His promise was followed by him dropping to his knees in front of me. I instinctively draped my legs over his shoulders. One hand rested on my hip bone as the other reached up to press against my mouth.
It can’t have been a comfortable position for him, even with his long arms, but I didn’t think on that for long, considering his mouth covered me and all coherent thought slipped away into the storm.
He worked me like the kiss—relentless, brutal, exquisite—all the while silencing my cries with his hand.
Not that it took long for my body to erupt into a thousand different pieces as he brought me to the apex of the storm.
I was recovering, still jerking with aftershocks when he stood, his hand going to my neck and claiming me with a kiss that tasted of me and him.
“Yeah, baby. No memory measures up to that. And I’ll never fuckin’ let that become one. Not ever,” he growled.
His forehead stayed pressed against mine, one hand at my neck, the other making quick work of his belt.
His eyes were on mine while he positioned himself at my entrance. The yearning for him inside me was only just bearable. I jerked against him as he didn’t move. Or at least tried to. His hand bit into my hip, stopping me.
“Keltan,” I pleaded, voice unrecognizable.
His eyes burned into mine. “You admit it?” he rasped.
I blinked. “What?”
I would have been willing to admit I was on the grassy knoll at that point if it meant he would push inside.
“That you were mistaken. That you really are mine.”
“Yes,” I said instantly.
“Yes what?” he asked, pressing into the most sensitive part of me so we both hissed with need.
“Yes, I’m yours,” I breathed.
“I own you,” he growled, his voice tight, rough. Wild.
I blinked at him. “And I own you.”
I barely got the words out before he surged into me and swallowed my cries with his kiss.
He wasn’t gentle. Not that I wanted him to be.
What storms were gentle?
He pounded through everything, his thrusts ruining me, flattening every one of my defenses, yet my storm met his at the same time.
His mouth released mine, replaced with his hand, and then he continued to build me into the climax that might just drown us both.
I heard nothing. Or perhaps heard everything and didn’t even register it. The thumping of his desk as he used his considerable strength to break both of us in two. The strangled breaths from his taut throat. The sound of us meeting in the most exquisite sex that side of… anywhere.
It accumulated into stillness, into some sort of eye of the storm as my eyes never left his, roving over their wild desire. The proof of everything in them. I did own him. He was owning me in the most brutal way possible, but only because he was mine.
On that thought, the eye shifted to the storm once more, and I was overcome with the wave of both our climaxes.
Time and matter and everything else but the two of us was nothing of important.
It stayed like that for a long time.
Too long.
And not long enough.
But stillness didn’t last forever.
Chaos invariably won. Always.
Keltan’s eyes didn’t leave me as his hand slowly moved from mine, but not before he gently brushed his thumb against my bottom lip in a tender gesture that I felt to every corner of my mind—which he’d laid to waste.
All of those boxes, all locked and ordered?
Scattered everywhere.
“Baby,” he murmured. He leaned forward, the motion sending my body into spasm as he kissed me chastely on the mouth, his forehead against mine.
“You understand yet?” he murmured.
I wanted to say no. To plead ignorance. Or at least scramble to find the ice queen and plead indifference.
But there were very few places in this world where one could be completely honest. In the moment after the person you love had laid you to waste, was still inside you, it was little more than sacrilege to lie. Physically impossible.
“Yes,” I whispered. “I wish I didn’t,” I added, giving him the closest thing to an admission of my terror at basically everything he offered. And then admitting to myself that that terror of not taking it was so much worse.
He searched my eyes. “I’ll work the rest of my life to change that, babe. Because still isn’t so bad. Neither is running. Long as I do it with you.”
I searched his face. “We’ve got a lot to talk about.”
Understatement of the year.
He grinned, and it was a such a change to the intense look plastered on his face that it made me do the same.
Without reservation.
“Yeah, Snow. How about we do that when I’m not literally still inside my girl in the middle of the office with the door unlocked?”
I gaped at him. “You left the door unlocked?” I hissed.
His grin turned wicked. “Yeah, babe. Adds to the excitement.”
He pulled out of me so my glare at that statement melted with the motion. And the reality of having sex on a desk without a condom came with that motion.
Keltan glanced down, then buckled his jeans. “A second, baby,” he said, kissing me on the head before walking to a door I hadn’t seen before to the left of his desk.
Granted, I hadn’t seen much considering that all happened before I got to take in the décor.
The door turned out to be a bathroom. Small, by the looks of it, but modern and clean.
The sound of water running filled the office. It wasn’t huge but big enough for the giant desk solid enough to withstand a pounding to sit in the middle of the room. A large leather chair sat behind it, in front of a bookcase filled with various books and photos. I wanted to inspect it more, but Keltan returned, washcloth in hand. He stood in the middle of the room, all intense and hot. Staring at me.
“What are you doing?” I asked sharply, rather too aware that I was leaking all over his desk while his unlocked door could be opened at any point.
“Taking about a thousand mental pictures,” he replied roughly.
My glare had him moving.
I went to snatch the washcloth, but he circled my wrist with his free hand.
“No, Snow. I take care of my woman. Always. In every way. And most especially in this particular way,” he murmured, eyes on mine.
Neither me nor my inner feminist had it in us to argue, so we let him go about his business.
Though I literally just let him fuck me on his desk in the middle of the morning without so much as a blush, I felt my cheeks warming at the act he was performing and the fact that he didn’t drop eye contact while he gently cleaned himself from me.
Intimate.
Anyone could have sex.
With enough chemistry, you could have good sex. Even great sex. Granted, not exactly like what had just happened, but at least a version of it.
Desire and the heat of the moment amped up the act. Made it more.
But the afterwards, when everything leaked away but the fire still somehow remained, the connection? Like the way he was looking at me right then, taking care of me?
Yeah, that was different.
Dangerous.
He finished and then handed me my pants and panties.
I wordlessly put them on. Though the air was filled with silence and the musky scent of sex, it wasn’t awkward. It should have been. I wanted it to be. Because there was something scarier about it feeling so easy. So right.
Even with the mountain of issues between us.
Keltan watched me fasten my pants with lazy eyes, and as soon as I was done he gathered me in his arms, smoothing my wild sex hair.
“If I could choose a perfect way to start my perfect work day, even I couldn’t conjure that, Snow.” He shook his head, then kissed mine. “Fuck,” he muttered, his voice thick. “No words.”
“Words are necessary,” I whisp
ered, straightening and somehow finding it in me to step back. “Very necessary,” I continued when he surprisingly let me have the distance needed for such a conversation.
Silenced reigned.
“You said words,” he probed.
I crossed my arms. “I didn’t specify they needed to be my words.”
He eyed me. “I said all my words, babe.”
I frowned. “You saying you own me and then fucking my brains out doesn’t encompass all the words that need to be said.”
His eyes twinkled. “I disagree. That’s all that needs to be said.”
“Nothing about the six months between us, the reason for that to begin with? Or the year and half before that?” I probed, my voice flat. “It’s not as simple as a caveman declaration followed by an orgasm.”
“Two, by my count. Perhaps three,” he rectified.
I stared at him.
It was three. But no way was I telling him that.
He sighed, rubbing his hand on the back of his neck. “You’re so keen to make it complicated. To put us with the chaos that everything else is. What if we’re the only thing that’s simple?”
I laughed, cold and empty. “Baby, we make the outside chaos look well-adjusted. It’s never simple.”
“You’re mine. I’m yours. What’s simpler than that?”
I scoffed. “Details. A lot of them.”
He crossed the distance, gripping my face in his hands. “Fuck the details,” he murmured, leaning in for a short but purposeful kiss.
I rolled my eyes when he let me go. Then I took a breath. A big one. At least I tried to, around the quiet storm rippling around us. Through the chaos. And the stillness. I didn’t know which was harder to breathe around, but if this was happening, if I was going to pour it all at, then I would do it.
“I can’t breathe around you,” I whispered.
His body stiffened a little, but he didn’t break eye contact, the softness of his eyes a beautiful contrast to the hardness of his body. “No, babe. You’ve just been drowning for so long that you’ve forgotten what breathing feels like.” He paused. “But now you’re not drownin’, baby.” He stepped forward, as if he couldn’t stand not touching me, brushing an errant hair from my face.
My soft exhale kissed his hand.
“You’re breathing easy for the first time. In those still waters, that still façade you hide behind, it’s disguised the fact that you’ve been flailing underwater.” He moved his hand so he gripped my neck. “You think you’re drowning because you don’t know what breathing feels like. This?” He leaned in and kissed me with agonizing slowness, taking my breath away and giving it back to me at the same time. “This is breathing,” he said, his voice thick. “How about you enjoy the fresh air before deciding to dive back into those still waters of yours?” He paused. “And even if you do, I’m a mighty good swimmer, so I’ll make sure you’ll never drown again. In fact, I’ll do that until my own last breath.”
I sucked in the air that hadn’t thickened but had become crisp and light with his words. “How is it that a country boy from the corner of the world with alpha male tendencies manages to speak in such eloquent metaphors?” I asked finally.
He grinned. “Called survival, Snow,” he rasped. “Because I was drowning too. Until I tasted sweet air with you. So, I gotta use pretty words to get you to stay with me so I can breathe too.”
It wasn’t lost on me. The precipice of the moment. The crossroads. The one we’d been at so many times before. Where I’d taken what I thought were the right turns every time. When I thought the past and the storm and stillness were too much to make the other turn possible.
I wondered whether I’d been taking wrong turns all along. Because of that past, that storm.
My eyes searched his, realizing the turn he’d taken. Almost two years back.
“Sure. I’ll give you that if you give me something in return,” I offered, deciding to try and salvage something from this, considering I’d pretty much just sacrificed everything I had for him.
The moment lost some of its intensity, or maybe it still remained and we functioned around it.
He grinned. “You’ve piqued my interest. And if you’re going to give simplicity a go, I’m willing to give you almost anything.” He paused, letting me go. “Apart from my virginity. That’s long gone. And you wouldn’t want it anyway. Teenage me has none of adult me’s moves.”
I stared at him. “Are you sure we’re calling this adult you?” I asked dryly.
He shot me a grin, eyes filled with something that looked remarkably like Rosie’s before she did something crazy.
“I’m going to move this on,” I continued, not having time for any more crazy, and not able to fit the pang of pain when it came to thinking of Rosie into this emotional moment.
He crossed his arms, leaning casually against the desk he’d just fucked me on. “I think that’s wise. This could escalate quickly. What can I do you for? Apart from three orgasms?” he asked, voice professional.
I scowled at him. “I need your security tapes from the cameras you installed at Lucinda’s studio.”
My words worked remarkable magic to not only turn the easy twinkle in Keltan’s eye to a hard glint but to tighten every muscle in his body. And not in a good way.
“What?” he asked slowly. There was warning behind the simple word.
I didn’t speak because I knew he’d heard me. He was just doing that macho thing to try and make me reconsider my request by scaring me with his fury.
As mentioned before, his fury didn’t scare me near as much as the rest.
“Don’t tell me you’re investigating this shit, Lucy,” he clipped.
“I’m not investigating,” I replied easily. “I’m doing my job. Which just happens to be needing those tapes.”
He pushed off his desk, that fury whipping around him like wind. I couldn’t see it, but with men like Keltan, whose emotions were palpable, intense, you could taste it.
“Fuck!” he roared, pacing the room before whirling on me. “This is dangerous, Snow,” he said quieter, yet it was somehow louder than the roar. “This isn’t shit for you to get tangled up in more than you already are.”
His eyes glittered with something. Knowledge that had me anxious to get it out of him. And anger, surely. But something else too.
Fear.
And I knew it wasn’t for himself.
I jutted my jaw out, not letting that fear stop me. “I don’t think that’s your call to make.”
He glared at me, easy gazes nothing but a memory. “Think the prospect of you staring up at me with a slit fuckin’ throat makes it my call to make,” he replied softly, his words finding their mark without increased volume.
“I’m asking for tapes, Keltan, not trudging into a dark warehouse full of moustache men and drug deals,” I snapped.
My quip was not well advised.
Keltan stilled. “What the fuck do you know about drug deals?”
I didn’t blanche. “What do you know about drug deals?” I countered, my journalist brain cottoning on to his words and then doing an internal fist pump that my hunch was correct.
Keltan did not look like he was doing an internal fist pump. He vaguely looked like he might want to shake me. “Jesus, let the fuckin’ police do their job!”
I gave him an even look. “I am. Let me do mine.”
He shook his head. “No. Not when it interferes with mine.”
I rolled my eyes. “Keltan, not to be callous, but your job ended the moment your client bled out.”
His eyes hardened. “No, babe. Not talkin’ ’bout the shit that pays the bills. I’m talkin’ bout my job. The only one that’s important. Protecting this. This little pocket of stillness I’ve found with you. That’s the only job I care about.”
I pursed my lips.
That was sweet.
But the gesture was misplaced.
“You want to protect it? Then don’t try to stifle me. Who I am. Wha
t I want from life. Treat me like a damsel who needs saving and that’s the quickest way to squash this,” I informed him.
And we’d already just made it, the quickest snap of us being “together.” As easy as a dead body and then sex on a desk. Oh, and almost two years of bullshit before that.
I watched the cogs working in his mind. Could almost sense him going through scenarios, then understanding the truth to my words.
Because I wasn’t lying. As soon as he tried to treat me like the “little woman” who needed protecting from everything in the world and put me in a gilded cage, that was the moment I was gone.
Because Gray.
That thought had me realizing that was something I had to share with him, if this actually was happening. I wasn’t going to hide it from him, considering it was a huge part of the reason it had taken so long to get to this point.
All the while Keltan was staring at me.
He sighed, much like a father might when being worn down by a teenage daughter arguing curfew. Though I didn’t know why I went that route, thinking of him as the father.
Internal flinch.
Nope. Gross.
“Fine, we’ll watch it together,” he relented, moving to his computer with a tight look on his face. He sat down and tapped the keyboard as I moved around to give myself a view of the screen. “It’s what I had planned on doing this morning anyway.” He glanced up, the hardness in his eyes giving way to a liquid that made my stomach clench. “Before I got distracted,” he continued, my stomach fluttering with the memory of that distraction.
His eyes went from swirling with erotic promise to hard with a glint of anger.
“The fuckwit police officer requested it. That’s why I came back early. I’ve got to say, that motherfucker is number one on my shit list, but I’m thankful he had me back here to do that,” he grumbled, his hand moving to give my ass a gentle squeeze.
I stared at the screen, swallowing, only because I knew if I looked at him, I’d lose whatever remaining reason I had. And I had to have some sort of focus if I was going to do this story.