Chapter 75

Amelia

The box was velvet. Small, discreet, and so light in my palm it almost didn’t feel real. Richard handed it to me in the shadowed corner of the campaign floor, late enough that most of the staff had gone home and early enough that I hadn’t yet remembered how tired I was. He didn’t say anything when he passed it over. Just met my eyes with that impossible-to-read expression he wore when he was feeling too much to show any of it.

I opened the box slowly. Nestled inside was a silver crescent-shaped pendant on a fine chain. I stared at it for a moment, confused, until I saw the curve—the way it was shaped to sit along the dip of my throat, the way it would draw the eye to one specific spot.

“Won’t cover it completely,” he said quietly, “but it’ll draw attention just enough.”

I swallowed. My fingers brushed the delicate crescent and something in my chest ached. It was a beautiful piece. Subtle. Elegant. And entirely tactical.

“Thank you,” I whispered, fastening it around my neck. The cool metal settled directly over the half-overwritten mark. My wolf stirred at the contact.

“Tell senior staff it’s a gift from the council, a symbolic unity token for the press tour.”

“So they won’t ask questions.”

He nodded. “Let them see what they want to see.”

I tucked the pendant beneath my shirt, but I could still feel the weight of it. A reminder, a shield, a secret. And when I walked back down the hall, I could still feel his eyes on me.

Two days passed in a blur of inbox fires, sabotage cleanup, and frantic speech edits. The atmosphere inside campaign headquarters was increasingly tense, quiet, clipped voices, too many locked offices, and a constant sense that someone was watching, listening. Even Richard felt far away, behind layers of closed doors and tight-lipped meetings. There were no casual glances anymore, no magnetic moments of gravity pulling us together when we passed in the hall.

By the third night, I was alone in the resource room, the buzz of the overhead lights keeping me company while I logged donor records into the system. A week’s worth of handwritten forms sat in messy stacks beside the keyboard, each one needing to be scanned, validated, and entered manually. The room smelled faintly of toner, dust, and the peach lotion Tasha used. I didn’t mind the monotony. It kept my hands busy. My brain, less so.

I was halfway through the Q-R pile when I heard the door creak open behind me. My pulse jumped before the sound of his footsteps confirmed it.

“Still working?”

I turned slowly in my chair. Richard stood in the doorway, one eyebrow slightly raised, a loose file in one hand and that look—the one I’d nearly forgotten in the haze of everything else—resting in his eyes.

“I’m protecting democracy,” I said dryly. “Or at least preventing duplicate zip codes.”

He stepped inside, closing the door behind him with a deliberate click. “Form integrity is very important.”

He crossed to stand behind me, the heat of his body sinking into mine before he even touched me. I could feel his breath at the base of my neck.

“I thought I’d inspect for accuracy.”

My smile curled. “Personally?”

His hands slid around my waist.

“Thoroughly.”

I let out a soft exhale. “You’ve been ignoring me for three days.”

“I’ve been trying to be good,” he murmured, kissing the shell of my ear. “It’s unbearable.”

He turned me gently and bent me over the desk. The file he carried slid off with a dull thud. His hands moved up my thighs, under my skirt, teasing. My breath hitched.

“I’ve missed this,” he said, voice hoarse. “You're like a wound that won’t close.”

“I thought we were pretending we could live without it,” I whispered, dizzy already.

“I’ve changed my mind.”

Then he was pressing into me, rough and sure, and I cried out into my arm to keep from being loud. The relief was overwhelming. Our bodies met like magnets realigned. He thrust harder, one hand gripping my hip while the other slid beneath my shirt to cup my breast.

“You like this desk?” he rasped. “You going to think of me every time you sit here?”

“I already do.”

He bent low, kissing along the back of my neck, tracing the edge of the necklace he’d given me. “You're mine, Amelia. You know that, right?”

I moaned into the wood, trembling with every deep stroke. He moved faster, chasing the edge, pushing me over it with rough praise and filthy promises. I shattered with his name in my mouth. He followed moments later, gasping against my skin.

We barely had a second to breathe before it happened.

Richard

The footsteps were unmistakable, quick, confident, careless. Jenny.

I pulled back instantly, blood roaring in my ears. “Get under the desk,” I said, already moving to straighten my shirt.

Amelia dropped instantly, silent as smoke, disappearing just as the door creaked open.

“Dad?” Jenny’s voice rang out, cheerful and casual.

I cleared my throat. “Just finishing up some donor paperwork.”

I barely got the words out before I felt her. Her hands, her mouth, that familiar heat and hunger.

She didn’t hesitate, she never did. One hand wrapped around the base of my cock and then her lips closed around me, hot and wet and merciless. My grip on the desk tightened until the wood creaked.

Jenny stepped into the room. “Still a few hours’ worth of forms left?”

I made myself nod, barely glancing at her. “Apparently.”

Amelia hollowed her cheeks. My hips jerked forward involuntarily. I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood.

“Didn’t think you’d still be working,” Jenny said, flipping through a stack of folders near the printer.

I could hardly hear her. Amelia was taking me deeper, licking slow and cruel, sucking like she wanted to ruin me. I forced myself to breathe. Forced myself to smile.

“Just tying up loose ends.”

Jenny wandered a little further into the room. “Have you seen Amelia? I had a question about the volunteers assigned to the west district.”

I could barely form words. My brain was all fire and teeth and her mouth, that perfect, sinful mouth.

“She left about an hour ago,” I said, voice strained but steady. “Try her line.”

Jenny nodded. “Okay. Night.”

The door clicked shut.

I exhaled like I’d just escaped death.

“Holy—fuck,” I hissed. My hands found Amelia’s hair, gentle but shaking. “You’re going to ruin me.”

She didn’t stop. She looked up at me with those wicked eyes and kept going, taking every inch until my knees buckled and I nearly collapsed into the chair behind me.

When I finally came, it was with her name on my lips and my hand knotted in her hair like a prayer. She swallowed, slow and deliberate, and then sat back on her heels, wiping the corner of her mouth with a smug little smile.

“You were saying something about being good?”

I pulled her to her feet, kissed her hard and backed her up against the desk until our bodies were flush again. My hands tangled in her hair as I breathed her in, her lips swollen from everything she’d just done to me, her eyes wild and dark with triumph.

“I don’t care about good anymore,” I growled, my voice raw, still wrecked from trying to stay composed. “I just want you. On your knees. On this desk. On top of me. Wherever I can get you.”

She gasped softly, her fingers curling into my shirt, and I felt her whole body tremble against mine. Her mouth brushed mine again, hungrier now, like she couldn’t get enough.