Simon nodded, pressing one last, desperate kiss to Tessa’s knuckles before retreating into the shadows where Daniel stoodguard. The pack was forming a circle, and I was stepping into the center.
Tessa looked up at me. Her grey eyes were blown wide, pupils swallowing the irises. She swayed on her feet, grabbing the edge of the desk for support.
"And you, Anders?" she rasped, a challenge curling the corner of her mouth. "Are you going to audit me next? Check my vitals? Send me an email about breach of contract?"
"No more emails," I growled.
I closed the distance. The scent of her hit me, and then my scent was colliding with her ocean storm, creating a pressure system that cleared my head instantly.
"You've been the strong survivor for years," I told her, reaching out. I didn't touch her face. I didn't touch her hands. I gripped her waist, my thumbs digging into the soft flesh above her hipbones. "You built this fortress, wrote the books, and protected the ghost."
She trembled in my grip, her breath hitching. "I had to."
"Not tonight," I said. "Tonight, you don't have to survive anything. You don't have to be strong. You don't have to be the genius author."
I tightened my grip.
"Tonight, you are just you. You are just biology. And I am the one who manages the asset."
I didn't give her time to process the shift in my tone. I didn't ask for permission; she had already given the command to the room.Fill the void.
I bent my knees and picked her up.
She gasped, clutching my shoulders as I deposited her onto the surface of the massive oak desk. She landed among the scattered papers, the ergonomic mouse, and the cold coffee mug. I swept my arm across the surface, sending a stack of papers and notes fluttering to the floor.
"Anders!" she yelped, trying to scramble backward, but I stepped between her spread knees, locking her in place.
"This desk," I said, leaning over her, planting my hands on either side of her hips, trapping her against the monitor stand. "This is where you control everything, isn't it? This is where you play god with your characters."
"Yes," she whispered, her chest heaving.
"Not anymore," I said. "Right now, this isn't a workspace. It's a claiming ground."
She looked at me, her eyes darting over my face, looking for the rule-follower. He was gone. The class president was dead.
"Flip over," I ordered.
She hesitated, blinking. "What?"
"Turn over, Tessa," I said, my voice dropping that octave into the register usually reserved for hostile acquisitions. "Hands on the desk. Arch your back."
A shiver ripped through her, violent and visible. "Why?"
"Because you're spinning," I told her brutally. "Your mind is trying to write the scene instead of living it. You're analyzing Simon's angles. You're analyzing Daniel's pacing. I need you out of your head and in your skin."
She bit her lip, a flush rising from her neck to her cheeks. Slowly, agonizingly, she turned.
She positioned herself on the desk on her hands and knees, facing the dark window that reflected the room back at us. The posture exposed everything, the curve of her spine, the pale mounds of her buttocks, the slick, swollen reality of her heat displayed between her thighs.
"God," I choked out, the sight nearly breaking my resolve.
I reached into my pocket, my hand shaking as I pulled out the single foil packet I had grabbed from her nightstand supply, the responsible businessman, even in the hormone apocalypse. I ripped it open with my teeth, the sound sharp in the quiet room.
"Stay still," I warned.
I moved behind her. But I didn't enter. Not yet.
I raised my hand and brought it down on the soft flesh of her ass.
