The storm inside Raine's head was louder than the one screaming against the walls of Skyfall Lodge. It was their first night. The grand, rustic building, all exposed beams and stone, creaked under the storm rush. The Mercury team was dispersed in various wings, but the world had shrunk to this she was under the same roof as him, and every nerve was a live wire.
She worked late in the temporary office set up in the library, not out of dedication, but because the four-poster bed in her lonely room promised only a cage for her circling thoughts. If she filled every second with data, she could outrun the memory of his cold assessment in the garage, the way Beckett watched her now with the focus of a bomb technician. The fire cracking in the great fireplace, casting long, dancing shadows. It was past midnight when she finally shut her laptop, her eyes tired. She needed air that wasn't thick with woodsmoke and unspoken tension. The library had a private elevator that descended to a secluded garden terrace. She headed for it, her footsteps silent on the carefully laid rug.
The sky through the wall of windows was bruised purple and black, lightning flickering in the distance. A perfect mirror of her extreme state of agitation.
She pressed the call button. The soft ding was the only sound.
The doors slid open. And there he was.
Declan Montgomery stood in the center of the elevator, one hand in his pocket, the other holding a tablet. He was staring at the screen, his brow wrinkled in concentration. He'd gotten rid of his suit jacket. The sleeves of his crisp white shirt were rolled up to his elbows, revealing the rigid cords of his forearms. The sight was so intimately familiar, so shockingly vulnerable, it stole the air from her lungs.
He looked up.
For a suspended moment, there was nothing. Just the shock of shared space. The elevator, a polished bronze box, felt suddenly as small as a coffin.
"Going down?" he asked. His voice was neutral, the CEO addressing staff.
It was the formality that broke her. After the selection, after the loaded look in the garage, he could stand there and ask her this? As if she were a stranger? A fresh, hot anger, born of sleepless nights and sharp fear, ignited in her chest.
"Yes," she said, her voice clipped. She stepped in, keeping to the far wall. The doors whispered shut.
The silence was a living thing, thick and suffocating. She watched the numbers above the door light up: 42, 41, 40. The scent of him filled the small space—that specific, expensive blend of cedar and clean linen and something darkly spice. The scent from the gala. The scent from her dreams. It wrapped around her, an unforgettable memory. Her skin prickled with the ghost of his touch. Her heart began a slow, heavy abruptly against her ribs.
"The preliminary analysis for the Mercury due diligence," he said suddenly, not looking at her, still studying his tablet. "Your section."
She stiffened. "What about it?"
"It's aggressive. Your discount rate assumptions border was reckless." His tone was rational, cold. The judge delivering a verdict. "You're factoring in variables we can't control. It's unpolished. It shows a lack of understanding of practical risk."
The criticism was a spark to her flammable-dry nerves. Unpolished. The word he'd use for a piece of furniture, not a person. Not her work, which she'd bled over.
"It's not reckless. It's realistic," she fired back, turning to face his profile. "You said the project defines the company's future. Shouldn't we look at the future with clear eyes, not just optimistic spreadsheets? Ignoring external variables is what creates a disastrous blind spots."
He finally turned his head, his grey eyes capturing hers. There was no warmth in them, only a icy intensity. "Optimistic spreadsheets, as you call them, are based on decades of institutional knowledge. Yours are based on academic theory. This isn't a classroom, Ms. Sterling. Real consequences have real costs."
Ms. Sterling. The formality was a slap. It erased the terrace, the whispered confessions. It put her firmly on the other side of the line he himself had drawn.
"And playing it safe has a cost too!" she shot back, her voice rising. "It costs innovation. It costs truth. Or is the goal just to make the numbers pretty for the board, not to see what's actually there?" She was crossing a line, she knew it. But the fury felt good. It was better than the want, better than the fear.
His expression darkened. A muscle ticked in his jaw. "The goal," he said, each word a chip of ice, "is to execute a successful merger. Not to indulge an intern's fantasy of tearing down established systems to prove a point."
"Is that what you think this is?" The hurt was so sharp it was distracting. "A fantasy? A point? My mother is drowning in medical bills. I don't have the luxury of fantasies. I'm trying to do the job you selected me for, and you're dismissing it because it doesn't fit the Montgomery way—a way that seems to be working so well for your brother!"
It was a low blow. She saw the impact—a flash of something raw and pained in his eyes before it was shuttered behind impenetrable frost.
The elevator chose that moment to die.
The lights flickered, then went out, descending them into utter blackness. A sickening pitch dropped her stomach. A heavy mechanical groan echoed in the shaft, and then a jarring, metallic CRUNCH shook the box. She was thrown sideways, off-balance in the dark.
She cried out, a short, sharp sound of terror. Her arms lashed, finding nothing.
Then his hands found her.
He grabbed her shoulders, steadying her against the sudden, violent stop. His grip was iron, his body a solid wall in the darkness. She could feel the heat of him, the rapid rise and fall of his chest. The scent of him was everywhere.
"Are you hurt?" His voice was close, rough in her ear. The CEO was gone. This was just a man in the dark.
She shook her head, unable to speak. The shock of the stop, the shock of his touch, short-circuited her anger. Every nerve ending was screaming. He didn't let go.
"The storm must have tripped the backup generator. It'll be a moment," he murmured. His thumbs moved, a barely-there stroke against the thin fabric of her blouse he touched her bre*st.
That tiny movement aroused her. A sob caught in her throat. It was fear, yes. But it was also the release of a week's worth of tension, of pretending he was a stranger. Here, in the absolute dark, the masks didn't matter. There was only the memory of how right his hands had felt on her.
"Let go of me," she whispered, but it was a plea, not a command.
"No."
The single word was final. A confession.
He shifted his grip, one hand sliding from her shoulder to cup the back of her neck. His other arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her flare up against him. She gasped. Every hard plane of his body imprinted itself on hers. She could feel the furious beat of his heart, or maybe it was her own.
"This is a mistake," she breathed, even as her hands came up, flattening against his chest. She meant to push him away. She didn't.
"I know." His voice was an irresistible sound. "Your analysis was perfect."
The admission shattered her. It wasn't about the work. It was about this. Them.
Then his mouth was on hers.
It was nothing like the gala. That had been discovery, heat. This was a collision. It was frustration and fury and five days of torturous denial exploding. His kiss was desperate, punishing, claiming. It was all teeth and tongue and stolen breath. She kissed him back with equal intensity, her fingers curling into his shirt, fisting the fabric. A low moan vibrated from his chest into hers.
This was wrong. It was professional suicide. It was everything she'd sworn to avoid.
It was the only thing in the world she wanted.
He walked her backward until her shoulders hit the cold elevator wall. The shock of the metal against her back, the heat of him against her front, created a madness. His hands were everywhere—tangling in her hair, gripping her hip, sliding under her blazer. His touch burned through layers of fabric, branding her.
She arched against him, a silent cry against his mouth. One of his legs slid between hers, the pressure intense, making her whimper. He spread her legs wide apart and he traced her p*ussy with his finger the reaction from her drove him even crazier as he slowly teased as her, he felt the wetness in her p*ssy and her moan even softer you are so wet and it's driving me crazy he whispered to her, she responded by pulling his hands deep into her juicy p*ssy he fingered her wildly forgetting everything else. This was what she wanted him all of him. It was a battle they were both determined to lose.
He tore his mouth from hers, his breath hot and ragged against her throat. "Tell me to stop," he demanded, his voice thick with a need that mirrored her own.
She couldn't. She wanted this moment him and nothing could stop what she felt for him this crazy rush. The words were ashes. All she could do was turn her head, seeking his mouth again, her answer was in the hungry meeting of their lips. She scratched and caressed his back with pleasure running her hands around his pants fiddling with his zippers then she touched a huge bulge from his pants and she moaned whispering unintelligible words trying to find her way to his d*ck.
He made a sound of pure surrender. His hands grew bolder, more possessive grabbing her breast and teasing her nipples as they were hard and desperately in need on his mouth on them. He battled with her blazer until he found his way to her br*ast sucking and biting it with pleasure as she moaned into his ears. She felt a strong surge through her body as his fingers teased and f*uck her, like she was about to reach climax her eyes rolled backwards ad held on tightly to him. The world narrowed to the dark, to the feel of him, to the taste of coffee and storm and him. The elevator, the company, the future—all of it melted away in the original, electric truth of his body against hers.
A loud, mechanical strike echoed in the shaft.
Then, a hum.
The lights flickered once, twice, and blazed back on.
They went cold, locked together, panting, disarranged. Her lipstick was smeared. His shirt was half-untucked from her clutching hands. His zippers was undone with half his d*ck out. The reality of the illuminated elevator, of who they were, crashed down with the force of the earlier drop.
Horror dawned in his eyes, clean and sharp. He recoiled as if she'd burned him, dropping his hands and stumbling back a step. The distance between them was suddenly an uncrossable ocean.
The elevator gave a gentle shudder and began its smooth descent again.
They stood in brutal silence, the only sound was their heavy breathing. He straightened his shirt and his pant with sharp, furious tugs, his face a mask of stormy self-loathing. She fumbled with her blazer, her fingers trembling too badly to button it. The heat of him was still on her skin, but the air between them was now icy.
What have we done?
The doors slid open with a cheerful ding.
The bright lights of the main lobby poured in.
And standing there, holding two steaming coffees, was Beckett.
His easy smile was in place until he took them in—Raine's flushed face, swollen lips, wild eyes Declan's rigid posture, the furious set of his jaw, the noticeable, crackling energy of a broken taboo hanging in the air between them.
Beckett's smile vanished. His eyes, sharp and perceptive, darted from Raine's stricken face to Declan's stony one. The understanding that dawned there was slow, deliberate, and complete. It wasn't suspicion anymore. It was knowledge.
He didn't say a word. He just held out one of the coffees toward Raine, his gaze never leaving Declan's.
"Looks like you could use this," Beckett said, his voice dangerously quiet. "Sir."