Page 224 of Scarlet Wars
She never did.
Not from me.
Her shoulders lifted in a small shrug. “Seemed like the better option.”
I wrapped my arms around her waist, then tugged her back against me, both of us now facing the whiteboard like we were some ridiculous Think Tank Power Couple.
“Wanna clue me in what this is all about?” I murmured, chin grazing her hair.
“Hmmm.” She tapped the marker to her lips, smudging a tiny dot of black at the corner of her mouth. “Not sure yet. I’ve been feeling…anxious for the last few days. Like there’s something in my brain that itches and I can’t reach it.”
Her fingers drummed against the board. “I constantly feel like we’re missing something. I figured I’d throw it all up here, see where I land.”
I leaned down and kissed the curve of her neck, soft at first, meant to soothe, not derail.
Then again, soothing her had a way of derailing both of us.
I couldn’t help myself. My tongue swept across the faint taste of sleep-warm skin. A low groan rolled up my throat—unfiltered, honest—and it vibrated right against her.
“That,” she breathed, eyes drifting shut for a heartbeat, “is wildly distracting.”
“That,” I countered, teeth grazing gently where neck met shoulder, “was the intention.”
Her head tipped back, a helpless little tilt that I loved, and her breath caught all pretty and trapped.
“Caden,” she warned, softly, shakily, familiarly useless.
“Mhm?” I hummed, already kissing lower.
“We are supposed to be…thinking.” The sentence lost structural integrity halfway through, fraying at the edges.
“I am thinking,” I said. “Just not about whatever the hell is on this board.”
She made a strangled noise somewhere between offense and surrender. “We have conspiracies to solve.”
“I know,” I said, lips ghosting back up her throat. “And yet here you are, parading around our room in my shirt like the solution isn’t me fucking you into oblivion.”
My fingers drifted to the buttons of her shirt, undoing each one with unhurried precision, savoring the way the fabric parted beneath my hands until it finally revealed what I’d been hoping for: bare, flushed skin and nothing underneath.
She let her head fall against my chest as I ran my thumbs across the soft curve of her breasts, circling her nipples with enough pressure to make her moan. Quiet, involuntary, and so achingly responsive it made my pulse stutter.
“Let me help you focus,” I whispered into the shell of her ear. “You seem a little…distracted.”
My hand moved lower, skimming over the curve of her waist, then slipping between her thighs, and when my fingers found her center already slick, she gasped as her hips twitched toward my touch.
She moaned when I brushed over her clit, louder this time. Desperate. Needy. Exactly how I liked her.
“Ms. Thompson,” I growled roughly against her ear, “you’re very wet.”
“Yes, well,” she muttered, still managing to sound smug, “pulling out the whiteboard again wasveryexciting.”
My palm came down on her pussy in one hard, punishing slap, firm enough to make her gasp again, while her whole body twitched in response.
My other hand wrapped around her throat—lightly, but possessively—as I leaned in close, my breath hot against her cheek.
“You like mouthing off, don’t you? Try that again, and I’ll bend you over that desk until you can’t sit through a single war meeting this week.”
She shivered in my grip, and whispered, “Sounds like a proportionate punishment.”
