She matches it.Takes it.Demands more with the roll of her hips and the dig of her heels into my lower back.
“Harder.” Not a plea. A command.
“Fucking brat.” I’m not about to argue. I pin her wrists above her head with one hand, caging her against the wall. My other hand slides under her ass, tilting her hips up to meet the full, punishing length of my thrusts. I drive into her, again and again, my cock slapping against her wet cunt, the sound obscene in the narrow space.
“This is what you need, isn’t it?” I pant against her ear. “To be taken. To be reminded who you belong to.” Each word is punctuated by a slam of my hips. “You’re not Ms. Henderson here. You’re not counsel. You’re just mine. My omega.”
A broken cry leaves her lips as her orgasm shatters through her. Her body convulses around me, milking my cock, pulling me closer to the edge. It’s too soon. I’m not done with her.
Before the last tremor fades, I pull out, ignoring her protest. I haul her into my arms and carry her, stumbling, toward the bedroom. I don’t set her down. I throw her. She lands in the middle of the mattress with a bounce, sprawling on her stomach across the dark sheets.
She pushes up on her elbows, looking back at me over her shoulder, her chest heaving, her curls a wild halo. Defiance glints in her eyes even now.
“Don’t you dare think this is over,” I growl, crawling onto the bed behind her, a predator stalking his prey. I grab her hips, pull her back onto her knees, and shove my cock back inside her from behind.
She cries out, the deep, full penetration stealing her breath. This angle is pure dominance. Pure possession. I can see everything—the curve of her spine, the way her ass clenches with each of my thrusts, the dark mark on her throat.
“Look at you,” I grind out, my hand snaking around to cup her breast, my thumb tormenting her nipple. “Taking my cock like you were made for it.” I slam into her, burying myself to the hilt. “Because you were. You were made for me.”
I fuck her like I’m trying to erase every doubt, every resistance, and every argument that’s sure to come after. The bed frame knocks against the wall, a frantic rhythm of our collision. Her cries are muffled by the pillows, raw sounds of pleasure and surrender. My own pants are harsh, guttural. This isn’t a release of steam; it’s a volcano.
I feel the pressure building, the primal urge to knot, to lock myself inside her and finish this. “I’m going to come inside you, Jaleesa,” I rasp, my teeth at her shoulder. “I’m going to fill you up and brand you from the inside out.”
Her hips push back, meeting my final, driving thrusts. My name is a shattered prayer on her lips. The world narrows to the feeling of her cunt clenching around me as my orgasm rips through me. The knot at the base of my cock swells, locking us together. A guttural roar tears from my throat as I empty myself deep inside her, my body shuddering with the force of a bond that will not be denied.
I collapse on top of her, my face buried in her hair, my weight pinning her to the mattress. My knot is still buried inside her, a physical anchor, the ultimate claim.
After midnight, we christen the floor beside the bed when we roll off the mattress and neither of us stops long enough to climb back up. At three a.m. she reaches for me in the dark and I’m already reaching back. The desperation hasn’t dimmed—if anything it’s sharper now, honed by the knowledge that dawn is coming and dawn means the costume goes back on and Mr. Vaughn and Ms. Henderson resume their positions on opposite sides of a glass table.
She says my name once. Not Vaughn. Not Mr. Vaughn.Hunter.Breathed against my throat at the end, my body still locked inside hers, her own climax trembling around mine. Two syllables that undo me more completely than anything she’s done with her hands or her mouth or the devastating brilliance of her legal mind.
I press my face into her curls and breathe. Take deep whiffs of her scent. Imprint it into my lungs and collapse. By dawn the sheets are wrecked and neither of us has slept.
***
I’m standing behind her in the bathroom when it happens. I lean down and press my mouth to her forehead. Automatic. Unconscious. The way bonded alphas do when their omega is near. My lips against her skin, lingering,soft, when nothing between us has been soft.
I freeze. My mouth still on her. Shit. What the actual fuck? I can’t step back fast enough. Can’t meet her eyes in the mirror. I focus on the stranger looking at me. Who is he? He has my face, but this is not me. It can’t be. I can’t be that guy. No, damn way. I clear my throat, straighten my tie and walk away with slow measured strides.
I’m not fleeing. But each step blisters my feet. The bond is anoose around my chest that tightens my ribs with every inch. Hyperventillating is not an option. I glance at her out of the side of my eyes. She leans on the door frame wearing my shirt like it was custom made for her. Her thigh crossed over the other and the long curve of it begs for my hand. She’s such a bad girl. Tempting me. I should spank that ass. Oh God, where the hell did that come from? Maybe fleeing is the right option, the only choice. I attempt to turn away again, gritting my teeth against the strain as my alpha energy threatens to rip me apart.
She’s the one who says it.
“We got this.”
Her voice is steadier than mine would be. Her chin is lifted. Those dark eyes holding me with a composure that makes my chest compress because I know—through the bond, through the new sixth sense I didn’t ask for—that the composure is costing her as much as mine costs me.
“Yep,” I say. Giving only a microscopic lie in response. Then I pick up my jacket, and walk to the door. Don’t look back. Dont. Look. Back.
I look back.
She’s watching me. The tangled curls. The mark at her throat, dark and permanent in the morning light. She doesn’t wave. Doesn’t smile. Just holds my gaze with the same steady, unbreakable defiance that made me hate her before my body decided differently.
I leave.
The door closes behind me. The hallway is silent and empty and smells like nothing, and the absence of her scent is a physical subtraction—a thing removed from the air, a temperature drop, a frequency gone silent.
I press my forehead against the wall outside her door. Close my eyes. Summon my father’s wearied face—the iron shield. The image holds. Barely. The way a dam holds when the wateris higher than the engineers planned for and the cracks are spreading and everyone downstream is pretending the math still works.
We got this.
I push off the wall. Straighten my jacket. Walk down three flights of stairs and out into a morning that is bright and ordinary and doesn’t know that the man walking through it is held together by a dead man’s ghost.
