“Ivy,” he says again, against my jaw, his stubble rasping softly over my pulse point, as if confirming my existence. His fingers find the edge of my underwear. I inhale sharply, the leather seat creaking beneath me.
He slides his finger inside me and I am immediately, embarrassingly ready for him, warm and slick and swollen, and the sound that comes out of me bounces off the interior of the car and probably the window of the building across the road.
I grip his forearm, my nails digging into his shirt cuff. He circles slowly, two fingers curling just right, the pad of his thumb finding my clit with unerring pressure, and my head falls back against the headrest and my hips roll toward his hand and I am already half gone, already chasing it, the day compressed into this single bright urgent point of sensation. I need it so badly.
“Don’t stop. Alistair, please, I need?—”
He withdraws his hand.
I turn to look at him, flushed and breathing hard and genuinely furious.
He’s completely calm, absolutely infuriatingly composed. “I want to take my time with you.” He reaches over and straightens my dress with a matter-of-factness that makes me want to commit a minor crime. “And I can't do that here.”
“I don't need you to take your time,” I say. “I don’t want you to take your time. I need you to?—”
“I know what you need,” he says, starting the car.
Alistair pulls into the Ravenscroft Enterprises car park approximately four minutes later.
I look up at the building. The logo. The clean steel and glass of it, lit up against the wet night sky.
“Seriously?” I say, but I’m no longer upset.
“I need something from the safe,” he says.
“Sure you do,” I reply.
I’m going to fuck the billionaire in the building I once threw green paint because I hated billionaires. The irony of this is not lost on me. It is, in fact, so present that I can practically hear Becks laughing from twenty miles away.
The lobby is empty. A security guard nods subtly at Alistair. The lift is all mirrors and brushed steel. I look terrible, dusty and slightly torn, the dressing on my temple white against my skin, my hair greasy, and Alistair stands beside me and doesn't say anything, just puts his hand on the small of my back, warm and present through the thin fabric, and the lift rises smoothly, the faint hum vibrating under my feet.
His office.
Minimalist, clean. A room that has been arranged by someone who considers clutter a form of moral failure. Floor to ceiling windows on two sides, the rain-slicked city spread out below in every direction. A long dark desk, almost bare.
Almost.
There is a framed photograph on it. Me and Alex at the wedding, both of us looking at something outside the frame, Alex in my arms, me laughing. I notice it the way you notice something that was always going to be there, a quiet warmth blooming in my chest alongside the still-present throb between my legs.
I cross to the window and look out at the city. The rain has softened. Down there, somewhere, is the pavement where I bled and he caught me. The spot where all of this started: a blast and a head wound not dissimilar to what I had now, and a man who looked like a god in the low afternoon sun.
Alistair appears behind me, his hands settling on my hips, fingers splaying warm and certain over the dusty fabric. He walks me backwards to the desk.
The city glitters below us and the office is silent save for the rain's steady patter on the glass, and then his hands are on my face, both of them, thumbs tracing my cheekbones, and he kisses me. Slower than the car. Deeper.
My fingers find his shirt buttons and begin opening them.
His jacket goes, shrugged off onto the chair. His shirt untucked, my hands sliding beneath it. Warm skin, the muscle of his stomach tightening under my palms, and he makes a low sound against my mouth that I feel in my knees.
He lifts me onto the desk. My photograph safe to one side, everything else irrelevant, the polished wood cool against the backs of my thighs, and steps between my knees and takes his time looking at me. The city behind him. His name on the building. The rain on the glass.
I don’t belong in an immaculate office like this. I am dusty and wet and there is still a bruise forming along my collarbone.
He kisses the dressing at my temple, carefully, slowly, warm breath fanning my skin, and something in my chest cracks clean open.
His mouth travels from my temple to my jaw, my throat, the curve of my collarbone above the bruise, teeth grazing lightly, tongue soothing the ache, and I tip my head back and let him, the city spread out below us like it belongs to us. The faint scent of polished leather from the desk chair mingles with Alistair’s cologne, grounding me in the moment.
He killed a woman today, and I was almost killed. It’s too much.
