Chapter 5: Bent Over the Boardroom Table
The call came at 9:47 p.m., while Zara was elbow-deep in a bin of chantilly lace and her phone was buzzing against the cutting table.
She almost didn't answer. The revised contract language had been sitting in her bag for three days, taunting her from between crumpled receipts and a half-eaten protein bar. Every time she'd worked up the nerve to drive across town and deliver it, something had stopped her. Pride, mostly. The memory of his hands on her hips, his teeth on her shoulder, the way he'd said mine like it was a fact instead of a threat.
But work was work. And Cross Industries' legal team had been blowing up her inbox for forty-eight hours straight.
So she'd spent the afternoon marking up every clause that made her skin crawl, printed two clean copies, and headed downtown in a dress that she absolutely did not choose because she knew he'd be working late.
The lie tasted bitter even in her own head.
The Cross Industries building loomed against the Seattle skyline like a monument to everything she hated about old money and new tech. All glass and steel and sharp angles, every window dark except for the top floor—which blazed like a warning.
Of course he's here.
She badged through security with the temporary pass his assistant had couriered over, rode the elevator to the executive level, and stepped out into a hallway so quiet she could hear her own heartbeat.
The lights were dimmed. The cubicles sat empty. But through the glass walls of the boardroom at the end of the hall, she saw him.
Damien stood with his back to her, jacket discarded, sleeves rolled to his elbows, one hand braced on the mahogany table while the other scrolled through something on a tablet. The city sprawled behind him, a galaxy of lights bleeding into the black water of Elliott Bay.
He looked like a painting. Like a threat. Like the kind of man who could ruin her with a single word.
She knocked on the glass.
He didn't turn. Just tilted his head slightly, and she caught his reflection in the window—the sharp cut of his jaw, the way his eyes found hers in the glass before his body even moved.
"Busy," he said.
"I brought the contract."
"I said busy."
"And I said I brought the contract." She pushed through the door anyway, heels clicking against the polished concrete floor. "Your legal team has been harassing me for two days. Sign the damn thing so we can both move on."
He turned.
The look in his eyes made her stop dead in her tracks.
It wasn't the controlled, corporate mask he wore in meetings. It wasn't the hungry, desperate man who'd pinned her against his penthouse window six nights ago. This was something else entirely—something colder, sharper, a blade still in its sheath.
"Move on," he repeated.
"Yes. That's what normal people do after a business arrangement ends."
"Is that what this is?"
She held up the folder. "That's what the contract says."
He crossed the room in four long strides, and suddenly the folder was gone—ripped from her hands, tossed onto the table with a slap that echoed through the empty floor.
"Damien—"
"You have no idea," he said, voice low and rough, "how much I hate that word."
"What word?"
"Arrangement." He stepped closer, crowding her against the edge of the table. "Contract. Deal. All of it. It makes what happened between us sound like a fucking transaction."
"It was a transaction."
"Bullshit."
His hands found her waist, fingers digging into the soft curves beneath her dress. She should have pushed him away. Should have insisted on professionalism, on boundaries, on all the things she'd rehearsed in the car.
Instead, she let him lift her onto the edge of the table.
"You wore stockings," he murmured, and she felt the hem of her dress slide up her thighs.
"So?"
"So you knew." His fingers traced the lace band at the top of her thigh-highs. "You wore these because you knew what I'd do when I saw them."
"I didn't—"
"You lied to yourself in the car. That's fine." He hooked his fingers into the delicate mesh and pulled. The rip echoed through the silent room like a gunshot. "But don't lie to me."
The lace gave way, exposing her cunt to the cool air. She gasped, more from shock than cold, and he used the moment to push her flat onto the table.
Files scattered. A laptop crashed to the floor. She heard the shatter of glass somewhere behind her—the whiskey glass, probably, the one she'd noticed on the corner of the desk when she walked in.
He didn't seem to care.
"Damien, the windows—"
"Are tinted."
"They're—"
"Tinted." His belt buckle clinked, the zipper rasped, and then his cock was pressing against her entrance, thick and hot and relentless. "But even if they weren't, I wouldn't stop."
He thrust into her in one brutal stroke.
She screamed.
The sound bounced off the glass walls, off the mahogany, off the high ceiling, and she clapped a hand over her mouth too late. He was already moving—hard, deep, every stroke hitting something inside her that made her vision blur and her thighs shake.
"Take your hand away," he growled.
"Someone could—"
"Take it away."
She did.
He fisted one hand in her curls and pressed her face against the table. The wood was cold against her cheek, smooth as glass, and she could smell the lemon polish and the faint hint of his cologne and something else—something sharp and masculine and utterly him.
"You feel that?" He drove deeper, and she whimpered. "That's what you do to me. Every time I see you. Every time I think about you. I get hard like a fucking teenager and I can't think about anything else."
"I—"
"Shut up." His hips slapped against her ass, the sound obscene in the quiet. "I've been sitting in this office for three hours trying to work, and all I could see was your face. Your mouth. The way you look when you come."
She was going to come. Already, embarrassingly close, her cunt clenching around him with every thrust.
"You ruined me," he said, and the words sounded almost angry. "You fucking ruined me, Zara, and you don't even care."
"That's not—"
"It is. It's true." He pulled out, flipped her over, and drove back in before she could catch her breath. This angle was deeper, his pubic bone grinding against her clit with every stroke. "But you know what? I don't care either. I don't care if you ruin me. I don't care if this destroys everything I've built."
A flashlight swept across the glass wall behind them.
Zara's eyes flew open. She could see him—one of the night security guards, making his rounds, his flashlight beam cutting through the darkness of the floor beyond.
He was going to see them. He was going to see her, spread out on the boardroom table like a feast, her dress around her waist and Damien buried inside her.
"Damien—"
"I see him."
"He's—"
"Let him watch." Damien's hand pressed down on her chest, pinning her to the table, and he fucked her harder. "Let all of them watch. Let the whole fucking city see who you belong to."
The flashlight swept past. Paused. Swept back.
Zara couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Couldn't do anything but feel the relentless rhythm of his cock inside her, the pressure building in her core, the heat spreading through her limbs.
The guard's silhouette hesitated on the other side of the glass. Then, slowly, it moved on.
Damien laughed—a dark, vicious sound.
"Smart man." He thrust deep and held, grinding against her cervix. "He knew better than to interrupt."
"You're insane."
"Probably." He pulled out, flipped her onto her stomach, and shoved back in. "But you're the one who keeps coming back for more."
The orgasm hit her without warning.
She screamed into the table, her whole body convulsing, her nails scratching uselessly against the polished mahogany. He didn't stop—just fucked her through it, extending the pleasure until it tipped into something almost unbearable.
When he finally came, it was with a growl that vibrated through her entire body. She felt him pulse inside her, hot and thick, and his hips stayed flush against hers, holding everything in.
"Don't move," he said.
"I can't."
"Good."
He pulled out slowly, and she felt the wet gush of his come following, sliding down her thighs and onto the table. His fingers caught some of it, pushing it back inside her, and she shuddered.
"Not done," he said.
"Damien, I can't—"
"I said not done."
He flipped her onto her back, dropped to his knees, and buried his face between her legs.
The first swipe of his tongue made her entire body arch off the table. She was so sensitive, so raw, that every touch felt like electricity. He licked into her like she was his last meal, tongue flat against her clit, then curling inside her cunt to taste his own come.
"Fuck," she gasped. "Fuck, fuck, fuck—"
He sucked her clit into his mouth and hummed.
She came again.
It was too much—too fast, too intense, too everything. Her heels dug into his shoulders, her hands fisted in his hair, and she ground against his face like an animal. He didn't stop. Just kept licking, sucking, drinking her down until she was sobbing.
"Please," she gasped. "Please, no more—"
He lifted his head. His mouth was glistening, his chin wet, and his eyes—god, his eyes—were black with hunger.
"I said I wasn't done."
He stood, hauled her off the table, and dragged her across the hall to his corner office. The lights were off, but the city glow was enough—enough to see his desk, huge and dark and waiting.
"Bend over."
Her legs were shaking. Her cunt was throbbing. But she bent over.
He kicked her feet apart, shoved her dress up again, and drove into her with a groan.
"Second time tonight," he said, voice ragged. "And I'm still hard for you. That's what you do to me."
"This is—ah—"
"Obsession."
"I know."
He fucked her over the desk, slow and deep and almost tender, his chest pressed against her back, his mouth at her ear. He whispered things—filthy things, beautiful things, things that made her cheeks burn and her heart clench.
"You're mine," he said. "Say it."
"I'm yours."
"You're not signing that contract."
"Damien—"
"Say it."
"I'm not signing the contract."
"Good girl."
He came with a shudder, filling her for the second time, and she felt it spill out around his cock. He didn't pull out. Just stayed there, buried inside her, breathing hard against her neck.
The washroom was the last stop.
He marched her down the hall—her ruined stockings around her ankles, his come dripping down her thighs—and pushed her into the executive bathroom. The mirror ran the length of the wall, reflecting the two of them in the dim light.
"Look at you," he said, positioning her behind the sink, her palms flat against the counter. "Look at what I've done to you."
She stared at her reflection.
Her curls were a disaster—frizzy and tangled and wild. Her lips were swollen, her mascara smeared, her dress wrinkled and stained. She looked wrecked. Debauched. Utterly, thoroughly fucked.
She'd never looked happier.
"One more," he said.
"I can't."
"You can."
He entered her from behind, and the mirror showed her everything—his hands on her hips, his cock sliding into her, the way her mouth fell open and her eyes rolled back.
"Watch," he commanded. "Watch me fuck you."
She watched.
She watched his muscles flex, watched her breasts sway with every thrust, watched the way her cunt swallowed him whole. She watched his face in the mirror—the concentration, the hunger, the something almost like tenderness that flashed in his eyes when she moaned.
"Fuck, Damien—"
"I know." He fucked her harder. "I know, baby. I feel it too."
His hand found her clit, fingers slick and rough, and she came apart.
This time, when he came, he pulled out—just to watch his release spill over her ass, her thighs, the mirror image of her wrecked body. He caught some with his fingers, brought it to her mouth, and she sucked them clean without being asked.
"Good girl," he said softly.
She closed her eyes, forehead against the mirror.
When she opened them again, he was behind her, arms wrapped around her waist, chin on her shoulder. They stared at each other in the glass—two ruined people, catching their breath.
"The contract," she said finally.
"Rip it up."
"I can't."
"You can." He turned her around, cupped her face in his hands. "You can, and you will. Because we both know this isn't over."
"It's supposed to be."
"I don't give a shit what it's supposed to be." He kissed her forehead, her nose, her lips. "You're mine, Zara. And I'm not letting you go."
She should have argued. Should have insisted on terms, conditions, boundaries. But she was exhausted and sore and her heart was doing something dangerous in her chest.
"Take me home," she said.
He smiled—a real smile, the first she'd ever seen.
"Anything you want."
They left the contract on the boardroom table, torn lace and scattered papers and a single smudge of her lipstick on the cover page.
The morning janitorial crew would find it.
The rumors would spread.
And Zara Moreau would wake up in Damien Cross's bed for the second time, wondering if she'd finally found something worth breaking all her rules for.