The monitor room was supposed to be empty. Becca’s boots barely made a sound as she stepped inside, her breath a muted cloud in the sterile air. She was there only to double-check the retrieval logs from the borehole sensors before the system's automated cycle reset at midnight.. They were delicate instruments that plunged into the ice to drink in stories from centuries past.
But what she walked into was not the cold hum of servers and blinking lights. The door slid shut behind her with a hush, and she stepped inside, boots muting against the vinyl floor.
She inhaled and froze. Mid-step. One gloved hand still ghosting over the door handle like it might vanish under her grip. Her breath caught and refused to move.
Ellie. Bent over the console.
Her jacket half-fallen, clinging to one shoulder like shame reconsidered. Her mouth was open in a soft, broken vowel that Becca couldn’t quite hear. And behind her, or rather inside her, Liam had her pinned with a desperation that almost looked familiar.
He was fucking claiming her, bone-deep and deliberate, like her body was a territory he intended to plant a flag in. Becca saw the glisten of sweat on his back, saw his jaw tighten as he buried himself again and again into the slick cradle of Ellie’s body.
Their breath fogged the nearest glass wall. Every sound of the slick skin, choked moan, the wet slap of hips on hips echoed.
Becca should have turned away.
But her eyes held.
Drank.
Ellie was unravelling. She was reaching back, her nails clawing into Liam’s thigh, her mouth shaping a curse or a prayer. She moved like a woman who had surrendered the concept of need.
Becca watched Ellie’s legs tremble, her thighs shaking around Liam’s frame, his hands locked tight on her waist as he fucked her through the tremors.
It felt like steam had curled up from their bodies like incense. Jackets slumped on nearby chairs like the aftermath of a slow striptease. Her thermal pants were tugged down just far enough to grant access, bunched at her knees like an afterthought. Becca could see the shine where Liam slipped in and out of her, could hear the obscene music of it.
And for one long, horrifying, intoxicating moment, she imagined what it would feel like to bend someone that way.
The memory of being worshipped properly curled up her ribs like a lover she owned.
Of being slick and ready, not from desperation, but because she’d allowed it.
Because the need had knelt before her.
Because someone had begged her for permission to give in, to be used, to be undone by her hands and her rules.
Her breath grew thick, heavy in her mouth. She could feel it building, that ache, she hadn’t let herself feel in years. Something molten stirred deep inside her belly, dragging sharp nails down the wall of her restraint.
Not envy. Not quite.
But hunger. Yes.
And god, it had teeth.
She didn’t feel embarrassed. She felt the slow crack of a woman who had forgotten what she had buried within herself.
Becca blinked. A stumble back into her spine. Her throat clicked dryly. For a moment she was stunned, not by the act itself because people always fucked where they weren't supposed to, but by the sheer animal need of it.
She closed the door as though sealing a secret inside.
Turning fast, she wrapped her arms around herself against the fresh cold and started walking briskly down the hall, breath catching in a disbelieving half-laugh she bit down before it escaped.
What the actual fuck.
Her mind reeled, still stained by the fevered images. She would need to scrub that from her memory before she could look either of them in the eye tomorrow.
But she didn’t get far.
A collision.
Shoulder to chest. Hard. The clipboard clattered to the floor.
Her gaze snapped upward, and there he was, Adrian.
Snow dusted his curls like he’d walked straight out of a storm, cold still clinging to the hollows of his collar. His lips parted in soft surprise, but his eyes?
His eyes devoured her.
He saw the flush in her cheeks, the quiver in her lower lip, the too-wide pupils dilated not by cold.
And it hit her: Did her eyes give away too much? Or was it her demeanour?
“Dr. Voss?” he was amused.
She lifted her chin, trying to collect the papers strewn across.
He bent to retrieve his clipboard. His lips twitched.
“Um, sorry. I- I was here to record readings,” he said.
"Then do it quickly," she said, voice crisp enough to snap frost from the air. She rose while handing him the papers.
"This is a workspace, not a fucking playground."
Adrian dipped his head slightly, “Yes, ma’am”.
Ma’am.
He said it with the calmness of a man unaware of the storm he’d just summoned. He said it as if it were the most natural thing to call her that. And gods, it should have been harmless. But Becca felt it like a spark down her spine.
The air changed. Her ribs tightened.
That word, ma’am, landed with heat in the hollows of her. It slithered under the tailored calm, past the pleats and precision, until it found that deep, damp place where rules melted and power pulsed with heat.
It summoned someone.
Not the Becca who filed reports and lived in thermal layers.
The other one.
The woman who once pulled gasps from lovers like confessions.
Who knew exactly how to make someone beg to be touched, and then earn it.
Her dominion dragon.
The part of her that was forged in fire.
The part of her that expected to be obeyed.
That didn’t flinch at desire, but commanded.
And that dragon had slept for years.
Caged.
Starved.
Shamed into silence.
Becca had shut that door herself, afraid of what would happen if she ever let it stretch its wings again.
But this boy, this maddening, infuriating man, with that maddening curl at the corner of his mouth, had no idea what he’d stirred inside of her.
“Ma’am.”
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