Barely.
Enough.
His hand left the desk.
And I forgot how to breathe.
Wolfe stepped around me.
Not fast.
Not loud.
Just close.
The edge of his body skimmed mine, a current of heat and pressure that made my skin tighten, my pulse scatter. He stood behind me for a moment, silent. Watching. Measuring.
Then he leaned down.
His mouth wasn’t on me.
But his breath was.
Right at my ear.
“You want to pretend this is about work? That you’re here late to impress someone? That you’re still not mine? ”
I shook my head. I didn’t mean to. It just… happened.
He laughed. Low. Quiet. The kind of laugh that didn’t soften anything.
“You keep forgetting. I don’t need you to agree, Cloe.”
He pressed one hand flat to the desk beside me. The other curled around the top of the chair. I was caged. Breathless. Lit from within and smoldering from without.
“I only need you still.”
I couldn’t move. I didn’t want to.
He leaned closer. I felt the heat of his chest brush my back, just for a second. Then he shifted again, slower this time.
My breath hitched.
“Tell me what you thought I’d do, when you sent me that last message.”
I swallowed.
He waited.
“Tell me.”
“I thought… you’d come,” I whispered.
“You thought I’d save you?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I thought you’d break me.”
His breath caught. Just for a second.
Then he stepped around in front of me. Pulled the chair away from the desk with one hand and looked down at me like I was a puzzle he’d already solved and just wanted to watch fall apart.
“You want to be broken, Cloe?”
I didn’t speak.
He tilted his head.
“Then stand up.”
I rose.
And that’s when he touched me.
Not my waist. Not my hips. Not anywhere soft.
His hand went to the back of my neck .
And held .
Flat palm. Fingers spread. Thumb resting just under the hinge of my jaw.
It wasn’t a caress.
It wasn’t even control.
It was ownership .
A single point of contact that unspooled every lie I’d told myself about what I could handle. About what I wanted. About what I’d survive.
I gasped.
But I didn’t pull away.
His grip wasn’t tight. It didn’t need to be. The weight of it alone made my spine lock, made my thighs press, made my pulse jump in my throat like a warning bell.
And then he stepped in.
His body brushed mine—solid, heat and breath and restraint. His forehead came down to mine.
Our mouths weren’t touching.
But they could have been.
“You don’t get to run anymore,” he said, voice low. “You sent the prayer. Now live in the answer.”
My fingers curled at my sides.
I wanted to reach for him.
Wanted to kneel.
Wanted to beg.
But I didn’t move.
Because I knew the second I did, he’d take more.
And I wanted to ache for it first.
“Say you understand.”
I swallowed. “I understand.”
He pulled me closer by that single grip. Pressed my chest to his. My breath caught. My knees threatened to buckle.
He leaned down .
His mouth brushed the corner of mine.
Not a kiss.
Not yet.
Just the possibility of one.
“Good girl.”
And then?—
Not softly.
Not sweetly.
It wasn’t a request. It wasn’t even an answer.
It was a verdict .
His mouth claimed mine like a promise already broken. Heat flooded down my spine, spread through my chest like fire pressed between bone. I gasped, but he didn’t let me pull away.
His grip on the back of my neck tightened—just slightly. Just enough to hold me still, just enough to say: you don’t run from this .
The kiss wasn’t rushed.
It was measured . Intentional.
His tongue traced the seam of my lips, slow and deliberate, and when I opened for him, I didn’t even realize I’d done it.
He took.
Every breath.
Every sound.
He didn’t moan. He didn’t groan. He kissed me like he was reading scripture and rewriting it with his mouth.
I whimpered. Quiet. Desperate.
His body didn’t press closer—but I felt it everywhere.
His scent. His heat. His restraint, tighter than anything I’d ever worn.
He pulled back just an inch.
His breath against my lips.
“This is what silence earns you.”
I couldn’t speak .
Couldn’t move.
His thumb stroked once along my jaw. Tender. Possessive.
“You want more?”
I nodded. Barely.
“Then obey.”
And just like that—he let go.
Walked away.
Left the air behind him ruined.
Left me…
Trembling.
Changed.
And starving .
Wolfe didn’t turn back.
He walked to the door like nothing had happened. Like he hadn’t just rewritten every rule inside my body with a single kiss. He reached for the handle.
Paused.
“Tomorrow,” he said, without looking at me. “Wear the same skirt.”
My breath caught.
“No bra. No lipstick until five minutes before I see you.”
I nodded. He didn’t see it. Didn’t need to.
“Speak to no one unless they speak to you first.”
My chest rose. Fell. My pulse was chaos.
He opened the door.
“And when I look at you?—”
He turned his head. Just slightly. Just enough for me to see the edge of his profile, the sharp line of his mouth.
“—you’ll know when to kneel.”
Then he was gone.
The door clicked shut.
And I collapsed into the chair like something holy had been taken from me .
Or gifted.
I couldn’t tell the difference.
I sat there for a long time.
Not moving.
Not breathing right.
Just… processing the aftermath like it was a crime scene I couldn’t explain to anyone—not even myself.
The screen on my laptop had gone black.
My reflection stared back at me.
Lipstick smudged.
Eyes wide. Lips parted. Chest rising like I was still catching up to what had happened—or what hadn’t.
I tried to focus. Tried to find the file. The numbers. The reason I was still sitting here, dressed like an offering.
But all I saw was him .
The imprint of his touch still warm at the back of my neck. The echo of his breath still thick on my skin.
I crossed my legs under the desk.
Too late.
My thighs were already slick.
My body had already answered him in ways my voice hadn’t dared.
I touched my mouth.
Traced the edge where his kiss had ended.
A kiss that hadn’t fed me—just lit the hunger higher.
A kiss that felt less like intimacy and more like indoctrination.
I closed the laptop.
Stood on shaky legs.
And walked out of the office without another sound.
Because the silence Wolfe left behind?
It didn’t need to be filled.
It needed to be obeyed.