“Doing what?” His tone changes and becomes quieter, and hungrier. “Making you feel?”
The hum of voices rise and fall on the other side of the door like the tide of a rich sea. Someone laughs. A glass clinks. I can taste my own pulse.
“Don’t.” It is the warning you give yourself when the first drop gives way to the slide.
He braces his hands on either side of me and leans in. Heat rolls off him. His eyes hold mine like a steady hand on a tremor. “You want to yell at me?” he asks gently. “Yell.”
“So you can tell me I’m wrong softly?” I shoot back.
“So you can say what you need to say,” he answers.
“I need—” I begin and then stop. Because what I need in this exact second isn’t to list the ways he’s crossed a line. It isn’t to tally the clauses in the contract or recite Nadia’s voice. It isn’t to be righteous on a credenza in a velvet room while a senator sharpens his teeth two doors over. What I need is to erase the frozen smile from my face with my mouth against something real.
I grab his lapel and drag him down, my fingers twisting into the crisp fabric like I'm trying to rip through to his skin. I kiss him like my anger is a jagged blade I can blunt on his tongue, shoving it deep, tasting the sharp bite of whiskey and salt from his earlier drink, his restraint cracking under the assault. He meets me with that coiled tension at first—lips firm, unyielding—then it shifts to takeover, his mouth claiming mine, directing the chaos, his hand clamping my jaw to hold me steady while I push harder, teeth clashing, tongues warring in a slick, messy tangle.
The careful woman I've been curating for the cameras splinters on the edge of his teeth, shattering into something feral, my cunt already throbbing, slick and aching from the rage-fueled heat building low in my belly.
He spins me with a bruising grip at my waist, slamming my hips back against the credenza, the varnished wood digging into my ass like a punishment I crave. He swallows the guttural noise that rips from my throat, his mouth devouring mine, tongue thrusting deep as his hand shoves up my thigh, bunching the silk dress higher, exposing my bare skin to the cool, stale air of this forgotten room. The space narrows to our ragged breaths, the faint murmur of the gala bleeding through the walls, and that door—still deliberately unlocked, a thin barrier between us and the polished vultures outside.
My pulse hammers in my ears, the risk twisting my guts into a dark thrill, my thighs slick with arousal as I grind against nothing, desperate for friction.
“This is insane,” I whisper against his lips, my voice raw and broken, sounding like the shadowed bitch I've buried for years, finally clawing her way out to breathe. “Someone—”
“Is on the other side of a door,” he growls into my mouth, his breath hot and ragged, stroking my swollen lip like a tease. “And if you don’t want this, you open it and leave. Now.” His eyes scan mine, dark and piercing, catching the flicker of doubt, the flare of hunger. “Say the word and I’ll go out there and work the room like none of this—”
“Don’t you dare.” The words snap out as a command laced with a desperate plea, my nails digging into his shoulders. “Don’t you dare stop.”
He nods once, sharp and final, and reaches up to slide his tie free, the silk whispering like a serpent uncoiling. I watch him loop it, my breath catching as his eyes check mine again—a silent question in that invented language of ours, power andconsent tangled. I give him an answering nod, lifting my wrists willingly, my heart pounding as he binds them loosely, the silk biting just enough to send a jolt straight to my clit, a knot I could slip with a twist if I wanted. He showed me how once: a small demonstration, a promise of exit, control even in surrender.
He kisses the inside of my wrist, his lips hot and wet, tongue flicking out to taste the pulse there, turning the tie into something filthy and intimate rather than just functional, then lowers my bound hands to the small lip of the credenza’s edge. His palm covers my fingers, pressing them down. “Hold,” he murmurs, voice low and gravel-rough.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I say, swallowing what bubbles up like a twisted laugh, because it's true in too many fucked-up ways—trapped by him, by this need, by the darkness I've invited.
He shifts me forward a fraction, creating space between my hips and the wood, his hand sliding up my thigh with that deliberate pressure, threading between coaxing and command, fingers rough from whatever scars he's earned, scraping my sensitive skin. He's not rushed—never is, even when my body's screaming for it—and the slowness scrapes my nerves raw, like he's carving time into my flesh, making me feel every inch of exposure, every pulse of my soaked cunt clenching on emptiness.
“Tell me what you need,” he growls, that medic-turned-wolf edge in his voice, the man who's dissected panic from hunger and knows damn well which one's roaring through me now, my thighs trembling as I rub them together, chasing the friction that only teases the ache deeper.
“I need to forget the cameras,” I rasp, voice cracking. “I need to forget Caldwell’s smug fucking face. I need to forget the word you stamped on me like ownership.” My breath hitches, raw and exposed. “I need you to make all of it go quiet for five goddamn minutes.”
He makes a sound deep in his chest, a dark promise vibrating through me. “I can’t make it quiet,” he says, his lips brushing my ear, breath hot and invasive. “I can make it louder than everything else.”
“Then do it. Fuck me until I break.”
The tie bites lightly into my skin when I flex against it, testing the restraint, the silk warming with my sweat. He kisses me again—hard and brutal this time—my mouth breaking open like a ripped seam, tongue plunging deep as he shoves my dress higher, exposing my dripping cunt to the air.
His fingers find me first, parting my folds roughly, two digits thrusting in without preamble, curling hard against that spot that makes my vision blur, his thumb grinding my clit in merciless circles. I gasp into his mouth, hips bucking, the wet sounds obscene in the quiet room, my arousal coating his hand as he pumps deeper, stretching me, ruining me already.
But it's not enough. He guides me down with a firm press of his palm on my shoulder, until my knees hit the carpet, rough and unforgiving, the dress pooling around me like spilled blood. I look up past the silk of his tie, the crisp line of his shirt, the steady heave of his chest, locking eyes with him—he doesn't look away, he never does, that dark gaze holding me captive.
“You sure?” he rasps, last chance, voice edged with restraint.
I nod, throat tight and aching. “I came in here to fight you,” I say, breathless, my cunt clenching at the memory of his cock splitting me open before. “I’d rather suck you until you forget your own name.”
He exhales sharp, not smug, almost reverent, and unzips, freeing his cock—thick, veined, rock-hard and leaking pre-cum that beads at the tip like an invitation. “Open,” he says, and when I obey, parting my lips wide, he slides in, filling my mouth with the hot, salty weight of him, the musky taste exploding on mytongue, mixed with that faint tang of skin and sweat. His hand slides into my hair, not yanking but holding, guiding me to a rhythm that starts slow, matching the distant quartet's melody bleeding through the door, then climbs, his hips flexing as I take him deeper, my throat relaxing to swallow him whole, gagging just enough to make it raw, tears pricking my eyes from the stretch.
Footsteps scuff past the door. Laughter filters in, polite clatter of glasses. The world's gala spins on while I kneel in this velvet hell, wrists looped in silk, mouth stuffed full of his cock, the wrongness twisting dark heat in my gut until I'm choking on it, my thighs slick and rubbing together frantically, clit throbbing for release. He feels my falter; his fingers tighten then loosen, voice coming low and filthy. “Breathe,” he murmurs. “Take what you want, you greedy little thing.”
I do, sucking harder, tongue swirling the underside, hollowing my cheeks until his restraint frays, a low groan escaping him, hips thrusting shallow but insistent. The power's mine in this—choosing to devour him, to make that noise catch in his throat again, my bound hands twitching against the wood as I chase his unraveling.
