This is a bad idea.
This is a terrible, terrible?—
He opens it and nudges me inside.
Not gently.
Not harshly.
Just decisively.
The closet is small—shelves of markers, construction paper, bins of pom-poms—and suddenly filled with way too much man.
He shuts the door halfway, leaving only a sliver of light.
“You want to tell me what that performance was?” he asks.
“I didn’t perform anything.”
He steps closer.
Close enough my back hits a shelf.
Close enough I can smell smoke—clean, fresh, like cedar and adrenaline.
“Sweets,” he says softly, dangerously, “you pulled a full alarm on your first day. Fire crews thought children were burning.”
I swallow. “I said I was sorry.”
“You said a lot more than that.”
His stare pins me in place.
“You sassed the hell out of me in front of my team.”
I bristle. “Well you?—”
“And now,” he interrupts, leaning one palm on the shelf beside my head, “you’re cornered in a small space with a man who’s been pissed off since he heard your voice.”
I gasp.
He smirks.
Slow. Sinful.
His gaze drags down my body, lingering, unapologetic. “You always talk like that when you’re nervous?”
“I’m not nervous.”
Another step.
I feel the heat of him through his gear.
“Sweetheart,” he murmurs, “your pulse has been jumping since I walked in that hallway.”
My cheeks burn. “It’s loud because you startled me.”
“Did I?”
