The lock clicked with a sound like a sentence finishing.
I stood with my back against Cambren's office door, my fingers still curled around the deadbolt, and watched him turn from the window. The rich cedar scent of the room filled my lungs — I'd noticed it every time I'd been in here this week, but now it felt different. Heavier. Like the air itself had thickened between us.
"This is a mistake," I said. Not because I believed it, but because someone in this room needed to say it out loud, and he clearly wasn't going to.
Cambren didn't move. He had that way about him — still as architecture, expensively unshowy in his plain shirt that probably cost more than my car payment. His face was weathered in a way that suggested he'd earned every line, and his body held the kind of patience that made me feel like I was standing at the edge of something I'd been circling for days.
"You're still here," he said. Not a question. Not a challenge. Just a fact, delivered in that low voice that had been crawling under my skin since Tuesday.
He was right. I was still here. I could have walked out. I was the external fixer — brought in to untangle the mess his family's company had made of their quarterly filings. I was supposed to be objective. Professional. Uncomplicated. Instead, I'd spent four days cataloguing the way his hands moved when he explained things, the way his eyes tracked me when he thought I wasn't watching, the way a brush of his fingers against my wrist during a document handoff had sent electricity up my arm and made my breath catch in a way I hadn't been able to hide.
He'd noticed. Of course he'd noticed. He noticed everything.
"I'm still here," I confirmed, and let my hand drop from the lock.
Cambren crossed the room in three strides. Not rushing — deliberate. Like he'd been calculating this approach for days and had finally decided the math was worth it. He stopped close enough that I could feel the heat coming off his chest, and I had to tilt my head back to meet his eyes. The size difference between us hit me then — I was small, soft at the edges where he was all hard planes and quiet authority, and something about that contrast made my pulse hammer against my throat.
"Mauve." He said my name like he was testing its weight. His hand came up and his thumb traced along my jaw, feather-light. I shivered, and his eyes darkened. "You've been watching me."
"You've been watching me first."
"I have." No denial. No deflection. His thumb moved to the corner of my mouth, and my lips parted without my permission. "I've been trying to figure out what you taste like."
The sound I made was embarrassingly close to a whimper.
He kissed me then — slow, thorough, like he had all the time in the world and intended to use it. His hands bracketed my face, and I grabbed the front of that expensive shirt, fisting the fabric, pulling him closer because the alternative was melting through the floor. His tongue swept against mine and I tasted coffee and cedar and something darker, something that made me press my hips forward against him without any conscious decision to do so.
He groaned against my mouth. The sound vibrated through me, settling low in my belly, and I felt the hard length of him against my stomach. My hand dropped from his shirt to trace the outline of him through his trousers, and his hips jerked forward — the first break in his control I'd seen all week.
"Fuck, Mauve."
"Eventually," I said, and he laughed — a rough, startled sound that turned into a groan when I applied more pressure with my palm.
He pulled back just enough to look at me, his eyes half-lidded, his breathing uneven. "You're going to be trouble."
"I'm already trouble. That's why your family hired me."
His mouth curved, and then he was walking me backward until my thighs hit the edge of his desk. His hands found the hem of my blouse, and I raised my arms, letting him pull it over my head. The cool office air hit my skin, and I watched his gaze travel over me — my pale skin, the simple black bra, the way my chest was rising and falling too fast. He touched the strap on my shoulder, sliding it down with one finger, then reached behind me to unclasp it with a efficiency that suggested practice and a patience that suggested he wanted to take his time.
The bra fell away and his palms cupped my breasts, thumbs brushing over my nipples, and I arched into his hands with a gasp. He bent his head and his mouth replaced one hand, his tongue circling, and I buried my fingers in his hair and held on.
"Wait —" I pushed at his shoulders, and he pulled back immediately, his eyes searching my face. "Your shirt. Off."
He stripped it in one motion, and I finally got my hands on the body I'd been imagining. His chest was broad, dusted with dark hair, his stomach taut beneath skin that was rougher than I expected. I ran my palms over him, feeling the warmth, the texture, the way his muscles tensed under my touch.
"On the desk," he said, his voice rough.
"That's incredibly inappropriate for a workplace."
"Mauve."
I boosted myself onto the desk, and he stepped between my thighs. His hands slid up my legs, pushing my skirt up as he went, and I could feel myself getting wetter with every inch of exposed skin. He hooked his fingers into my underwear and I lifted my hips so he could pull them down, along with my shoes, tossing them somewhere behind him.
He stood there looking at me — skirt bunched around my waist, legs open, completely exposed — and I watched his jaw tighten. His hand skimmed up my inner thigh, and I trembled.
"You're shaking," he observed.
"I'm nervous."
"I know." His eyes met mine, and there was something fierce and tender in them at once. "I've got you."
His fingers found me, and I dropped my head back with a moan. He stroked through my slick folds, learning my shape, circling my clit with a maddening patience that made me want to scream. I gripped the edge of the desk and rolled my hips against his hand, chasing more pressure, more speed, more of anything.
"Cambren — please."
He slipped one finger inside me, then two, curling them just right, and I bit down on my lip to keep from crying out. His thumb kept working my clit in slow, devastating circles, and I could feel the tension building, coiling tighter with every stroke.
"I want to feel you come," he said, his voice low and rough. "Then I want to be inside you."
The words pushed me over the edge. I came apart on his hand, my inner walls clenching around his fingers, a broken sound escaping my throat. He worked me through it, slowing gradually, pressing kisses to my shoulder, my neck, my jaw.
When I could breathe again, I reached for his belt. He let me undo it, let me unzip his trousers and push them down with his boxer briefs, and his cock sprang free — thick, hard, flushed. I wrapped my hand around him and stroked, and he hissed through his teeth, his forehead dropping to mine.
"Condom," he said. "Wallet. Back pocket."
"Romantic."
"Pragmatic."
I fished it out, tore it open, and rolled it on him while he watched with those patient, hungry eyes. Then I pulled him toward me, wrapping my legs around his hips, and he notched himself at my entrance.
"Look at me," he said.
I did. I looked right into those weathered, careful eyes as he pushed inside me in one slow, deep thrust. I gasped at the stretch, the fullness, the overwhelming rightness of it, and he held still, letting me adjust.
"Okay?" His voice was barely controlled.
"Move."
He did. Slow at first, deliberate, pulling almost all the way out before sinking back in. I clung to his shoulders, my nails digging into his skin, and he set a rhythm that was deep and steady and absolutely maddening. The desk creaked beneath us. Papers rustled. A pen rolled off the edge and hit the floor.
"Harder," I breathed, and he obliged, his hips snapping forward, driving into me with a force that made my breasts bounce and my breath stutter.
The tension built again, faster this time, and I could feel him getting close too — his rhythm faltering, his breathing ragged, his hands gripping my hips hard enough to bruise. He reached between us and pressed his thumb to my clit, and I shattered, clenching around him, my orgasm pulling him over the edge with me. He groaned my name against my neck, his body shuddering, his hips jerking through the last of it.
We stayed like that for a long moment, breathing hard, his weight braced on his arms, my legs still wrapped around him. The cedar scent mixed with sweat and sex, and somewhere a phone was buzzing that neither of us moved to answer.
Finally, he pulled back enough to look at me. His hair was wrecked. His expression was soft in a way I'd never seen it.
"So," I said, still catching my breath. "Does this count as a board meeting?"
His laugh was quiet and genuine, rumbling through his chest into mine. "I think it counts as a hostile takeover."
I grinned, pressing my forehead to his. "I'm going to need a new contract clause."
"Which one?"
"The one where I get to do this again."
He kissed me, slow and warm, and I felt him smile against my mouth.
"Negotiable," he murmured. "Very negotiable."