Her hands find my body, working at the buttons of my waistcoat with considerably more urgency than I am applying to her clothing. "Less talking about ledgers, more removing of these obscenely well-tailored garments. I want to feel your skin against mine."
I comply with her demand, shrugging out of my jacket and waistcoat while she attacks my shirt buttons with single-minded determination. The fabric hits the floor in a pile that would make my tailor weep, but I cannot bring myself to care when Cypress's small, warm hands are finally splayed across my bare body, tracing the lines of muscle and the old battle scars with reverent fingers.
"You are so impossibly beautiful. Every time I see you like this, I still can't quite believe you're real."
I reach behind her and unfasten her bra with a dexterity that has improved dramatically since our first encounter, when I accidentally shredded the garment in my enthusiasm and had to endure an extremely pointed lecture about the cost of quality undergarments. The lace falls away, and I cup her breasts in my palms, marveling as always at how perfectly they fit despite the vast difference in our sizes, how soft and warm her skin feels against my calloused hands.
"The desk," I growl, walking her backward until her thighs hit my giant mahogany workspace. "I want you spread across my desk like a feast, wearing nothing but that bracer and the knowledge that you belong to me completely."
She makes a sound that is half laugh, half moan as I lift her easily and set her on the polished surface, sweeping aside the neat stacks of financial documents with one arm. Papers flutter to the floor like snow, and neither of us spares them a second glance as I step between her parted thighs and claim her mouth in a kiss that leaves no doubt about my intentions.
Her skirt rides up around her hips as I press closer, and I can feel her through the thin fabric of her underwear, a siren call that makes my control fray at the edges. I want to devour her, to worship her, to mark her so thoroughly that she will feel my presence in every cell of her body for days afterward. But I also want to savor this moment, to stretch it out until we are both trembling on madness, because she has just agreed to be mine forever and that knowledge deserves to be commemorated properly.
"Knox." My name on her lips is a prayer and a demand all at once. "Please. I need?—"
"I know what you need, my valkyrie." I ease back just enough to remove the last barriers between us, handling her underwear with considerably more care than I've managed in some of our more frantic encounters. "I know every sound you make, every shiver, every way your body tells me exactly what it craves. And I am going to give you everything, because you have given me something infinitely more precious."
I run my hands up the inside of her thighs, spreading her wider across the desk's surface, positioning her exactly where I want her. The bracer on her wrist catches the light as she braces herself on her palms, and the sight of it sends another surge of possessive satisfaction through my body that translates directly into a desperate need to claim her in the most fundamental way possible.
"You are magnificent." I lower my head to press kisses along the sensitive skin of her inner thigh, working my way toward the center of her with deliberate slowness. "Brilliant and brave and so impossibly responsive. Do you have any idea what it does to me, knowing that you chose this? Chose me?"
Her response dissolves into a wordless cry as I finally put my mouth on her, using lips and tongue and the careful edge of my tusks to drive her toward the edge with practiced skill. She tasteslike victory and sweetness and everything I have ever wanted, and I lose myself in the act of pleasuring her, cataloging every gasp and moan as evidence that I am doing this correctly, that I am worthy of the gift she has given me.
Her fingers tangle in my hair, gripping hard enough to sting as her body arches off the desk, and I feel her thighs tremble against my shoulders as she crests the first wave. I work her through it relentlessly, drawing out her pleasure until she is sobbing my name and pulling at my hair in desperate demand for more.
"Inside me. Knox, please, I need to feel you?—"
I rise over her, positioning myself at her entrance, and pause just long enough to meet her eyes. She is flushed and trembling, her hair spread across my desk like a dark halo, the bonding bracer gleaming on her wrist, and she has never been more beautiful than she is in this moment. I push forward slowly, giving her body time to adjust to my size, watching her face for any sign of discomfort even as the tightness of her threatens to shatter my control entirely.
"Yes," she breathes, wrapping her legs around my waist and pulling me deeper. "Just like that. You feel so good, Knox. So perfect."
She is impossibly tight around me, her internal muscles fluttering and clenching in a rhythm that seems designed to drive me mad, and I have to close my eyes and think very hard about quarterly tax projections to avoid ending this encounter far too quickly.
"Move." Her command is accompanied by a sharp dig of her heels into my lower back. "I didn't agree to marry you so you could practice restraint. Show me what you feel."
The word "marry" on her lips breaks something loose inside me, some final barrier I had been unconsciously maintaining, and I begin to move with a intensity that makes the desk creakominously beneath us. She matches my rhythm with her hips, meeting every thrust with an eagerness that sets my blood on fire, and the sounds she makes—desperate, hungry, gloriously uninhibited—fill the office with evidence of our claiming.
"Mine," I growl against her throat, pressing my teeth lightly against her pulse point. "My partner. My equal. My bonded mate."
"Yours," she agrees breathlessly, her nails scoring lines down my back that I will wear like badges of honor. "All yours. Forever."
The word "forever" tips me over the edge, and I bury myself as deep as I can go as release crashes through me in waves of white-hot pleasure. She follows me over moments later, clenching around me so tightly that I see stars, and we cling to each other as the aftershocks gradually fade into the warm glow of satisfaction.
The city skyline glitters through the floor-to-ceiling windows, a kingdom of lights spread before us like a map of territories yet to be conquered, and I find myself smiling at the sheer improbability of how my life has changed since I first broke down that conference room door.
"What are you thinking about?" Cypress traces lazy patterns on me with her fingers, the bracer warm against my skin.
"I am thinking about how thoroughly you have transformed my understanding of victory. Before you, I measured success only in terms of territory claimed and enemies defeated. Now I find myself calculating wealth in terms of moments like this one, small eternities of peace that I never knew I craved until you taught me how to want them."
She props herself up on one elbow to look at me, her eyes soft with emotion. "That might be the most romantic thing you've ever said to me. And you once compared my asset allocationstrategy to a perfectly executed cavalry charge, so the bar was already pretty high."
"That comparison remains accurate. Your approach to portfolio diversification is genuinely inspired."
She laughs and kisses me softly, then settles back against me with a contented sigh. We lie there in comfortable silence for several minutes, watching the city lights twinkle in the darkness, until a thought occurs to me that I have been delaying for far too long.
"There is one additional matter we must discuss regarding our bonding ceremony."
"That sounds ominous. What kind of matter?"
