CHAPTER SEVEN

The room at the Felidae headquarters was beautifully appointed, and much more luxurious than Viola ever could have anticipated. With sleek, modern amenities, the king-sized bed was plush with down, and as soon as Viola stepped foot into the room, she was ready to dive into it. She had the thick, velvet curtains drawn against the rising sunlight, and she was ready to sleep for about the next decade. Tugging her shirt over her head and kicking off her boots, she groaned aloud when she heard a knock at the door.

She hurried to it, and opened it just a crack, meeting Rowan’s curious gaze when she did.

“I just wanted to make sure you were all settled in,” he said, placing a hand on the door.

“Ah, yep,” she confirmed, yawning.

“I brought…” he held up a bottle of whiskey in his other hand. “Night cap.” With a sigh, she granted him admittance into the room, absently noting that he was still wearing his tuxedo. She, on the other hand, was wearing a bra and a pair of jeans. Oh, whatever, she thought.

“You’re going to have to let me sleep through tomorrow, and tomorrow night, you realize,” she said, glancing at the clock: 7:30AM, it blinked in red. “Holy hell, it’s morning. It’s like when normal people wake up, morning.”

“Shh,” he said, moving to the corner of her room where a small globe apparently opened up into a minibar. Fancy. “It’s still night so long as you have those curtains drawn.” He poured them each a glass of whiskey, neat, and handed one to her. “I like this new look of yours,” he teased.

“I was changing for bed, Rowan,” she said, snatching the glass of whiskey from his hand and downing it in one quick gulp. She hummed against the pleasant warmth it created in the back of her throat and in the pit of her stomach.

“I won’t stay long, then,” he said quietly, refilling her glass. “I just…I guess I was worried about you.”

“Worried?” She echoed, canting her head to the side, shaking loose a few errant black curls. “About me? Rowan, you’ve sent me into harm’s way more times than I can count. I mean, it’s kind of your job, to send me into harm’s way.”

“Yeah, and I know you can handle yourself, it’s just…He’s dangerous, they all are. Graham McCallum and his clan.”

“I’m sure he’d say the same about you,” she mumbled, and sipped at her whiskey. Rowan was watching her curiously, and she could tell that he was guarded. She needed him pliant, she needed him open, she needed him with all of his walls down in a crumbling mass at her feet.

Exhaustion had all but overtaken her, and perhaps she wasn’t thinking clearly, but she knew she had to get him to be as honest with her as possible. She sighed, finished her whiskey, and set the glass aside.

He was watching her closely, his eyes tracking her every move. He watched her put her glass down, watched her unbutton her jeans, watched her shimmy out of them and abandon them on the floor. He watched as she raised her arms up high over her head and stretched, and he couldn’t look away as she reached behind her back to unclasp her bra. Tugging the thing away, she tossed it over a chair in the corner, and he tried not to stare at her breasts, round and pert as two ripe peaches. She lifted her hands to her breasts and pinched her nipples between her thumb and index fingers; when he looked up, he saw that her eyes were fixed on his face. “Viola,” he began, unsure of what to say next.

“We’ve had a long night, Rowan,” she said, turning her back on him so that he could admire the curve of her bottom behind the gossamer gauze of her black lace panties, “I think we’ve earned a little stress release, don’t you think?”

Rowan swallowed hard, and when Viola looked back at him over her shoulder, she could see the bulge in his trousers. “I don’t know what you’re playing at, Vi,” he said, then, his voice firm and unwavering, “but I’m in no mood.”

She climbed on her hands and knees onto the bed, spreading her legs just slightly, enough to entice him with the outline of what was hidden by the lace and cotton. “Sorry,” she all but purred, “if you’re not in the mood. But I am, so you don’t have to stay. I can take care of myself.”

“Do it, then,” he said, remaining fixed in place. She felt herself blush, felt the fire in her cheeks, but she obliged all the same. Leaning forward, she pressed her cheek to the mattress in front of her knees, keeping her ass in the air for his viewing pleasure. She tucked her left hand inside her panties and began to touch herself, her fingers stimulating her clitoris and sending a shiver down her spine. All this time together, and they had never truly crossed the threshold into sexuality. With his eyes locked on her as she toyed with her sex, Rowan wondered why it had taken them so long.

“What do you fantasize about?” Rowan asked, his voice husky and hushed. He loosened his bowtie and unbuttoned the top button of his shirt as though the sight of her had taken his breath away. It had.

“Fucking outdoors,” she said, surprised at her quick and truthful response. She could feel her juices begin to flow and coat her fingertips as she rubbed herself into a frenzied arousal. “Just the two of us, locked together, with nothing overhead but the treetops. Free, natural…”

“Yes.” He saw her hand moving beneath the cover of her panties, and he caught a glimpse of more here and there, but he longed for a clearer view.

“And just…being taken. Pushed down to the earth and spread wide, and…taken.”

Rowan moved toward her then with shocking quickness and pulled her panties down, giving him a clear view of her glistening sex. But other than that, he did not touch her. Not yet. “Slide two fingers in,” he commanded, and she did as she was told, her index and middle fingers disappearing into her dripping wet orifice. “Good. Faster.” She quickened her pace, her breathing coming in quick little gasps, her heartbeat hastening. “I want to see you come,” he murmured, lightly running his fingertips up the back of her thigh, higher and higher until they brushed over her nether lips.

“Help me, then,” she pleaded and withdrew her fingers, putting them in her mouth to lick them clean.

“Get on your back,” he commanded, and she complied, adjusting herself so that her knees splayed wide. “Spread your pussy for me.” She blinked up at him as he unbuttoned his shirt, tugged it off, and laid it aside. “I said,” he repeated, “spread that pussy for me.” She reached down with both hands and spread the lips as much as she could comfortably manage, and she felt her blush deepen at being thus exposed. He gazed appreciatively down at her and dropped to his knees by the edge of the bed. He looked into her, before reaching up and gently inserting one of his fingers into her entrance. She arched her back and a moan escaped her mouth, one that belied the desire she felt, had been feeling, ever since Graham kissed her. But no, she pushed Graham out of her mind, and focused on the man on his knees in front of her. He thrust in and out of her with one finger, then added a second, plunging them both in up to the knuckles.

“Please,” she groaned, writhing beneath him, “Please…”

“Please what?” He asked, playing at innocence.

“Please fuck me.”

“No.” He leaned forward, sating her if only slightly, by flicking his tongue over the pith of her sex. She drew in a sharp gasp and drew one hand away to make room for him, but he pulled away. “You keep it spread. I want you exposed to me.” There was something so naughty, so deliciously vulnerable, about the whole thing that she immediately obeyed, and he went back to running his tongue over her engorged clit, even as his fingers worked in and out of her. Her turned his hand so that he could use his fingers in a gestured the beckoned, hitting her G Spot as he sucked at the kernel of her pleasure.

He quickened his pace and peered up over her pubis mound to see her breasts heaving as she gasped for breath. Her entire body was flushed pink with the onset of her orgasm, and he wanted nothing more than to witness her release. “Are you going to come for me?” He asked, pausing only briefly in his ministrations to speak to her.

“Yes,” she said on the wings of a sigh, “Yes, yes.”

Her orgasm was a wave that broke on the rocks of her desire, and she came with a cry that wracked her whole body. He could feel the muscles of her sex contract around his fingers, could see them pulsing with the pleasure he had wrought when he drew his mouth away. As it subsided, he gently pulled his fingers out, doused as they were in her juices.

“Mmmm,” she hummed happily, curling up onto her side to revel in the aftershocks. Rowan unbuckled his belt and shimmied out of his pants, crawling onto the bed beside her. He tugged her close to him, spooning her, wanting her only to feel sated and safe, wanting only for her to sleep.

Viola briefly registered his warm, strong arms around her, the feeling of his chest against her back, and the feeling of his erection pressing against the fabric of his boxer briefs and, in turn, the flesh of her bare bottom. But she felt all of it only for a moment before she drifted into a deep and dreamless sleep.