It was the most erotic thing I’d ever seen.
I forced myself to move away before I did something that would break the fragile truce. I went to the small table by the window. Opening my own tablet, I tried to tackle the security reports from the New York estate, but I couldn't focus. My eyes kept drifting back to her.
I wanted to know what she was seeing. I wanted to see which knots she was untying and how she was rewriting the future of our two families with a few keystrokes. Every time she hummed in thought or shifted in my chair, I felt it in my balls. Which were so fucking tight.
For the next three hours, we didn't speak. We tore through the logistics, challenging each other's projections, her mindmeeting mine at a speed that made my blood sing. It wasn't sex, but it was an intimacy so sharp it left us both breathless.
Finally, I closed the laptop. The city lights were beginning to dim as the sun threatened the horizon.
"Go to bed, Addie."
She stood, her legs unsteady, and headed for the door. I watched the sway of her hips, the way the silk of her dress—now wrinkled from the day's rebellion—clung to her skin. She stopped as she reached the threshold.
"Alone?" she asked.
"Do you want to fuck?" I asked the question blunt. It wasn't a command; it was a genuine inquiry in the wreckage of the night.
The pulse in the hollow of her throat jumped. For a second, I thought she might say yes; that the intellectual fire we’d just shared might bridge the gap.
"I'm not in heat," she said softly, her eyes searching mine.
I wanted her, but I wanted her to want me more. "All right, then."
She hesitated a moment longer. Then she disappeared into the hallway, leaving me alone in the silent office. I looked at the laptop, still warm from her touch. I had her in the cage, and I had her in my employ. But as I smelled the lingering jasmine in the air, I realized I wanted more.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
ADDIE
Iwoke up with a heavy, restless heat coiled deep in my belly. It was a buzzing beneath my skin that had nothing to do with the city noise outside. It was a pulsing ache that had everything to do with the man in the other room.
Vidar Blackwood and I had been married for three days, and we still hadn't consummated the union. I hadn't dated in months—I hadn't had sex in longer than that—so technically, this shouldn't have mattered. I was used to the dry spells. But those dry spells didn't usually involve sleeping a few feet away from a man who looked like a fallen god and moved like a predator.
My wolf was not having the separation. She clawed at my skin all night long, aching to nose her way into his room. Or just to be let out. She still remembered that run, his dominance. She wanted to feel his claws in her fur, his teeth on her neck.
If I were honest, I wanted that too. But my husband wasn't anywhere near as ravenous as we were. And the hell if I was going to cave first.
The irony was a jagged pill. I swallowed it to add to my bitterness. All my life, I had fought to be recognized for my brain, not my body. I wanted to be the strategist, the one at the head of the table, not the trophy on the arm of a man who only saw what my last name could do for them.
Vidar Blackwood was giving me exactly what I’d asked for. He saw my intellect. He valued my logic. And yet, he seemed to find it infuriatingly easy to keep his hands off me. Asshole.
I groaned into my pillow; the frustration peaking. If he wasn't going to do anything about this, I was going to have to take matters into my own hands, starting with the pad of my index finger.
I slipped my hand beneath the heavy duvet. The prick of my nails left faint trails on my fair skin. The scrape of my index finger turned to a soft press as my thumb and middle finger joined the parade. My thighs parted, ready to receive the eager little marching band. My hypersensitive skin hummed with the memory of the way he’d watched me at the keyboard last night. I made my way across the manicured landscape of my core, my eyes drifting shut as I imagined his calloused hands replacing my own, when a sharp, rhythmic knock sounded at the door.
I jumped, my hand jerking away as if I’d been caught in a crime.
"What are you doing in there, sweet Addie?"
"Sleeping." I let the annoyance come through.
"Get dressed," Vidar’s voice rumbled through the wood, low and authoritative. "We’re headed into the office. The car leaves in twenty minutes."
I sat up, my chest heaving, the sexual tension curdling into a frustrated pout. "I'm coming," I called out, my voice sounding more breathless than I would have liked.
He chuckled.
I climbed out of bed and walked into the massive closet. Row after row of new clothes hung there, all perfectly tailored to my measurements. It was a curated identity Vidar had bought for me. Most were sensible, high-necked, and professional. Tucked near the back, I found a knit dress in a deep hunter green.
