Page 172 of Stranger to Love

Above me, I heard her take a slow, trembling breath before she spoke again, her voice now dangerously low and silky.

"Actually, John, let's skip the projections. I'd like to move straight to the... hands-on implementation."

I didn't wait for another word. I leaned forward, burying my face in the heat of her, finally giving her the implementation she was asking for while she stared down a board of directors.

I pressed my tongue against the silk, the heat radiating from her making my own head spin. I had to physically bite my own lip to keep from letting out a low groan; the irony wasn't lost on me that I was the one who had to be silent while she was on a literal stage.

Above me, Carrie was a masterpiece of compartmentalisation. If you looked at the screen, you’d see a high-powered consultant nodding thoughtfully at a bar chart. But down here? Down here, she was trembling.

I pulled back just enough to hook my fingers into the lace of her underwear, tugging the fabric to the side. The sight of her—completely slick and glistening—made my pulse thrum in my ears. I took my time, teasing her by licking the sensitive skin of her inner thigh first, feeling the muscles there jump under my touch. Then, I let my tongue flick out, tracing a slow, agonising line through her folds.

Carrie’s hand knotted violently into my hair. Her knuckles grazed my scalp with a possessive, desperate force, but her voice was a goddamn miracle.

"I think... the risk-to-reward ratio here is... substantial," she said. There was a tiny, rhythmic catch in her breathing, but to the men on that call, she just sounded pensive.

I smirked against her skin. She was so controlled. It was a challenge now. I wanted to see that mask shatter. I wanted to hear Dr. Carter lose her professional vocabulary and replace it with my name. I settled in, using my thumb to find her centre while my tongue stayed relentless, swirling and pressing until I heard her pen clatter onto the desk above.

"Carry on, John," she choked out, her legs quivering against my shoulders. "I'm... listening intently."

I decided to be a total sadist. I slowed my pace, dragging out every movement with agonising deliberation. I wanted to feel the exact moment her intellectual brain lost the war against her body. I swirled my tongue in slow, wet circles, barely applying any pressure, just enough to keep her on that razor-thin edge between a professional Dr. Carter and a woman about to come apart in her leather office chair.

Above me, the silence was deafening. I could hear John's voice through the speakers, talking about overheads, but Carrie’s breathing was the only thing that mattered.

"Dr. Carter? Your thoughts on the merger?" John asked.

There was a long, excruciating pause. I felt her thighs clamp shut against my ears, a silent plea for me to stop—or maybe to never stop. Her hand in my hair was no longer just holding me; she was pulling me closer.

"I think..." she started, her voice cracking for the first time. She cleared her throat, trying to find that iron-clad composure. "I think the merger is... inevitable. The... the synergy is..."

I chose that exact moment to stop the teasing. I flattened my tongue and applied a firm, steady pressure, flicking upward with a rhythmic intensity I knew she couldn't fight.

"The synergy is... oh god," she whispered.

She managed to catch herself, turning the exclamation into a muffled cough, but I could feel her heart hammering against the back of her legs. Her hips gave a tiny, involuntary buck. She was staring at a screen full of businessmen while I was tasting the exact moment her control snapped.

Against all odds, Dr. Carter found her footing. It was terrifying, really—one second she was on the verge of a total neurological meltdown, and the next, she was reclining slightly in her chair, her voice levelling out into that smooth, academic baritone. She even had the audacity to crack a dry joke about the quarterly dividends that had the men on the screen chuckling.

I smirked, my face still pressed against the heat of her. She thought she had won. She thought she had regained the high ground because she had managed to survive the first wave. She was actually leaning back, sounding more confident by the second.

I decided to remind her who was actually in charge of her nervous system right then.

I slid two fingers deep inside her. I didn’t go slow. I found her rhythm instantly, curling my fingers upward to hook against the sensitive curve of her.

The effect was instantaneous. Carrie’s confident sentence about market expansion died a sudden, violent death in her throat. She managed to throw a hand over her mouth, masking a sharp, high-pitched hitch as a fit of coughing.

"Excuse me," she rasped into her palm, her knuckles white.

I didn't let up. I increased the pace, my thumb working in a brutal, rhythmic counterpoint to my fingers. I could feel her internal muscles clenching around me, betraying the calm expression she was desperately trying to hold for the camera. Her other hand was flat on the desk, her pen snapping loudly in her grip—a sound I was sure the microphone picked up.

"Dr. Carter? You sound quite congested," John said, his voice full of concern. "Perhaps we should cut this short?"

"No," Carrie choked out, her hips giving a helpless, jagged lift off the chair. "I’m... perfectly... capable... of finishing."

I grinned against her thigh. She was stubborn, I’d give her that. But as I added a third finger and picked up the speed, I could hear her breathing turn into a series of jagged, shallow whistles. She wasn’t looking at the screen anymore; she was staring at the wall, her eyes blown wide and glassy, her professional reputation hanging by a single, fraying thread.

The moment the man on the call started droning on about presenting his screen, Carrie’s hands flew across the keyboard. I heard the frantic, rapid-fire clack of her typing, followed by a sharp, muffled "Oh!" that she caught behind her palm.

The silence from the speakers changed—the subtle shift in white noise that told me she had successfully hit the mute button.