Her eyes are dark and endless in the dim light of the car, her pulse visible in the hollow of her throat, her fingers tightening on my shoulders in a grip that is anything but a rejection.
"Do not stop," she breathes. "Do not you dare stop."
11
CYPRESS
The world narrows to the point where his hands meet my skin.
I am straddling Knox Bloodaxe in the back of a town car somewhere in Manhattan, my designer gown rucked up around my thighs, and the rational part of my brain—the part that calculates tax loopholes and color-codes spreadsheets and always, always maintains professional boundaries—has gone completely and blissfully silent. There is only his hands against my bare back, the impossible breadth of his shoulders beneath my fingers, and the way he is looking at me like I am something precious and powerful and entirely his to devour.
"Cypress." My name rumbles out of him like distant thunder, and his hands slide down to cup my hips with a possessive grip that makes my stomach clench with anticipation. "Tell me you want this. Tell me you are choosing this."
"I want this." The words come out breathless and eager, nothing like my usual crisp professional tone, and I find I do not care at all about maintaining composure. "I want you. I have wanted you since you kicked down that conference room doorand demanded I become your First Mate, and I am tired of pretending otherwise."
The sound he makes is not quite human—a deep, rumbling growl that I feel vibrating through him and into my palms where they rest against him. His fingers tighten on my hips, and then he is pulling me closer, eliminating every millimeter of space between us until I can feel the hardness of him pressing against my core through the thin layers of fabric that separate us.
"You brilliant, fearless creature." He brings one hand up to cup my jaw, tilting my face so that our eyes meet, and the intensity I find there steals what little breath I have left. "Do you have any idea what you have done to me? I have conquered markets and crushed competitors and built empires from nothing, and none of it—none of it—has brought me to my knees the way you do when you push your glasses up your nose and tell me my math is wrong."
I laugh, because that is such a ridiculous thing to say, but the laugh catches in my throat when he leans forward and presses his mouth to the pulse point beneath my jaw. His tusks drag lightly against my skin, not quite sharp enough to cut but more than enough to remind me exactly what he is, exactly how dangerous he could be if he chose, and the contrast between that latent threat and the devastating gentleness of his lips makes something coil tight and hot at the base of my spine.
"Knox—"
"I have wanted to do this since the moment you snatched that foreclosure notice out of that pompous fool's hands and cited obscure corporate bylaws like a warrior wielding a blade." He traces a path of kisses down my throat, each one punctuated by words that sink into my skin like brands. "Since you stood in the rain with water dripping down your face and refused to let me shield you from the storm. Since you confronted me about thosemerger documents with fire in your eyes and demanded we fight together instead of apart."
His hands find the zipper at the back of my gown, and he pauses there, his breath hot against my collarbone, waiting for permission I have already given a dozen times over. I arch into him, pressing my body against his, and whisper a single word into the air between us.
"Yes."
The sound of the zipper sliding down seems impossibly loud in the quiet of the car, and then the fabric is pooling around my waist and I am bare from the waist up except for a strapless bra that cost more than my first car. Knox pulls back just far enough to look at me, and the expression on his face—raw hunger tempered with something that looks almost like reverence—makes me feel powerful in a way that has nothing to do with balance sheets or profit margins.
"Beautiful." He traces the line of my collarbone with one finger, the touch impossibly delicate for someone so large. "You are so impossibly beautiful, and you do not even realize it. You think your value lies in your brilliant mind and your ruthless efficiency, and those things are magnificent, but you—you, Cypress Evans—you are a work of art."
I fumble with the buttons on his shirt that seem suddenly far too small for my trembling fingers. "Less talking. More touching."
He laughs, and the sound is warm and genuine and sends sparks cascading down my nerve endings. "As you command, First Mate."
And then his mouth is on mine.
The kiss is nothing like I expected and everything I did not know I needed—deep and thorough and consuming, his tongue sliding against mine with a skill that makes me wonder exactly how many centuries of practice he has had. His tusks pressagainst the corners of my mouth, a constant reminder of his otherness, and I find myself leaning into them rather than away, wanting to feel every part of him against every part of me.
His hands are everywhere—sliding up my ribs to cup my breasts through the thin fabric of my bra, skating down my spine to grip the curve of my ass, pulling me harder against him until I can feel exactly how much he wants this pressed against my core. I grind down without thinking, chasing the friction, and the sound he makes against my mouth is somewhere between a groan and a growl.
"Cypress." He breaks the kiss just long enough to gasp my name, and his eyes are blazing with something that looks almost like pain. "If you keep doing that, I am not going to be able to maintain my control."
"Good." I roll my hips again, deliberate this time, watching his face contort with pleasure. "I do not want your control. I want you to stop thinking of me as fragile and breakable and start treating me like?—"
He flips us.
One moment I am straddling him, and the next I am on my back on the leather seat with his body covering mine. He looms over me like a storm cloud, his shoulders blocking out the streetlights that filter through the tinted windows.
"You want to know how I see you? I see a warrior. A conqueror. A woman who looked at an impossible battle and refused to flinch. I do not think you are fragile, Cypress. I think you are the most formidable opponent I have ever faced, and I have been planning my campaign to win you since the day we met."
The bra falls away, and his mouth follows, closing over one peaked nipple with a sensation that makes me cry out. His tongue swirls and teases while his hand finds my other breast, kneading with a pressure that walks the knife's edge betweenpleasure and pain, and I arch up into his touch like my body has been waiting my entire life for exactly this.
"Knox—please?—"
"Please what?" He switches his attention to my other breast, his breath hot against my skin, his tusks dragging featherlight trails across the sensitive flesh. "Tell me what you need. Command me. I am yours to direct."
