Rowan’s POV
She took the gift bag with an expression caught between curiosity and combat readiness—the face of a woman who knew she was being played and was deciding whether to walk into the play or walk away from it.
I used the opening to cut a generous piece of cake, lift the fork to her mouth, and slip it past her lips before she could mount a defense.
Her mouth closed around the silver on reflex, her eyes widening with surprise and something darker—the involuntary intimacy of being fed by a man she was supposed to be keeping at arm’s length.
I took my own bite while watching her chew slowly, those green eyes locked on mine the entire time—suspicious, heated, refusing to look away.
When she finally opened the box in her lap and lifted the lid, the shock that crossed her face was worth every cent.
Her jaw dropped.
The lace panties lay against the tissue paper like a dare: delicate, obscene, the golden charms catching the light.
She stared at them for a beat too long, and the conflict playing across her features—outrage warring with something far less dignified—made my pulse quicken.
I fed her another forkful before she could find the words for whatever sharp thing she was about to say.
Her eyes blazed—fury and desire tangled together—and she bit down on the fork tines hard enough to make a point.
I kept eating, savoring the chocolate and the slow collapse of her composure.
She lifted the panties from their nest, turning the lace over in her fingers.
Then she stood.
My breath left my body.
She positioned herself directly in front of me on the coffee table—close enough that I could smell her perfume, close enough that the hemline of her dress was at my eye level—and I understood, with a clarity that hit me hard, exactly what she intended to do.
Every movement was deliberate.
Calculated.
Designed to dismantle me one second at a time.
She gathered the hem of her dress and drew it upward—slowly, slowly, the fabric sliding over her thighs—until it bunched at her waist, exposing the long lines of her legs, the curve of her hips, the bare skin between them that I’d been thinking about for the past four hours.
She stepped into the lace with the poise of a woman who knew exactly what she was doing to me, drawing the fabric up her thighs with a patience that was its own form of cruelty.
By the time she finished, I was hard again—painfully, desperately hard—for the third time that day, and whatever control I’d been clinging to since this morning had been reduced to ash.
She looked at me like she’d already won.
I raised my hand.
“Now, Hadley.
It would be terribly rude to walk away from a gift without modeling it properly.
Turn around.
Let me see how it fits.”
“Of course, Mr.
Sinclair.”
She turned in a slow circle.
As she completed the rotation, she brushed against me, deliberately, and my control snapped completely.
I pulled her onto my lap.
She gasped, falling forward, her legs spreading naturally to straddle me.
Her thighs wrapped around my hips, and the contact sent fire straight through me.
I shifted beneath her, and she trembled.
“Hadley, what exactly are you trying to do to me?” I murmured against her ear, then moved lower, my nose brushing her nipple through the thin fabric of her dress.
Already hard, straining, practically begging for attention.
I could feel my own arousal pressing against her, and there was no denying she felt exactly the same way.
I bit gently through the fabric.
A soft moan went straight to my groin.
I moved to her other nipple, same treatment.
Another moan, another tremor.
With her still straddling me, I leaned back into the couch, one arm locked around her waist, my other hand sliding beneath the lace I’d just watched her put on.
I needed to know if this was doing to her what it was doing to me.
She was soaked.
Burning hot.
Perfectly tight around my finger.
I groaned at the discovery, withdrew my hand, and brought it to my lips.
“Hadley, you are definitely sweeter than chocolate cake.”
Her eyes widened, but I was already pulling her closer, crushing my mouth to hers.
When she opened for me, I lost all restraint.
I sucked her tongue, bit her lower lip, kissed her again with desperate hunger. Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
The more I kissed her, the tighter I held her, my hips moving beneath her in a rhythm that was driving us both toward the edge.
I was close to losing it entirely, and from the way she moved against me, she wasn’t far behind.
When we finally broke apart—gasping, wrecked, both of us trembling—I reached for the abandoned cake and fed us both in slow, deliberate bites, never once looking away from her face.
The ritual felt different now—less like teasing and more like something dangerously intimate, a tenderness I hadn’t planned for and didn’t know how to contain.
A smudge of chocolate sat at the corner of her mouth.
I leaned in and licked it away—slow, thorough, lingering at the spot far longer than the task required, finishing with the barest press of my lips against the same place.
She looked thoroughly demolished—swollen mouth, glazed eyes, every carefully constructed defense dismantled and scattered across my office floor.
I helped her stand, smoothed her dress back into place, and rose to face her.
Close to her ear, I murmured, “You taste much better than chocolate cake, Hadley.”
I stepped back and walked to my desk, unable to hide the satisfaction on my face.
This woman wanted me desperately, and I’d left her beautifully confused and frustrated.
As Dorian had pointed out, this was inevitable.
I wasn’t giving her release until she begged for it, and she hadn’t begged yet.
“Hadley, please distribute our meeting notes to Orson and schedule a conference with only Orson, Dorian, Evangeline, and myself present.
Make it strictly confidential.
That will be all for now.”
I settled into my chair and watched her storm toward the door, slamming it hard enough to rattle the frame.
I’d won this round, but I was left with a serious problem requiring immediate attention.
I hadn’t needed to take care of myself this frequently since I was seventeen.
Thirty minutes later Dorian sat across from my desk, shaking his head.
“What did you do to Hadley?
When I walked past her desk she was attacking that filing cabinet like it had personally offended her.”
I couldn’t help laughing at the image.
“She probably wanted to use my head instead of that cabinet.”
I told him everything, and his expression grew increasingly incredulous.
“Rowan, that’s extreme even by your standards.
You were absolutely ruthless.
But I’m warning you as your friend—the fury in that woman’s eyes means she’s planning revenge.”
“I know.
That’s why I’m barricading myself in this office for the rest of the day and avoiding her completely.”
Dorian laughed at my obvious cowardice, but I didn’t care.
I was absolutely going to hide from Hadley for the remainder of the day.