She’d not often been the source of gossip in her lifetime, but Vanessa knew without question that she had been the topic of this man’s conversation, at least one half of it. She never turned to the doors, remaining facing the men at the elevator glided upwards, waiting for the younger man to make his mistake. She didn’t have to wait long. His eyes lifted from his shoes, catching hers, unable to look away as she stared him down. She knew from the hint of color that reddened his ears that she was not wrong in her assumptions.
Her nose couldn’t pick out his scent, but she knew what he wasn’t. He wasn’t a wolf, was not an apex predator in any situation. He didn’t possess the spine of steel they did, the fearlessness and indomitability they did. She wasn’t sure what he was, but he may as well have been a human. After a few moments, his chin jutted out, lips curling into a sneer as if he’d only just remembered he was several stations above her in the firm’s hierarchy. I’m going to ruin this man’s whole fucking career.
“Fine weather we’re having this week.” Her voice was overloud in the small, silent car, ringing with confidence. “Judge Ludstrohm is always in a good mood when the weather is nice. That bodes well for us.”
“Any day he can get onto the Ketterling court means fast and easy cases,” Ekins agreed with a chuckle, his eyes raising to give her a warm smile.
They bounced to a soft stop, the doors opening with a ding on the floor beneath Grayson’s office.
She didn’t need to feed them more ammunition, she had decided as soon as she’d seen the man’s smirk. She grumbled the entire way she stomped up the stairs, Johanna raising an eyebrow when she burst through the door.
“Johanna, what do you know about that new guy, Brock?”
The older she-wolf’s lips turned up in a pink-painted smile.
“I know his Majesty doesn’t care for him. He’s someone’s brother-in-law, I think? There was something shady with him at his previous firm, poaching clients, something like that. It all got swept under the rug before he was hired. I was surprised when they gave him a partner, but I think Gray just went along with it. He knew he was outvoted.”
“Does he not like him because of poaching clients?” That sort of behavior was unscrupulous, but it was precisely Grayson’s MO, she thought.
“No, I believe he said something about not liking how he smells?”
Vanessa snorted, pushing open the door to his office, knowing she would have been stopped had he been in the middle of something. His eyebrow raised as soon as the door closed behind her.
“I know that pissy look isn’t for me.”
“No, it’s for that smirky motherfucker you made partner, even though he doesn’t have enough chips to buy his way in.”
Grayson began to laugh before she’d even finished.
“Brock? I fucking hate that asshole. He’s a weasel or a badger, some overgrown rodent, I’m positive. The smell of him makes my stomach turn. Why? What did he do? Did he say something to you?”
She was in front of his chair by then, trapped between him and the desk, and she knew the expression on her face couldn’t be described as anything other than pouty.
“It’s fine, don’t worry about it.”
“It’s not fine if it has you so worked up. Tell me what he did so I can ensure he’s punished accordingly.”
Vanessa smiled, huffing out an aggrieved breath.
“Why does it matter? I’m just a mid-level associate. What I think doesn’t matter.”
“It matters if I say it matters.” He crowded her against the desk, gripping her chin and tilting her face to meet his eye. “And it matters if he upset you. And if you want him punished, he will be. What my baby wants, my baby gets.”
She dissolved into giggles against his shirt front.
“Oh yeah? Since when? Do you think we might get a break after the holidays? Is there ever a point when things slow down?”
“So we can go to Tahiti?”
“Bora Bora,” she corrected. “I don’t know what the point in dating a rich asshole is if he’s never going to take me to the one place I want to go. Your shoe shine guy would probably be a better sugar daddy.”
“Did you come all the way up here to bust my balls for no reason? Did you just want to complain about someone without really complaining? What do you actually need?”
Vanessa pressed her lips together, unwilling to admit that she had, in fact, been coming up to his office to engage his balls, only not in the way to which he was alluding. She wanted to lean over his desk, let him slide his cock home, and help her stop squirming in her seat. She’d had the dream again early that morning, had woken with slickness between her thighs and an ache in her core that only he could diminish. Grayson must’ve sensed her true motivation, smelled it on the air, more likely, as he gave her a shark-like grin. Sure enough, he lowered his nose to the side of her neck, inhaling deeply.
“Mmmm . . . Did you come up here just to make my cock hard, rabbit?” He buried his face in her hair, breathing her in, rubbing the silky strands between his thumb and forefinger, groaning as he did so, keeping her locked in the steel cage of his arms. “You smell good enough to eat.” His whisper made the hair stand up on her neck, a shiver down her back. “You’re making my balls ache, Vanessa.”
She gripped the front of his shirt, needing him desperately, refusing to admit it.
“Tell me what you need, babydoll.” He palmed her jaw, his hand engulfing her head, thumb sweeping over the apple of her cheek. Vanessa leaned into the pressure for the space of several heartbeats, wanting nothing more than to melt against him, before snapping herself out of it.
“I don’t need anything,” she insisted peevishly, his sly smile causing her to stiffen. She didn’t like admitting that she needed him for anything, and certainly not for this.
He’d long been relocated to his executive suite by then, the glass-walled cube in front of her desk empty for several days before a senior associate moved in. The first time she’d stepped off the elevator on the upper floor, she had exclaimed over the frigid temperature, and Johanna had shrugged, tugging her heavy cardigan a bit tighter.
“I’d rather have to bring a sweater every day than listen to him throwing up all afternoon at least once a week. The cold helps with the headaches.”
Vanessa told herself that the cold air was the reason her nipples pebbled beneath her shift dress. It had nothing at all to do with the dream she’d had and the heated state she’d woken in. The restless state she was still in, if she were being honest with herself, which she didn’t actually feel like being at that moment. The dream was one she’d had repeatedly, owing to the full moon activities that had taken place the prior month. She disliked having it, for the previous month had been terrible. She hated the way he’d made her feel, hated that what they’d done had been the byproduct of their argument, and the fact that it had become a recurring fantasy made her blood boil with more than just arousal.
Going to court the week of the moon was unorthodox, and most of the time, opposing counsel worked with them to make arrangements, but that month she’d not been so lucky. She had been on heat suppressants since puberty, but she’d only needed to take the wolfsbane suppressant one other time in her life, in her university days. The pills had a chalky, artificial taste going down, and she’d gagged as she’d swallowed them. Her wolf would be in agony. A different sort of ache lay in store, along with low-grade nausea and an itchiness in her skin, but she would be in court. She would remain in her human skin as the moon reached its zenith, her muscles and bones staying exactly as they were, and she would show up to court as scheduled.
He had been furious.
“I already tried to have it changed. Counsel understands, it’s their clients. They’re just being dicks because they can. It’s fine. I’ll get through it.”
