Rowan stared at me. She looked at the scar cutting through my eyebrow. She looked at the size of me. She looked at the danger I represented, and the safety I promised.
She didn't speak.
Instead, her hands moved from my chest up to my shoulders. She gripped the fabric of my t-shirt. She pulled.
She stood on her tiptoes.
"Don't you dare go to the door," she whispered.
The control snapped.
I didn't kiss her gently. I crashed into her.
I took her mouth like I was kicking in a door. It was a reclaiming. It was violent and starving. She met me with the same ferocity, her mouth opening, her tongue tangling with mine. She tasted of coffee and defiance.
I groaned, the sound tearing out of my throat, and lifted her.
She wrapped her legs around my waist instantly, locking her ankles with her skirt practically up around her waist. I slammed her down onto the desk as that sweet scent that had just been a hint before now flooded the air around us.
Paperwork flew. The quarterly reports, theAegisfiles, the indictments she had been drafting, they scattered across the floor like leaves.
"The files," she gasped against my mouth, but her hands were digging into my hair, pulling me closer.
"Let them scatter," I growled.
I stepped between her thighs, pressing the heavy ridge of my erection against her center through our clothes. The friction was electric. Immediate.
This wasn't romance. This was survival. We were two people being hunted, and the only way to prove we were still alive was to burn this room down with us inside it.
She arched her back, grinding against me. "Mateo... heavy. Be heavy."
"I've got you."
I shoved the hoodie up. I didn't have patience for buttons or zippers. I needed skin. My hands found her waist, rough against the silk of her skin. She wasn't delicate. She felt strong, taut, alive.
She shoved my hands down. She went for my belt.
"Hurry," she demanded, her voice a broken sob. "I need... I need to feel it. Now."
I caught her wrists before she could undo the buckle. Her pulse hammered against my palms, frantic and bird-like, a erratic beat trying to escape the cage of her skin.
"Not like that," I grunted.
I pinned her hands above her head against the dark wood of the shelves, using my left forearm to hold her fast. I needed to anchor her. With my free hand, I cupped her pussy.
She was already soaking wet. The scent of her was a sharp peppermint now drowned in lust.
I didn’t tease. I shoved her panties to the side and drove two fingers into her, deep and rough.
Rowan cried out, her head falling back, knocking against the desk. She tried to buck, to chase the sensation, but I locked my thigh between hers, pinning her against the edge of the desk. I forced her to take the friction exactly how I gave it.
"Stay here," I ordered, my voice a low growl near her ear. "Get out of your head, Quill."
I curled my fingers, grinding upward, targeting the bundle of nerves she usually kept buried under layers of sarcasm and contracts. She unraveled instantly. It wasn't a slow burn; it was a demolition. Her interior muscles clamped down on my hand, tight and hot, trying to milk me for everything I was worth and just the thought of her doing that to my cock nearly had me coming undone. She sobbed, a jagged, broken sound, and shuddered violently against the desk.
I held her through the tremors, keeping the heavy pressure steady until her breath hitched and stalled.
When the spasms faded, I started to withdraw, my breathing heavy but controlled. I went to pull my hand away, ready to fix her skirt, ready to re-secure the perimeter. We had crossed a line, but the release should have bought her clarity, given her some breathing room from the flood of panic.
