It wasn't the rhythmic, pleasurable stroking of a bedroom romp. It was rough. It was punishment and salvation all wrapped into one wet, sliding friction. He curled his fingers, targeting the deepest nerves, scraping against me with a relentless, punishing cadence that felt less like sex and more like an exorcism.
Thrust. Drag. Curl.
My vision went white at the edges. The spreadsheet in my head dissolved into static. I couldn't think about Vance, or the offshore bank accounts, or the tabloid vultures circling the agency. I could only think about the width of his fingers, the heat of his hand, and the way he was meticulously wrecking me.
A stray, delirious thought fired through the haze:If he can do all this with just his fingers, Christ, what would his cock do to me?
"That’s it," he growled, sensing the shift in my breathing, the way my hips started to seek his rhythm rather than fight it. "Let go of the list, Rowan. Drop the file."
"I can't," I lied, a broken sob tearing out of my throat. "I have to... I have to manage..."
"Manage this."
He added a third finger.
The stretch burned, hot and exquisite, pushing me past the point of comfort and into the realm of necessity. He picked up the pace, his thumb pressing down hard on my clit, pinning the sensitive bundle of nerves against the pubic bone with zero mercy.
I bucked off the mattress, a guttural, animal sound tearing from my throat. "Mateo!"
"Stay with me," he ordered, his voice a low bark. He leaned forward, pressing his free hand flat against my chest, right over my sternum, holding me down. He pinned me between his weight and the bed, compressing the air in my lungs. "Feel the weight. Feel the bed. Feel my fingers inside you. Feel my breath on your neck."
His head dipped toward my collarbone, and the warm, rushed pants of his breath told me I wasn't the only one who felt this. The stoic protector was cracking; his heart was hammering against the palm I still had pressed to his shirt. He wanted me just as much as I wanted him.
He pounded into me. His fingers moved with the speed and violence of a piston engine. It was sensory overload. It was a biological override code being punched into my keypad again and again.
My hips snapped up to meet him, abandoning all dignity, abandoning the prim and proper persona I wore like armor. I wasn't the woman who negotiated riders. I wasn't the shark in the bespoke suit. I was just a body, a nerve ending, a creature desperate for the release he was dangling in front of me like salvation.
"Say it," he demanded, his mouth pressing against my ear, teeth grazing the lobe. "Tell me what you need."
"I need... I need out," I babbled, thrashing beneath the heavy pressure of his hand on my chest. "Get it out of me. The noise. The panic. Please."
"Then scream it out."
He twisted his hand, hitting the spot that made my toes curl, and circled his thumb mercilessly.
The tension coiled tight in my belly, a hot, heavy spring winding up to the breaking point. It was agony. It was perfection. It was the only thing in the world that felt real.
"Mateo!" I screamed, the sound raw and jagged, stripping my throat. "Mateo, please!"
"Come for me," he growled the command, his voice guttural with his own reflected need.
He drove deep with a brutal, final thrust of his hand.
I shattered.
It wasn't a wave; it was a structural collapse. My body seized, bowing upward against his restraining hand. The orgasm ripped through me, violent and absolute, washing away the clauses, the fear, the logic, the deadlines. I screamed his name again and again, a litany of surrender, while my internal muscles clamped down on his fingers, pulsing wildly, trying to milk every drop of peace from his touch.
He didn't stop. He worked me through the peak, forcing me to endure every second of the overstimulation until I was limp, breathless, and utterly empty.
Only then did he slow down.
He withdrew his hand slowly, the wet, slick sound loud in the sudden, crushing silence.
I lay there, chest heaving, tears leaking from the corners of my eyes and sliding into my hairline. My legs were trembling uncontrollably, splayed open like a broken doll. The room smelled of sex and peppermint, my scent, and the heavy, musky, cedar scent of an Alpha who was unsatisfied.
"Status?" Mateo whispered. His voice was rough, but the edge was gone, replaced by that low, rumbling warmth.
I tried to speak. My throat clicked dry. "Offline," I finally managed to whisper, followed by a breathless, dry chuckle. "System rebooting."
