And he kept walking closer, until he was just a few feet away, then even fewer. The closer he got, the tighter I held on to that piece of paper behind my back, as though hiding it from his sight was enough to prove I hadn’t been sneaking around.
Dante didn’t stop, not even when one more step would’ve brought his body to press against mine. He took that one step,and that’s when I felt the heat off him, his angled planes against my curves.
I took a few shuddering breaths for courage and tried to ignore the fire I felt in my veins from feeling him up against me. I mustered up some courage, tilted my head up, and asked: “Wh… what are you doing?”
My voice trembled.So much for courage.
His gaze dropped again to my arms, still twisted awkwardly behind me.
“You’re going to cramp like that,” he murmured.
Before I could even register what the hell was happening and comprehend why he wasn’t raging mad, he stepped even closer. So much so that his chest brushed against my breasts.
I let out a gasp. He grinned.
The bastard knew what he was doing.
I was thinking I should take a step back, but I turned to stone the minute I felt his single, light touch. His fingers skimmed down from my shoulder to my forearm, barely there.
My breath caught.
Then, without warning, his other hand slipped around the small of my back until we stood closer, tighter, until it almost felt like an embrace. My chest now heaved from how electric he felt, and he leaned low and whispered right into my ear, sounding far too amused for my liking.
“Let me help you with that.”
He reached behind me and plucked the paper right out of my hands.
I squealed and jumped back like I’d touched a live wire.
Too late.
Dante straightened, holding the sheet like it was a trophy. “Got it.”
My brain scrambled during those precious seconds to come up with something, anything, that would explain why I was bent over his floor with my hands all over his private documents.
“I—I was just—” I motioned desperately at where he had stood moments earlier. “The door was open.”
Dante’s eyebrow quirked upward. “Was it?”
“Yes.” I nodded too enthusiastically. “Wide open. I thought it was just, you know, another room. This place has like a hundred of them.”
He let his neck drop to his left and looked at me like he could see right through me. “Funny. Ispecificallyremember closing it before I left.”
“Well, maybe the wind blew it open,” I offered lamely, then realized how stupid that sounded. “Or your housekeeper might have come in to clean.”
“The windows are sealed. And Maria knows never to enter this room.”
Great.
I was caught in a lie within the first thirty seconds.
My heart hammered so hard I was convinced I was minutes away from a heart attack. I shrugged, trying to appear casual while my insides twisted into pretzels.
Dante flipped the paper between his fingers and said casually, “You know I have cameras in the hallways, right?”
My eyes darted to the corners of the ceiling before I could stop myself.
He raised both eyebrows and smirked. “You look real guilty for someone who just wandered into a room thewindblew open.”
