What Happens After 5 P.M.

The week passed in a blur of calendars and coffee and careful avoidance.

Vienna learned the rhythm of Vance Industries. Morning meetings. Afternoon deadlines. The way Ezra liked his reports printed on cream paper, not white. The way he took his calls standing up, pacing the length of his office. The way he said her name differently when they were alone versus when others were listening.

She learned to read his moods. The tight jaw meant stress. The loose tie meant he had been working through lunch. The way he rolled his sleeves to his elbows meant he was settling in for a long night.

And she learned to want him in silence.

Every time she walked past his open door, her eyes found him. Every time their gazes met across the bullpen, something electric passed between them. Every time he said thank you, Vienna in that low voice, her thighs pressed together beneath her desk.

But he did not touch her.

He did not call her princess.

He did not invite her to the forty fifth floor.

He was her boss. Nothing more. Nothing less.

And she was dying.

---

By Friday, Vienna was a wound waiting to be opened.

She had barely slept. Her dreams were full of his hands, his mouth, his voice in her ear. She woke up wet and frustrated, reached for him in the dark, found only empty sheets. She had started touching herself in the shower, quick and guilty, chasing a release that never felt complete.

It was not enough.

He had ruined her for her own hands.

At 4:55 p.m., she was packing her bag when her phone buzzed.

She looked at the screen.

Ezra Vance

She had added his contact after the first day. Just in case. Just for work. She told herself that was the only reason.

Stay late tonight. I need you to review the Chicago itinerary with me.

She typed back: Of course. What time?

Everyone leaves at 5. Wait until the floor is empty. Then come to my office.

Her heart hammered.

I will be there.

She set down her phone and watched the clock. 4:56. 4:57. 4:58. Around her, colleagues packed their bags and said their goodbyes. Lydia waved from the bullpen. The marketing team filed toward the elevator. The finance department followed.

By 5:07, the tenth floor was silent.

Vienna stood. Her legs were unsteady. She walked to Ezra's office and knocked on the open door.

"Come in," he said.

He was sitting at his desk, but he was not working. His hands were folded on the blotter. His dark eyes were fixed on the doorway. Waiting for her.

She stepped inside.

"Close the door," he said.

She closed the door. The lock clicked into place.

"Lock it."

She locked it.

Then she stood there, her back against the wood, and looked at him across the room. His office was dim now, the overhead lights off, only the glow of his desk lamp and the city lights beyond the window illuminating the space.

He looked dangerous in this light. Shadowed. Hungry.

"A week," he said. "I lasted a week without touching you."

"I noticed."

"I told myself I would give you space. Let you decide what you wanted without pressure. Let you come to me."

"I am here."

"You are." He stood and walked around his desk. He did not approach her. He stopped at the edge of his desk and leaned against it, arms crossed. "But I need to hear you say it. What do you want, Vienna?"

She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. She wanted to cross the room and climb him like a tree.

"I want you," she said.

"Want me how?"

"Every way. In your office. In your bed. On my knees. On your desk. I do not care where. I just want you to touch me again."

His jaw tightened. "Your brother."

"My brother does not get to decide who I want."

"The things I want to do to you, Vienna. The things I have been imagining all week. They are not things a boss does to his assistant."

"Then do not be my boss right now."

She pushed off from the door and walked toward him. Her flats were silent on the carpet. Her heart was so loud she was sure he could hear it. When she reached him, she stopped inches away and looked up into his face.

"Be the man from the auction," she said. "Be the man who tied me up and made me beg. Be the man who fucked me against a window forty five floors above the city. Be him. Please."

Ezra's control snapped.

He grabbed her by the hips and lifted her onto his desk. Papers scattered. The desk lamp wobbled. He stepped between her legs, pressed his body against hers, and kissed her like he was drowning and she was air.

Vienna moaned into his mouth. Her hands fisted in his shirt, pulling him closer, closer, never close enough. He tasted like coffee and sin and something uniquely him.

"I have thought about nothing else," he said against her lips. "Every meeting. Every call. Every time you walked past my door, I had to stop myself from following you."

"Then do not stop yourself anymore."

He pulled back and looked at her. His dark eyes were wild. His chest was heaving. His usually perfect hair was falling across his forehead.

"If we do this," he said, "there is no going back. You are not just my assistant. You are not just the girl from the auction. You become mine. In every way that matters."

"I already am."

"Say it."

"I am yours, Ezra. I have been yours since the moment you put that collar around my throat."

He groaned and kissed her again, deeper, harder. His hands slid under her blouse, up her stomach, over her ribs. He unhooked her bra without taking off her shirt, a feat of dexterity that made her head spin, and then his hands were on her bare breasts, his thumbs circling her nipples.

She arched into his touch.

"I want to hear you," he said. "I want everyone in this building to know who you belong to."

"That is not fair."

"I told you. I am not a fair man."

He lifted her off the desk and turned her around, bending her over the polished wood. Her cheek pressed against the cold surface. Her hands scrambled for purchase. He pulled her skirt up over her hips and her panties down to her knees.

"So wet," he murmured, his fingers sliding through her folds. "So ready for me. Did you touch yourself this week, Vienna?"

"Yes."

"How many times?"

"Every day. Sometimes twice."

"Did you come?"

"Yes, but it was not the same."

"No." He pressed a kiss to her lower back. "It is not the same. Because your pleasure belongs to me. And I have been neglecting what is mine."

He entered her from behind in one smooth thrust.

Vienna cried out. The sound echoed off the glass walls of his office, and she did not care who heard. She did not care about anything except the way he filled her, the way his hands gripped her hips, the way he fucked her like she was the only thing keeping him alive.

"You feel that?" he growled. "You feel how tight you are? How perfect?"

"Yes, Daddy."

The word slipped out before she could stop it.

He froze.

Vienna's heart stopped.

Then he pulled out, flipped her over, and lifted her onto the desk again. He spread her legs wide and stood between them, looking down at her with an expression she could not name.

"Say it again," he said.

"Daddy."

"Again."

"Daddy. Daddy. Please, Daddy."

He pushed into her again, slower this time, watching her face. His hand came to her throat, not squeezing, just resting there, the way he had done that first night.

"I am going to come inside you," he said. "And then I am going to clean you up and take you to dinner. And then I am going to take you home and fuck you again. And again. Until you cannot remember a time when you did not belong to me."

"Yes," she gasped. "Yes, yes, yes."

"Come for me, princess."

She shattered around him, her body convulsing, her nails digging into his shoulders through his shirt. He followed seconds later, burying himself deep, his forehead pressed to hers.

When it was over, they stayed like that. Wrapped around each other. Breathing the same air.

Ezra kissed her forehead. Her nose. Her lips.

"Dinner," he said. "Then my place. Do you want that?"

Vienna looked at the man who had been her brother's enemy, her boss, her daddy, her ruin.

"Yes," she said. "I want that."