"Beautiful," he whispered, pressing a kiss to the bare skin of my shoulder. "You wear armor so well, Rowan. But I prefer the skin."
He pushed me gently backward until my knees hit the bed. I sat, looking up at him. He stood between my legs, unbuttoning his shirt with elegant, steady fingers.
When he finally joined me on the mattress, skin to skin, the contrast was electric. He felt lithe, wiry, a coiled spring of muscle compared to Mateo’s bulk.
He moved over me, bracing his weight on his forearms, boxing me in.
"Look at me," he commanded.
I looked. I couldn't look away.
"You've had gravity," he whispered, his hand sliding down my stomach, slipping beneath the waistband of my panties. "And you've had logic. Now, you get empathy."
But it didn't feel like empathy. It felt like being consumed.
He kissed me again, deeper this time, eager and wet. His hand moved between my legs, not with the rough demand of Mateo or the clinical precision of Stephen, but with an intuitive, fluid rhythm that felt like he was reading my mind. He knew exactly where to touch, exactly how much pressure to apply.
"Juno," I gasped, arching into his touch.
"I have you," he murmured against my neck. "Let go. I'm driving."
He pushed two fingers ito me.
It was a slow, filling slide. He filled the empty spaces, the hollows that the fear had carved out. He set a rhythm that was hypnotic, a push and pull that rocked me against the mattress.
"Hush," he murmured against my mouth when I tried to speak, sensing the wheels turning in my head. "No more analysis. You’re trying to categorize the sensation. Stop it. Just feel the friction."
He withdrew his hand, leaving a cold, empty ache that I immediately hated. I made a small, embarrassing sound of protest, my hips jerking upward instinctively.
"Patience," Juno soothed, though his eyes were burning with a golden, predatory focus. "We’re rewriting the contract, remember? You don't have to manage the timeline."
He settled between my thighs, the silk of his unbuttoned shirt brushing against my bare breasts, a contrast of cool fabric and fever-hot skin. He didn't have Mateo’s terrifying bulk or Stephen’s architectural precision. Juno was wire-tensile strength, a creature of deceptive speed and fluid power.
When he pushed inside, it was a smooth, heavy glide that stole the breath from my lungs.
"Juno," I gasped, my nails digging into the muscles of his shoulders.
"I’m here," he whispered, beginning to move.
It wasn't the rhythmic pounding of a drum; it was the rising swell of a tide. He set a pace that was hypnotic, a rolling, grinding motion that hit nerves I didn't know I possessed. He watched my face the whole time, cataloging every flinch, every gasp, looking devastatingly pleased with the way I was reacting.
"You're not the manager here," he said, his voice dropping an octave, vibrating against my collarbone. "You're not the fixer. You're not the shield. Right now, Rowan, you are just a body. A beautiful, responsive, desperate body."
He was using his voice like a scalpel, cutting away the responsibilities I wrapped myself in. It was working. The "imposter" feeling vanished, replaced by a blinding, singular focus on the way he moved inside me.
As the heat in the room spiked, the pristine scent of white tea and vanilla began to fracture. Underneath the high-end blockers, something else was bleeding through the cracks like smoke.
Sweet.
My brain, usually so good at tagging data, stuttered. It wasn't the heavy musk of an Alpha. It was sharper. Burnt sugar and scorched earth. It was intense, cloying, and confusingly sweet. It didn't smell like authority; it smelled likeneed.
"Your scent..." I panted, trying to parse the chemical signal hitting the back of my throat.
"Focus on me," he growled, shattering my train of thought as he snapped his hips forward, hitting a spot deep inside me that turned my vision white.
The analysis failed. The spreadsheet dissolved. I wrapped my legs around his waist, pulling him deeper, surrendering to the smoke and the friction. For the first time in my life, I wasn't reading the fine print. I was just letting the scene play out.
He moved with a controlled frenzy, his body rigid with tension, like he was holding back a tidal wave. He buried his face in my neck, inhaling sharply, biting down on the sensitive cord of muscle there without breaking the skin.
