Marcus eyed me, then let his gaze drift down the line of my body: black shirt, black jacket, no tie, boots polished to a dull shine. “Of course,” he said.
He shifted, turning away from me, and in the pivot, his glass tipped. Bourbon sluiced down the front of Carrie’s dress, a fat, deliberate splash that caught her just below the collarbone and streaked lower, soaking the silk and blooming dark down her ribcage.
She didn’t flinch. Not even a blink. But every man in the circle froze, reading the move for what it was: dominance, the mark of the true alpha. The wolf in me snarled.
“Oh, my,” Marcus said, reaching for a cocktail napkin. “I’m all thumbs tonight.” He blotted at the dress, his touch lingering at the hollow of her shoulder, then sliding lower as if it were his right.
Carrie’s eyes flashed, but she let him. For three heartbeats, I watched his fingers play over her bare skin, slow and proprietary. He dabbed at the bourbon, thumb brushing the edge of her bra, and smiled for the crowd.
I moved in, a shadow at her back, and he hesitated. I didn’t have to say a word; the threat of my presence was enough. I saw the microexpression—fear, or just surprise—flicker across his face before he smoothed it over.
“I’ll send the cleaners bill,” Carrie said, voice perfectly pitched, “but for now, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t touch me again.”
Marcus’s smile faded by a millimeter. “Of course, darling. Didn’t mean to overstep.”
She took a napkin and finished the cleanup herself, shoulders squared, daring him to say anything. The crowd relaxed. The show was over. But I kept my eyes on Marcus, and he kept his on me.
He lingered, then melted back into the crowd, suit shining. I watched the way he walked, the deliberate confidence, the way people bent toward his gravity.
Carrie’s hand found my forearm. Her nails dug in, just a little, and she steered me away from the bar. We moved through the crowd, past a dozen eyes pretending not to stare, and out into the hallway. The smell of bourbon and blood and sweat followed us.
We ducked into an office, and she didn’t speak until the office door closed, and the world shrank to the pulse in my jaw and thesilhouette of Carrie against a window. The outside glass frosted up quick in the night humidity, blurring the bourbon lights into smears of gold and blue. For two beats, three, we just stood—her facing me, back pressed to the window, hands braced like she might bolt. I couldn’t breathe right. I wanted to tear the room apart, tear myself apart, or maybe just tear her apart in the best way I knew how.
She said my name, real quiet, “Shivs.”
The sound of it yanked something loose in me. I stalked toward her, slow and soft-footed, and she didn’t move, not an inch. Her eyes were black in the low light, mouth parted, the stain of bourbon still visible at her collarbone.
‘You look like you’re about to kill something,” she said.
“Not a thing,” I said. “Not even close.”
She set her jaw, but I saw the flicker of excitement under the mask. The old animal in her, the one that knew my smell and never backed down. “Then what?”
I closed the last of the distance, hands on either side of her head, caging her but not touching, waiting for her to shove or slap or tell me to get the fuck out. Instead, she leaned forward—half a centimeter, maybe less—and I broke.
I kissed her so hard I tasted blood, hers or mine, I didn’t care. Her fingers laced in the hair at the back of my neck and yanked until my eyes watered. My body pressed against hers, chest to chest, my cock already straining against the zipper of my pants. I could feel her heart racing through the silk and bourbon, every beat feeding the monster inside me.
I slid my hands down her arms, then lower, cupping the curve of her ass and lifting her onto the desk. The blue dress rode up, bunching at her hips, the fabric cold and slick under my fingers. She wrapped her legs around me and ground herself against my thigh, eyes wild and daring me to go further.
I was past daring. I reached up, grabbed the deep V of her neckline, and ripped. The sound was obscene in the hush—a tearing, raw animal noise that made her gasp and laugh at the same time. Her breasts spilled free, nipples hard, the skin there so pale and soft I wanted to bite.
She shimmied her hips, shoving the dress higher, and fumbled with my belt. Her hands were fast and desperate, not careful at all, just intent on getting to skin. She freed my cock, fingers wrapping it, pulling it out so the head slid against her soaked panties.
“Goddamn you,” she whispered, and the words were all need, no venom.
“Say it again,” I breathed, nipping her jaw, her collarbone, the hollow at the base of her throat.
She said it, louder, voice echoing in the glass and wood. “God. Damn. You.”
I hooked her panties to the side, pressed the tip of my cock to her entrance, and paused. She looked at me, a challenge in her eyes.
“Do it,” she said.
I did.
She was so wet it was no trouble at all, but she was tight, tighter than I remembered, maybe just from the adrenaline or the need or the fact that she was still riding the edge from the ballroom. I buried myself in her, slow, letting her adjust, then faster, hard enough to shove the desk across the floor an inch with every thrust.
She met me, move for move, her fingers digging into my back, her heels locked around my ribs. Her head rolled back, eyes closed, and I bent to take a nipple between my teeth, biting just enough to make her yelp. She grabbed my hair and held me there, rocking herself against my face, making me drink in the taste of her skin.
