MATED TO FATHER, FATED TO SONS

Chapter 170: KEEP IT OPEN

AMARIS

Oh. Not this again.

"Rowan." I pressed one hand flat against his chest. "You know that being with you is more complicated than—"

"Than being with Ryker."

I went still. He knew exactly what I meant and there was no denying it.

"That is a lot," I breathed.

He did not move back. His mouth found the side of my neck and I felt him breathe me in, slow and deliberate, and my hand on his chest gripped the fabric of his shirt instead of pushing.

"I don’t care," he murmured against my skin. "I will have you all to myself, Amaris."

I pulled back enough to look at his face. "How exactly do you intend to do that. You are engaged to Lila. You have acting Alpha responsibilities right now. You have a list of reasons why this is not straightforward and I have the same list and some of mine are worse than yours."

His fingers came up and caught my chin and tilted my face up to his. He looked at me for one moment, steady and certain and entirely decided about something I had not caught up with yet.

"Leave the logistics to me."

He did not wait for my answer.

His mouth came down on mine and his hands went into my hair and I grabbed his shirt with both fists and he kissed me with intent, his tongue against mine, slow and thorough, the kind that had nothing rushed in it and everything decided. My hands moved from his shirt to his shoulders. He pulled me closer. The list of complications I had been about to recite evaporated completely and I was not sorry about it.

Then he lifted me.

My legs went around him before I had decided to and he carried me the three steps to the desk and set me down on the edge of it and everything on the surface went somewhere on the floor. Papers. A pen. Something heavy that cracked when it landed.

This is either the best or worst decision I have made in a study today. I have made some truly spectacular decisions in studies recently.

He stepped back. Just looked at me. Sitting on his father’s desk with my hair undone and my chest moving and my legs hanging off the edge.

His head tilted. "This is a better use of this room."

"Don’t," I said.

He reached out and pushed my legs apart and his hands rested on my inner thighs, warm and unhurried, like he had all morning and intended to use every minute of it.

"Keep them open for me," he said. Low. Direct.

I kept them open.

I am legally married to this man’s father. I have been legally married to this man’s father for eleven days. This is fine. Everything is fine.

His mouth found mine again, harder this time, his hands in my hair holding me exactly where he wanted me. My hands were on his jaw, his neck, pulling him in. He walked me back until my hands hit the desk behind me and I held on.

His mouth left mine and moved to my throat. He worked his way down and I felt his hands on the front of my dress and his mouth was at my chest and he pulled the fabric aside and his mouth closed over my breast and the sound I made was immediate and completely unplanned.

The fact that this is happening on his father’s desk is information I am going to put somewhere I cannot reach it.

He sucked hard. His tongue worked in circles and his teeth grazed lightly and he did not ease into it, he was thorough and deliberate and entirely aware of what it was doing to me and he did not stop. His hand closed over the other breast and kneaded with the same focused attention, his thumb moving across my nipple slow and then not slow, and I was gripping the edge of the desk with both hands and my back was arching off it and I was making sounds I had given up trying to suppress.

He is going to be insufferable about this. Completely insufferable. I am going to let him anyway.

"Rowan." My voice came out completely wrecked.

He did not stop.

His hand moved from my breast down to the hem of my dress and pushed it up and his fingers pulled the fabric of my underwear aside without removing it and one finger pushed inside me and I gripped the edge of the desk hard.

He kept his mouth at my breast. He kept his hand moving.

I was pressing into his hand and pressing into his mouth at the same time and he had found a rhythm that was building fast and his mouth was doing something at my breast that made everything worse and I could feel every part of myself pulling toward the thing he was building and he knew it and was doing it deliberately and without mercy.

"Rowan." Urgent. "I’m about to—"

He stopped.

Both. At the same time. Mouth. Hand. Gone.

I stared at him.

He looked back at me with his jaw tight and his chest moving and a smirk sitting at the corner of his mouth.

"What," I said flatly.

"If you want more," he murmured, "come to my room tonight."

I stared at him.

"What about now."

"Now," he said, stepping back and fixing his collar, entirely composed while I was completely the opposite, "you leave with the longing."

I pushed off the desk.

"You brute." I pulled my dress down and my hands were not entirely steady and he could see that and knew it and was doing absolutely nothing about it. "You absolute brute."

"You could beg," he offered. "I would consider it."

"I will not be begging anyone for anything." I pointed at his chest. "Least of all you."

"It won’t hurt." His eyes held mine. "I’ve been the one begging for weeks."

I rolled my eyes so hard it was almost audible. "You men and your fragile egos." I turned toward the door. "Some of us have actual things to do today."

"My room tonight," he said behind me.

I did not answer.

I pulled the door open and walked into the corridor and closed it behind me and kept walking.

My body was still absolutely furious with me. My head was already trying to work out whether going to his room tonight was a decision I was going to make or one that had already been made for me. That was the thing about Rowan. He made you think you were choosing when he had already arranged the outcome and was just waiting for you to arrive at it. Diabolical. The man was completely diabolical and I had walked into it eyes open.

I walked toward the kitchen wing muttering under my breath about Rowan and his patience and his calculated composure. To think I had genuinely believed he was better than Ryker. Ryker was morally grey on his best day but Ryker was not diabolical. Ryker would not have stopped. Ryker would not have stepped back, fixed his collar, and told me to come find him later with that specific look on his face that said he already knew I would.

Rowan was worse than Ryker. He was just better at hiding it.

I pushed through the kitchen doors.

The morning staff were already moving. I rolled my shoulders back and opened my mouth.

"What did you just say, Mrs. Car—"

"I am telling you," Mrs. Caroline was saying, her back to me, her voice tight with conviction, "there are standards in this house that will not be compromised regardless of what the Alpha decides. I have served this pack for thirty years and I have never—"

"Mrs. Caroline." Freya’s voice came from near the window. Low. Warning. "I would suggest you stop."

"I will not stop." Mrs. Caroline set something down on the counter with a sharp sound. "I will not serve a common mistress under this roof. I will not serve—"

She turned and saw me in the doorway.

She looked straight at me and did not stop.

"The Alpha’s fuck whore under the roof of his legitimate Luna."

The kitchen went completely silent.

Freya, standing near the window with a cup in her hand, went very still.

"Excuse me," she said. Very quiet. "What did you just say."

Mrs. Caroline lifted her chin. "I said I will not serve the Alpha’s fuck whore under the roof of his legitimate Luna."

Freya’s arm came up fast. Her palm aimed for the back of Mrs. Caroline’s head.

I crossed the kitchen in three steps and caught Freya’s wrist before it landed.

She turned.

Her eyes met mine and they were cold and bright and she had not expected me to be fast enough and that was written plainly on her face before she could put it away.

We stood there. Her wrist in my hand. Her eyes on my face.