Chapter 13 Claim
POV: Eric
Her hand keeps fidgeting with the hem of her skirt the whole ride back from the office. It’s not fear making her restless. It’s hunger. I can smell it thick in the SUV. Canal Street at six, traffic crawling, and the air between us is heavy with everything she’s trying not to say out loud.
She wants me. There’s no question about it anymore.
We pull up to the penthouse. She gets out first, lips red from where she’s been biting them, eyes dark and wide. She doesn’t speak. She doesn’t have to. Her body is already telling me everything.
The elevator ride is hell. Ten feet of space and it feels like ten miles. Her fingers twist in the fabric of her sleeve, once, twice, before she looks up at me and stops. Because she knows what’s coming.
The doors slide open. I don’t ask. I take her wrist and pull her inside. My grip isn’t gentle and it isn’t cruel. It’s certain. Like gravity.
“Make yourself comfortable, Catherine.”
My voice doesn’t leave room for debate.
She laughs under her breath, something nervous and sharp and alive. “What exactly counts as comfortable in your world?”
I don’t answer her with words. I back her into the living room wall and cover her mouth with mine.
This time I take her slow.
No rush. Not yet. I kiss her like I have all night, pushing past her lips to taste the gin she drank before she came here, tasting the need underneath it. She makes a sound low in her throat and her hands fist in my shirt, yanking it open. She kisses me back just as hard, biting, claiming, not thinking about anything but this.
I slide my hand under her skirt and find nothing there. Fuck. She came prepared. She’s wanted this since before she got in my car.
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I wedge my knee between her thighs and press her harder into the wall. My palm runs up her leg, slow enough to make her shake. She arches into me, searching for more, her nails raking down my chest.
“Eric.” She doesn’t whisper it. She begs it.
I smile against her mouth. “Not yet.”
I step back. One pace, then another. She makes a frustrated sound, her lips swollen, her chest rising and falling too fast. Her eyes are furious and pleading. _Come back._
I walk to the bar and pour a glass. Champagne, not gin. Tonight isn’t about getting drunk. Tonight is about control.
When I turn around, she’s still against the wall. Hair a mess, blouse hanging open where I tore it, skirt bunched around her hips. She looks wrecked and beautiful and completely mine.
I hold out a flute. She takes it and drinks it down in one swallow, like it’s a challenge.
She hands me the empty glass, breathing hard. “God, that’s strong.”
I sip mine slowly, watching her over the rim. “Like you.”
I put my glass down. The room goes quiet for a beat.
She’s expecting me to lose it now. To kiss her, to take her right there against the wall until she can’t remember her own name.
I don’t.
I sit down in the chair. My chair. I let my knees fall open and unbutton the top of my shirt, just one button. Then I look at her.
“Dance for me, Catherine.”
My voice is low and rough, an order softened by silk. “You’ve wanted to take control since you got in my car. So take it. Show me what you’ve got. Show me why I should let you.”
Her eyes go wide first. Then she understands. Then something catches fire in them.
She pushes off the wall, slow and deliberate. She isn’t trembling anymore. She’s hunting.
She reaches for the champagne on the table, finishes what’s left, and sets the glass down. Her fingers go to her blouse, undoing one button, then another. She lets the fabric slip off her shoulders and fall to the floor.
There’s no music. We don’t need it. The quiet in the penthouse is ours, and the sound of her breathing is enough.
She turns her back to me, hips moving with each step, and lets her skirt slide down her legs. She steps out of it. She’s bare. Completely. My fingerprints are already blooming red on her skin.
She turns to face me again. No shame in her eyes. No hesitation. Just power.
She walks to me, each step measured, and uses her knees to part mine. She straddles me in the chair without touching me, her heat just above me, close enough to drive me out of my mind.
Her hands settle on my chest. Her nails drag down slowly as she finds my belt. She undoes it the same way I touched her, slow, deliberate, in control.
“So this is what comfortable looks like at your place?” she whispers against my mouth. Her breath tastes like champagne and sin.
A growl rips out of me. My hands clamp down on her hips. “Keep going.”
She smiles, and it’s pure victory. She catches my bottom lip between her teeth and bites down. “No.” She rolls her hips once, just enough to make my vision blur. “This time, I decide when.”
The Beast is pacing inside me, furious and proud at the same time.
She wants me. She’s taking me.
And I let her.
Because watching her claim me is rawer than anything I could have done to her.
For now.