Chapter 4: The Claiming - Part 2
The jasmine-scented silence of the bedroom was a lie. Izzy knew it the moment consciousness crept back in. Her body ached with a deep, specific tenderness. The memory of the night was a physical imprint: the throb between her thighs, the soreness of her ass, the phantom weight of him still pressing her into the mattress.
He was gone from the bed.
The space beside her was cool. For a disorienting second, the hollow loneliness she knew so well threatened to rush back in, a bitter victor. Then she heard it. The distant, hissing rush of the shower from her ensuite bathroom.
She lay still, staring at the ceiling. The negotiation had already begun in her mind. The post-mortem. What did this mean? A one-night stand born of hatred? A disastrous complication to an already fraught professional relationship? Her legal brain tried to categorize, to file the experience away under a rational heading. It failed. The facts were too visceral. She could still smell him on her skin.
Pushing back the comforter, she winced as her feet hit the floor. A faint, sticky trace on her inner thigh confirmed the most humbling reality. He’d come inside her. Twice. She hadn’t stopped him. She’d begged for it.
The walk to the bathroom was a study in delicate movement. Every step sent a reminder. The steam from the shower billowed into the bedroom, warm and damp. She pushed the door open.
Her bathroom was a study in monochrome luxury: black marble floors, a wide vessel sink, a large walk-in shower enclosure with frosted glass walls. Through the blurred glass, she could see the dark, distorted shape of him. Broad shoulders, the dip of a waist, the powerful movement as he ran his hands through his hair.
She stood there, naked in the doorway, watching. He hadn’t heard her. She could slip away, get dressed, reclaim some fraction of her dignity behind the armor of a suit. It was the smart move. The only move.
She stepped into the steam.
It curled around her, hot and dense. She reached for the glass door, her fingers leaving smears on the fogged surface. He turned as she pulled it open, the noise masked by the drumming water.
His grey eyes locked onto hers. There was no surprise in them. Only a simmering, predatory awareness, as if he’d been waiting. Water sluiced down the hard planes of his chest, over the dark tattoos that curled around his ribs, down the taut line of his stomach. His cock, half-hard already, lay thick against his thigh. The sight of it sent a fresh, unwelcome pulse of heat through her.
“Couldn’t stay away,” he said, his voice a low rumble under the shower’s roar. It wasn’t a question.
“It’s my shower,” she replied, but her voice lacked its usual edge. It sounded thin, swallowed by the steam.
A slow, knowing smile touched his lips. He didn’t move to make space for her. He just watched as she stepped under the spray, the hot water hitting her skin like a shock. It stung the tender marks on her backside, then soothed them. She turned her face up, letting it wash over her, a futile attempt to cleanse the night from her mind.
His hands settled on her hips from behind. She stiffened. His touch was possessive, a brand through the water. He pulled her back against him. The hard, wet length of his body aligned with hers, his erection now firm and pressing into the small of her back.
“You thought one night would be enough, princess?” His mouth was at her ear, the words a hot, wet promise against the drumming water. “You think you get to wash me off and go back to being the untouchable Izzy Rossi?”
His hands slid from her hips, one gliding up to close over her breast, pinching her nipple hard between his thumb and forefinger. The other slid down, through the slickness of soap and water, through the tight curls between her legs. He found her clit, already swollen, and pressed a circling thumb against it.
She gasped, her head falling back against his shoulder. Her hands flew up to brace against the slick black tiles in front of her.
“I’m going to fuck you raw every morning,” he growled, his teeth grazing her earlobe. “In your shower. On your desk. Over the arm of your expensive fucking sofa. Until you forget what it feels like to walk without my cum dripping down your thighs. Until the only thing that feels right is being stretched open by me.”
His words were a filthy, obscene contract. Her body accepted it before her mind could protest. A low moan vibrated in her throat as his fingers delved lower, testing her entrance. She was sore, but she was also slick, her body responding to the crude promise with a humiliating eagerness.
“You’re still loose from last night,” he observed, pushing two fingers inside her with a slow, stretching curl.“Good. I don’t have to be gentle.”
He removed his fingers. Before she could process the loss, his hands were on her shoulders, turning her, pressing her face-first against the cold, wet tiles. The contrast of the hot water on her back and the chill on her front was jarring. He kicked her feet wider apart, the sound lost in the spray.
He gripped himself, positioning the broad head of his cock at her entrance. He didn’t ask. He didn’t tease. He just pushed.
The stretch was immediate, breathtaking. She was tight, aching from the night before, and he was ruthless. He drove into her with a single, relentless thrust that buried him to the root, forcing a choked scream from her lips that the water swallowed. Her forehead pressed against the tile, her fingers scrambling for purchase on the smooth, wet surface.
“Fuck,” he hissed, his body going rigid behind her. “Still so fucking tight. Even after taking me all night.”
He didn’t wait for her to adjust. He began to move, setting a brutal, pounding rhythm that had her body sliding against the tiles with each thrust. The water cascaded over them, making their skin slick, the sounds of their bodies meeting a wet, rhythmic slap beneath the shower’s hiss.
“This is your life now,” he grunted, one hand fisting in her wet hair, pulling her head back to arch her spine painfully. The other hand splayed possessively on her lower belly, holding her in place as he hammered into her. “You’re a smart woman. You understand terms. Your cunt is mine.To use. Whenever I want. However I want.”
She couldn’t speak. Pleasure and pain were a fused wire, live and sparking through her nervous system. Each deep drive brushed a spot inside her that made her vision blur. The sting of his grip in her hair, the cold hard tile against her cheek, the scalding water—it all focused into the relentless, invading thickness of him.It was claiming. It was erasure.
“You feel that?” he demanded, his voice ragged with exertion. “You feel how deep I am? I’m in your guts, Izzy. You’ll feel me sitting in court. You’ll feel me when you’re arguing against my company. Every fucking time you try to stand against me, you’ll remember you’re just a hole I fuck.”
His crude words were the final key. Her orgasm tore through her with a violence that buckled her knees. It was a silent, seismic shockwave, her internal muscles clamping down on him in a series of fierce, rhythmic pulses that milked him desperately.
The sensation of her tightening around him undid his control. With a raw, guttural sound that was more anguish than triumph, he slammed into her one last time, his hips jerking erratically as he emptied himself. The heat of his release flooded her, a stark contrast to the water streaming over her back.
They stayed like that, locked together, panting, as the water began to run lukewarm. His forehead dropped to her shoulder, his grip in her hair loosening to a heavy caress.
Slowly, he softened, slipped out of her. The evidence of him immediately began to trickle down her inner thigh, a warm, intimate leak. He’d made his point.Literally.
He reached past her, turned off the water. The sudden silence was deafening. Dripping, they stood in the steam-filled enclosure. He turned her around. His gaze was intense, unreadable. He looked down between their bodies, watching as a thin, white trickle escaped her and was washed away by the water on the floor.
A smirk, devoid of warmth, touched his lips. “See?” he said, his voice hoarse. “Told you.”
He pushed open the shower door and stepped out, grabbing a towel. He dried himself with brisk, efficient motions, not looking at her. The CEO was back, the animal sated for now. He wrapped the towel around his waist and walked out of the bathroom without a backward glance, leaving her standing there, naked and dripping, hollowed out and filled all at once.
She finally moved, her limbs heavy. She turned the water back on, this time ice-cold. She stood under the punishing spray, shivering, until her skin was numb. But she knew it was pointless. The chill couldn’t reach the deeper heat he’d ignited. The ache inside her was a lasting occupation. He’d marked more than her skin.
Wrapping herself in a towel, she walked back into the bedroom. He was gone. His clothes from the night before were gone. The bed was a rumpled monument. The only sign he’d been there at all was the lingering scent of his soap in the steam, and the profound, unsettling soreness between her legs that would indeed remind her of him with every step she took.