Chapter 63: Power Play Negotiations
Stephanie’s cheek was still pressed against the cool glass, her breath slowly returning to normal. Veronica’s forehead rested against hers, a point of scorching heat in the aftermath’s quiet. The city below them continued its indifferent hum.
“You will kill me,” Veronica had whispered. The words hung in the air, more prophecy than complaint.
A slow smile spread across Stephanie’s lips. She traced Veronica’s jawline with a fingertip. “But you did not scream,” she said, her French accent curling around the observation like smoke.
Veronica opened her eyes, her green gaze sharpening, searching Stephanie’s face. “What?”
“Before. With your boss.” Stephanie pushed off from the window, her body feeling deliciously used and loose. She paced a few steps into the office, her stockinged feet silent on the polished concrete. “You came. I felt it. It was… immense. But you made no sound. You held it all inside.” She turned, her light blue eyes catching the afternoon sun. “I want to hear you.”
A flicker of something wild crossed Veronica’s face—a mix of defiance and raw vulnerability. She adjusted her trousers, her movements precise, a lawyer rebuilding her armor. “You heard enough,” she muttered, walking back toward her desk, her stride regaining its usual power.
“Non.” Stephanie’s voice was soft but absolute. She followed, a determined little shadow. “I heard you choke. I heard you strain. That is not the same. When you are with me, you should not be a lawyer. You should not be in control.” She stopped just behind Veronica’s chair as she sat down. “You should be undone.”
Veronica leaned back, tilting her head to look up at Stephanie. Her expression was unreadable. “Is that your professional opinion, Mademoiselle James?”
“It is my only opinion.” Stephanie placed her hands on the arms of the ergonomic chair and spun it slowly away from the desk, facing it toward the long, low sofa against the interior wall. She knelt between Veronica’s knees, her hands sliding up the taut wool of her trousers. “On the couch.”
“I have a conference call in forty minutes.”
“Then you have thirty-nine minutes to recover.” Stephanie’s fingers found the button, the zipper. She opened them with a quick, efficient pull. “Get on the couch, Veronica.”
The use of her full name, the command in that sweet, accented voice, did something to Veronica. A surrender, subtle but complete, softened the line of her shoulders. She stood, letting the trousers pool at her feet. She stepped out of them and walked, in just her untucked white shirt and black underwear, to the sofa. She sat on the edge, her knees together, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. A deposed queen on a modest throne.
Stephanie followed. She didn’t kneel this time. Instead, she placed a hand on Veronica’s sternum and pushed, firmly.
Veronica fell back onto the cushions with a soft whoomph of air, her long legs sprawling. Before she could move, Stephanie was on her, straddling her thighs, pinning her in place. “Your screaming is mine,” Stephanie whispered, leaning down to capture her mouth in a fierce, biting kiss. She could taste herself on Veronica’s lips, a salty, intimate tang.
Veronica groaned into the kiss, her hands coming up to grip Stephanie’s hips. But Stephanie broke away, shaking her head. “No. Your hands stay here.” She placed Veronica’s palms flat on her own stomach, under the rumpled silk of her dress. “You feel. You receive.”
Then Stephanie slid down the length of her body, a slow, deliberate descent. She hooked her fingers into the waistband of Veronica’s underwear and pulled them down her legs, tossing them over her shoulder without a glance.
She was exposed again. Here, in the open, on the sofa, with the gray afternoon light washing over her skin. Her cunt was already slick, swollen from their earlier encounter. Stephanie watched her, saw the quick, shallow rise and fall of her abdomen, the desperate clench of her hands on her own stomach.
“Please,” Veronica breathed, the word torn from her.
Stephanie answered by lowering her mouth.
This time, there was no secrecy, no need for silence. She started with a long, slow, flat-tongued lick from her entrance all the way up to her clit. Veronica gasped, her hips arching off the couch. Stephanie held her down with a firm hand on her belly.
She set a brutal pace from the beginning. This wasn’t about teasing, about slow seduction. This was a conquest. She ate her with a single-minded, hungry focus. Her tongue plunged inside her, fucking her with it, before circling her clit with tight, rapid flicks. She used her lips, her teeth—gentle nips that made Veronica jerk and curse—and the relentless suction of her mouth.
“Fuck, Stephanie… right there, oh god, right there—” Veronica’s words were a broken chant. One hand had left her stomach to fist in her own Afro, pulling tight at the roots. Her other hand clawed at the leather cushions.
Stephanie felt the first tremor build quickly. She doubled down, sucking her clit hard into her mouth, flicking it with the tip of her tongue in a frenzied rhythm.
Veronica’s orgasm hit like a train. It wasn’t a gentle wave; it was a convulsion. Her back bowed violently off the sofa, a raw, guttural cry ripping from her throat—a sound of pure, shocked release. It was loud, messy, and real. Her thighs shook, clamping around Stephanie’s head. Stephanie rode it out, lapping gently as Veronica trembled and sobbed, her cry dissolving into a long, whimpering sigh.
Before the aftershocks had fully faded, before Veronica’s breathing could even settle, Stephanie drove two fingers deep inside her.
Veronica screamed again, a hoarse, ragged sound of overstimulation. “Too much! Attends!”
Stephanie didn’t wait. She curled her fingers, finding that spot with unerring accuracy, and began to piston them in and out. Her other hand pinched and rolled Veronica’s clit between thumb and forefinger. She watched Veronica’s face, watched as pleasure veered into something near-pain, as her eyes lost all focus, seeing nothing but the ceiling.
“You can take it,” Stephanie murmured against her thigh, then bit down. “Come for me again. Now.”
Veronica was sobbing openly, tears streaming from the corners of her eyes into her hairline. Her body was a live wire, every muscle taut. She was mindless, reduced to pure sensation. Her second climax tore through her with even more violence than the first. This scream was sharper, higher, shattered. Her hips bucked wildly, fucking herself on Stephanie’s hand, her cunt grasping and milking the fingers inside her. Stars, she saw literal stars bursting in the dark behind her eyelids.
She collapsed, boneless, a damp, trembling wreck. Her chest heaved. “No more,” she slurred, her Jamaican accent thick and mangled. “I can’t… Stephanie, please, I can’t.”
Stephanie withdrew her wet fingers. She knelt up, looking down at the magnificent, broken woman beneath her. Veronica’s green eyes were glazed, unfocused. A deep, possessive thrill shot through Stephanie. She leaned down, kissed her, letting Veronica taste her own essence on Stephanie’s lips.
“One more,” Stephanie whispered against her mouth. “You have one more for me. I know you do.”
“I’ll die.”
“Then die.”
Stephanie moved down her body again. This time, she ignored her oversensitive clit. She pressed her mouth against Veronica’s dripping entrance and thrust her tongue inside as deep as it would go. She fucked her with her tongue, a slow, deep, penetrating rhythm, while her fingers returned to her clit, not stroking, just applying a steady, unyielding pressure.
It was too much. It was everything. Veronica’s body, exhausted, had no more resistance to give. The sensation built not as a cresting wave, but as a deep, seismic rupture.
Her third orgasm was silent at first. Her mouth opened in a soundless scream. Her body arched so severely it seemed it might snap. Then sound returned—a choked, agonized, ecstatic wail that seemed to tear itself from the very core of her. It echoed off the glass and steel of the office, a primal, unfettered shriek of absolute surrender.
The violence of it shook her. Her limbs flailed. A glass paperweight rattled on the side table. Her eyes rolled back, showing whites.
Then, nothing.
The scream cut off. Her body went utterly, frighteningly limp. Her head lolled to the side.
Stephanie froze, her mouth still pressed against her. She pulled back slowly.
“Veronica?”
No response. No rise and fall of her chest.
Panic, cold and immediate, flooded Stephanie’s veins. She scrambled up, her own pleasure forgotten. “Veronica!” She shook her shoulder. Nothing. She slapped her cheek, lightly at first, then harder. “Mon dieu, réveille-toi!”
Veronica was out. Deeply unconscious. A faint, whistling breath finally escaped her parted lips.
Stephanie’s hands flew to her own mouth. What had she done? She had asked for this, demanded it, driven her to this edge. She had seen stars, she said. She had literally screamed herself into oblivion.
Trembling, Stephanie fumbled for her discarded underwear. She wet it with water from a nearby carafe and dabbed at Veronica’s face, her neck. She chafed her wrists. “Come back,” she begged, her accent thickening with fear. “Come back to me. Please.”
Veronica’s eyelashes fluttered. A low groan escaped her. Her green eyes, clouded and disoriented, struggled to focus on Stephanie’s terrified face hovering above her.
“There,” Stephanie breathed, a sob of relief catching in her throat. She cradled Veronica’s head. “You are here. You are here.”
Veronica blinked slowly. She looked utterly spent, hollowed out. Her voice, when it came, was a dry, cracked whisper.
“Told you… you’d be the death of me.”
Then, before Stephanie could reply, the sleek phone on the desk began to buzz, the screen lighting up with the name ALISTAIR CROMWELL. The conference call. In five minutes.
Stephanie stared at the phone, then down at the unconscious woman in her arms. The chill of reality washed over the last of the erotic heat, leaving a stark, terrifying clarity.