MasukArc 13: Soaking WetHis apartment is three streets away.Small and warm and lived-in... books stacked on shelves, a record player in the corner, and he brings me a towel and a shirt without being asked and points me toward the bathroom."Take your time," he says.I go and I stand under his hot shower and wash the rain and the bar and the ex's smile off my skin and feel like a person again.I come out in his shirt.It hits mid-thigh. Nothing underneath.He's in the kitchen making tea in just joggers hanging low on his hips and bare feet and he looks up when I come in and his eyes travel down the shirt and come back up and he sets the kettle down and says nothing and crosses the kitchen and cups my face in both hands and kisses me slow and warm.No urgency this time.Just certainty."Tea," I say against his mouth."In a minute," he replies.He walks me backward through the apartment and into his bedroom and it's dark except for the streetlight coming through the curtains and he lays me
The front seat is warm and close and smells like him and I have barely pulled the door shut before his mouth is on my throat and his hand is sliding up my soaked thigh and pushing my wet dress up around my hips."Jess," he says against my jaw."Don't stop," I say. "Whatever you're doing, don't stop."His fingers find my underwear and press and I'm wet in a way that has nothing to do with the rain and he feels that immediately and makes a low rough sound against my neck."Already?" he says."Since you said idiot," I admit breathlessly.He pulls my underwear to the side and slides two fingers directly inside me and I grab the dashboard with one hand and his thigh with the other and my head falls back against the headrest."Oh God," I gasp. "Rían...""Look at me," he says.I look at him.He holds my gaze and works his fingers deep, slow curling strokes that find a spot inside me that makes my lips part and my thighs fall open and my hips roll forward chasing it. His thumb finds my clit a
Arc 13: Soaking WetIt's raining so hard the city looks like it's dissolving.I've been standing outside this bar for eleven minutes waiting for my ride and my dress is ruined and my heels are destroyed and my ex just walked out of that bar with his new girlfriend on his arm and smiled at me and I smiled back and died slightly on the inside.The black car pulls up.I get in.He looks at me in the rearview mirror and something in his expression shifts. Not unprofessional. Just present. Just noticing."Rough night?" he asks.His voice does something to the back of my neck. Low and warm and slightly rough around the edges, like it's been lived in. He's maybe thirty-two. Dark hair damp at the temples from the rain. Jaw like a decision. Eyes in that mirror that are brown and direct and currently doing a quiet assessment of my soaked, mascara-smudged, slightly heartbroken situation."That obvious?" I ask."You're soaked through," he says. "And you've been standing in the rain when there was
We don't make it to the elevator.He pulls me back from the door by my wrist and I turn around and he's looking at me with his shirt half open and his hair wrecked from my hands and his eyes still dark and certain and nowhere near done."Declan," I say. "We should go.""Should we?" He pulls me by my wrist back into the corridor. Past his office. Toward the conference room at the end of the hall."The conference room?" "Every Monday morning," he says, pushing the door open, "you sit in that chair, third from the left, and you cross your legs and click your pen and I stand at the head of that table and I talk about quarterly projections and I think about absolutely nothing that is on those slides."He walks me to the long table.Lifts me onto it.Steps between my thighs."Declan." My hands find his open shirt. "We have a meeting in here at nine AM.""I know." He kisses my jaw. My throat. "I'll think about this the whole time.""That's unprofessional," I breathe."Mm." His mouth finds m
His tongue parts me and pushes deep and I arch so hard my shoulders lift off the desk.He eats like a man who has been thinking about exactly this for months and has a very specific idea of how it goes. No fumbling. No guessing. He finds my clit immediately and circles it in slow deliberate strokes that make my thighs shake on either side of his head and my hands scramble for something to grip and find nothing except the edges of his desk."Declan," I gasp. "Your mouth, oh gosh, your tongue..."He hums against me and the vibration goes through my whole body like a current. His hands press flat on my inner thighs, spreading me wider, holding me open and still while his tongue works me in patterns that keep shifting, slow then fast then slow, circling then flicking then sealing his lips and sucking until I'm crying out and my hips are fighting against his hands trying to grind against his face."Please," I sob. "Please, I need to cum, I'm so close..."He pulls back.Just slightly. Just
Arc 12: After HoursThe office is empty at midnight except for us.It's always us. That's the thing nobody tells you about working late with a man like Declan Hurst. You think you're staying because of the project deadline. You think he's staying because he's dedicated. And maybe that's true. Maybe the first six times it was exactly that simple.But tonight he called me into his office at eleven forty-five and closed the door and didn't say a single word about the project.He's at his desk, jacket off, shirt sleeves rolled up, and he's looking at me the way he's been not looking at me for three months. Like something he's made a decision about.My stomach drops.In the best possible way."Sit down, Nora," he says.I sit in the chair across from his desk. Cross my legs. Try to look like my heart isn't doing something embarrassing."You know why I asked you to stay?" "The Henderson file." "No." His eyes hold mine. Steady and dark and decided. "Not the Henderson file."The air conditio







