He Takes the Lead over His Rival

His grip pinned her wrists above her head against the locked war-room door and hauled her chin up so hard her teeth clicked, and Bella’s snarl died in her throat when Nate’s mouth crashed into hers. Months of clipped hostility detonated. She bit him. He bit back. Blood-warm spit and the taste of coffee and rage smeared between them while the dead deal still glowed on the screens behind them.

Nate felt her fight and felt her give in the same breath. Wrists twisting in his fist, not to escape, to get closer. Her pulse hammered under his thumb, fast and furious, a drumbeat he could have found in the dark. He dragged her chin higher, forced her eyes up, and the look in them was pure starvation. “Months,” he rasped against her mouth. “Months of you cutting me off mid-sentence. Months of you looking at me like you wanted to tear my throat out. You want this. Say it.”

She didn’t say it. She couldn’t reach him with her hands, so she came up off the door with everything else: chin jutting, teeth catching his lower lip and dragging him down to her, her whole body surging into his until he had to follow or lose skin. She kissed him like a collision, teeth clashing, tongue shoving, a sound ripping out of her that was half growl and half moan. Her hips slammed into his. Hard. The ridge of him hit her through wool and cotton and she ground up into it, shameless, furious, and felt the slick give of her own body answer before her brain could object.

He peeled her off the door without letting go of her wrists and walked her backward into the room, her heels skidding on the carpet, her shoulder clipping the edge of a cabinet, neither of them breaking the kiss. She stumbled. He caught her by the chin and kept going until the backs of his calves hit his chair and it rolled and he went down into it, hauling her with him, wrists still locked in one hand until her knees hit the seat on either side of his thighs. Only then did he let go, both hands clamping on her waist to drag her down onto his lap. The impact knocked a grunt out of both of them. The chair shrieked on its hydraulics and sank an inch. Her skirt rode up her thighs. His cock strained against his zipper and she felt every inch of it through the thin barrier of her underwear, hot and blunt and already leaking through the fabric.

“Look at you,” Nate said, voice scraped raw and cocky even while his hands bruised her hips. He rolled her once, slow and mean, letting the seam of her panties catch on the head of him and drag. “Sitting on me like you own the room. You don’t. I do. This—” another grind, harder, the chair creaking “—this is mine. That little sound you just made. Mine. The way you’re soaking through. Mine.”

Bella’s breath came in short, angry bursts; his came slow and controlled, the two rhythms knocking against each other. She planted her hands on his shoulders and rode the friction on purpose, high and tight, teasing him with the roll of her hips while her eyes stayed locked on his. Every pass dragged her clit over the hard line of him and her thighs shook with the effort of not just ripping his fly open. “You talk too much,” she hissed, and did it again, slower, letting him feel how wet she was through two layers. “Months of you smirking across the table. Months of you getting under my skin. You think you can hold me here and run your mouth and I won’t—”

She felt him jump under her. A hard, involuntary twitch of his cock against the seam of her, his hips lifting a fraction before he caught them, and she grinned, slow and vicious, because that was a tell. She knew his tells. She’d spent a year across a table learning them.

“Oh,” she said, and ground down into the exact spot that had made him flinch. “There it is. Is that how you negotiate, Nate? Leaking through your trousers before anyone’s signed anything?” She rocked, deliberate, and felt the damp patch she was leaving on him spread under her, warm and shameless. “You’re going to have to walk past the whole floor with that on your lap.”

His jaw locked. She watched it happen. Watched him try to hold the smirk and fail, his head tipping back against the chair for one second, one broken exhale punching out of him when she caught the flared head of him with the drag of her seam and held there, pressing, circling. The chair groaned. His hands flexed on her hips, lost their grip, found it again. She felt the shudder go through his thighs under hers.

“Say something cocky now,” she breathed, and rolled again, hard enough that the chair tipped and his foot slammed down to catch it. “Say ‘mine.’ Go on. You can barely get your eyes open.”

He got his eyes open. He got a hand in her hair and yanked her head back so hard her throat bared, and the smirk was gone, replaced by something with teeth. “You feel that?” He ground up into her, one slow brutal lift, the whole hard length of him dragging under her from entrance to clit through soaked cotton. “That’s how hard you make me. That’s months. And you’re sitting there with your cunt leaking all over my lap trying to tell me who’s losing.”

She laughed, breathless and mean, and rolled her hips in a tight circle that made his grip on her hair go white-knuckled. Her panties were done for, slick and clinging, the seam a wet rope dragging over her with every pass. She sped up. He felt it, felt her trying to steal the rhythm, and his other hand dropped and dug into her ass hard enough to bruise and dragged the pace back down. Held her there. Suspended on the edge of the friction, cock throbbing against her, her heat soaking through to his skin, his hands doing the thinking so his mouth didn’t have to.

“Nate—”

“Not yet.” His mouth was at her ear, dark and territorial. “You come when I own it. Not before. Feel that? That’s me deciding. Your cunt’s already trying to swallow me through your clothes and you’re still going to wait. Say whose.”

She bit his jaw instead of answering. He hissed, loved it, and let go of her hair and her ass to fist both hands in the front of her blouse and pull. The first button hit the floor and skittered under the table. The second popped against his chest. The third held for one stubborn second and then the whole placket gave, silk splitting at the seam, and her blouse fell open around her and hung there, one sleeve dragging off her shoulder, the back of it still clinging damp between her shoulder blades. He didn’t take it off. He didn’t have the patience. He shoved his hands into the cups of her bra and yanked them down under her breasts so the underwire shoved them up and out, nipples tight and dark, and his mouth was on one before she could draw breath.

Bella arched into his teeth and went for his belt. The buckle fought her. Her fingers were shaking, slippery with sweat, and the leather wouldn’t pull free of the prong. She swore. He laughed against her nipple and bit down and she yanked the belt open so hard the tongue of it whipped against his hip. Button. Zipper. The zipper caught halfway, snagged on the swollen bulk of him underneath, and he jerked back from her breast with a “Fuck—careful—” that was all gravel, his hands leaving her bra to grab at the tab himself. She didn’t wait for permission. She shoved his hands out of the way, worked the zipper down over him with a clumsy, vicious tug, and reached in.

He was thick in her fist, flushed dark, the head already slick and the slit beaded with it. Hot enough to feel through the shock of her own pulse. She stroked once, mean and tight, thumb dragging over the wet crown, and he swore again and shoved her skirt up to her waist in two rough handfuls, bunching it, hooked two fingers in the crotch of her panties and dragged them aside. Not off. Just shoved, the twisted gusset wrenched over and wedged tight into the crease of her thigh where the clamp of her own legs around his hips would hold it. Then he hauled her down.

Bare skin. Bella felt it before she could think it: the whole burning length of him sliding between her folds, parting her, the flared ridge of him catching on her clit and dragging. Her head dropped back. A broken sound tore out of her. She was so wet it was loud, a slick obscene drag with every pass, her lips spread open over him and gliding, his precum smearing into hers until she couldn’t tell whose was whose. His hands locked on her hips and worked her along him in long, hard pulls. She rode it. Chased it. Thighs burning, calves cramping against the chair arms, the twisted cotton biting her thigh, the head of him nudging her entrance on every downstroke and skidding past because he angled her just wrong, just enough, and wouldn’t let her sink.

“Fuck—Nate—let me—”

“No.” He was shaking with it, teeth bared, sweat already at his temples and running into his collar. Every glide coated him in her. She was dripping down his shaft, onto his balls, soaking the open fly of his trousers and the tops of his thighs until the wool clung cold and wet. He could smell her, sharp and sweet and furious, over the stale coffee and the hot plastic of the screens. “You feel how hard I am? That’s for you. Only you. Nobody else gets this. Nobody else gets to hear you like this. Grind. Faster. Show me who you belong to.”

She showed him. She braced on his shoulders and worked herself along his cock in short, desperate strokes, the friction brutal and perfect, her wetness smearing his stomach, the base of him, the hair below his navel. Her breath broke into moans she couldn’t swallow. He watched her face—mouth open, eyes half-shut, the rival who’d cut him down in every meeting now shaking on his lap with her blouse hanging off one arm—and the possessive hit was so strong he almost came from the sight alone. He didn’t. He clamped down on it, muscles locked, jaw aching, and slowed her with a grip so hard he felt her hipbones under his thumbs.

Bella felt the stop like a hand clamped over her mouth. Right there. She’d been right there, the heat pulling tight and low behind her clit, and he dragged her a half inch off the ridge of him and held her, trembling, her clit throbbing against the slick underside of his shaft with nothing to grind on. She made a noise she’d deny later. Clawed at his shoulders. He didn’t move.

“Breathe,” he said. Cruel. Soft. “You don’t get it yet.”

“You’re a bastard,” she gasped.

“I’m yours. That’s the problem.” He let her go. Not all the way, just enough, and she lunged for it, rolling hard and fast, her thighs screaming, the chair rocking on its base and tilting until his foot slammed down again and his free hand caught the desk edge. She felt the head of him drag over her clit, catch, drag again, and the pressure started climbing back so fast her teeth clenched. She bit his shoulder through the shirt. He groaned, a deep ugly sound, and she felt it under her teeth, and she was three strokes from—

He stopped her. Lifted her. Pinned her hips an inch above him with the full strength of his arms while his cock twitched against nothing and she hung there, soaked and furious, her slick stringing between them.

“Nate—”

“Again.” He set her down. Dragged her. The slap of her against him was wet and loud. “Who decides?”

“Fuck you—”

“Who.” Another drag. Another. Her hands slipped on his shoulders, sweat soaking through his shirt, and she grabbed his hair instead. Her thighs had gone to fire. Her clit was swollen and raw and every pass over the flared edge of him jolted through her hips like a struck nerve, and when it climbed again, when her hips started to stutter and lose the rhythm because her body had stopped taking orders from her—he stopped. Held. Ground her down against the base of him, slow and heavy and nowhere near enough, and bit the side of her neck hard enough to leave a mark the whole floor would see.

She sobbed. Actually sobbed, a dry, cracked sound, and tried to rock, and he held her so still she could feel his pulse through his cock against her folds.

“That’s three,” he said into her neck. “You want to try for four?”

“I want you to fucking—”

He got his arms under her thighs and stood.

It was dead weight and bad angles for one brutal second, her knees scraping clear of the chair arms as he hauled her up off the cushion, and then her legs came free and swung up and locked around his waist on instinct. His cock was crushed between them, slick and hot and trapped against her stomach and her open folds, and the shift in weight made both of them groan. He stumbled. His hip clipped the chair and sent it spinning. Two steps. The conference table. He slammed her flat on her back across the polished surface and the air punched out of her lungs in one hard sound; her legs lost their grip and dropped, heels knocking the table edge; a stack of printouts fanned off the side, a mug went over and rolled, coffee spreading under her shoulder blade and soaking straight through the thin silk of her blouse. Before she could suck the breath back in, her wrists were caught again and pinned above her head in one fist.

The cold hit her through the sodden silk plastered to her back, the table’s chill bleeding up through the wet fabric between her bra straps and her bunched skirt. He shoved the wreck of her skirt out of the way, kicked her knees apart with his shin, and notched himself at her entrance, the broad head pressing in just enough to open her and no more.

“Look at me,” he ordered.

She did. His pupils had swallowed the color, jaw tight, sweat on his lip, shirt stuck to his chest. He pushed in one brutal inch and stopped. She cried out, hips bucking, trying to take more, and he held her down with his weight on her wrists and his other hand flat on her hip. She was so wet he slid despite the hold, another inch, the stretch of him thick and burning and not enough, and he had to fight every muscle he had not to bury himself.

“Mine,” he said, and drove in to the hilt.

The sound she made was raw. He felt it as much as heard it, her whole body jerking up against the pin, her cunt clamping around him so tight his vision smeared at the edges. He set a pace that was all leverage and no mercy—long, hard strokes that knocked the breath out of her, the table edge biting the backs of her thighs, his hips slapping against her ass on every thrust. Her wrists strained in his grip. She didn’t pull them free. She didn’t want them free; he could feel it in the way she pushed up into the hold instead of away, the way she let him own the angle and refused to let herself chase her own rhythm. He bent over her, mouth at her ear, voice a growl between thrusts.

“This cunt is mine. These sounds are mine. You shake when I tell you to shake. You were mine across every goddamn meeting and you knew it. Say it.”

“Yours,” she spat, and it broke into a moan when he ground deep and held, pelvis crushing her clit, then pulled almost out and slammed back in so hard the table jumped. “Yours—fuck—Nate—”

He felt her flutter, the first warning clench, and he stopped. Buried deep. Not moving. Her whole body seized around him, desperate, and he held her through it, shaking with the effort, sweat dripping off his jaw onto her collarbone. “Not yet,” he snarled. “I said not yet. You don’t come until I break you open with it. Feel me holding you. Feel how close you are and how I’m not letting you have it.”

Bella couldn’t see straight. Couldn’t focus on anything past the ceiling tiles and the red glow of the screens and the thick, unmoving pressure of him inside her. Her cunt pulsed around him in helpless little grips she couldn’t control, each one dragging a groan out of his chest that he bit back against her throat. She writhed. He pinned her harder, one hand still crushing her wrists, the other clamped on her hip so she couldn’t steal an inch of friction. Minutes—seconds—she couldn’t tell. Just the heat of him splitting her open and holding, the coffee-soaked silk cold and clinging under her back, and the territorial filth in her ear.

“Every shudder. Mine. Tomorrow you’re going to sit across that table from me and feel exactly where I was, every time you shift in your chair, and you’re going to know who put it there. Nobody else in that room. Me. Say it again.”

“Yours,” she sobbed, pride gone, nothing left but the edge he kept her on. “Yours, Nate, please—”

He broke the hold.

The first full thrust after the denial hit her like a dropped weight. He fucked her like the months had been a fuse, hips snapping, the table jolting under them, every stroke loud and wet and relentless. She came almost immediately and he didn’t stop—drove her through it, felt her clamp down so hard his rhythm stuttered, her cry ripping through the locked room, body bowing off the table against his pin. Her wrists came free. He let them go without deciding to and her hands went straight to his back, fisting the soaked shirt and wrenching until the seam gave way down from the collar with a wet tearing sound, nails plunging through the split and raking bare skin, breaking it, her legs coming up off the table edge and locking around his waist to drag him in. He chased his own edge into the wreckage of hers, possessive words dissolving into groans, and when he came it was violent and messy: buried deep, pulsing hard, spilling inside her in thick, uncontrollable spurts while his whole body locked and shook over her.

Bella’s cunt kept clenching in aggressive, involuntary waves, milking him, dragging more out of him until he was cursing and grinding through it, oversensitive and still coming. Her thighs trembled where they gripped him with no input from her. His arms shook where they braced him over her, elbows skidding in the spilled coffee. Sweat slicked every point of contact. His release was already leaking out around him, smearing between them with every slow, helpless grind, the table slick under her ass, her skirt ruined, his trousers worse. A broken, animal sound tore out of her on every clench; he answered with a raw groan against her mouth, teeth catching her lip, neither of them able to stop the pulses that kept wracking through them.

He didn’t pull out. Couldn’t. They stayed locked, breathing hard and off-rhythm, his forehead dropped to hers, her hands fisted in the torn back of his shirt where she’d ripped it open and holding on while the tremors rolled through them again and again.

Silence, except for the scrape of their breathing and the low hum of the dead screens.

One of her hands lost its strength and slid off his back, falling open on the table beside her head. Nate lifted his head and took the weight onto one elbow. His free hand found that wrist, thumb settling over the bruise already darkening across it, and stroked, not apologizing, just claiming it. “Still hate me?” he asked, voice hoarse.

Bella laughed once, shaky, and felt another aftershock ripple through her at the shift of him inside her. Her other hand stayed knotted in the ruined shirt. Her legs stayed locked around his waist and she didn’t unlock them. “Ask me when I can feel my legs.” She swallowed, met his eyes. “You’re not walking out of this room like this didn’t happen.”

“Wasn’t planning to.” He kissed her, still inside her, still hungry, his teeth dragging her lip the way they had against the door, his hand closing over the mark on her wrist like it was the only thing in the room he’d signed for. Her heels dug into the backs of his thighs and pulled him deeper. The lock on the door stayed engaged. Neither of them reached for it.