I pull Alexis’s file up to the top, flip it open, and start thumbing through it, but the words swim uselessly before my eyes.
Behind me, I hear him move. The dull scrape of ceramic on tile tells me he’s set his mug down. I glance up from the open file on my lap, curiosity flickering despite myself, and watch him disappear down the hallway toward his room.
I drop my gaze back to the file. For a moment, I think he’s giving me space, but then I hear the creak of the floorboards again—his footsteps returning. When he re-enters the living room, I look up and silently curse.
The bastard is fucking shirtless.
The sight knocks something loose inside me. The light from the table lamp brushes over him, casting soft shadows across his torso and highlighting the hard lines of muscle beneath the fading bruises scattered along his ribs. A white bandage runs diagonally across his left shoulder, taped carefully over the wound that nearly took him from me.
His eyes meet mine, and the world narrows to just that look. Dark, steady, unreadable—but something is burning beneath the surface. Something I feel before I can name it.
He crosses his arms over his chest, the movement pulling at the muscles in his abdomen, and when he speaks again, his voice is lower, firmer. “I’m only going to ask you once. Put the files away, Rae.”
The warning in his tone makes my pulse stutter.
“And if I don’t?”
The corner of his mouth curves—a dangerous ghost of a smile that makes my stomach flip.
“Do you really want to find out what happens if you don’t?”
The truth is, I do. God help me, I want to know. Because I know exactly what he’s doing, he’s trying to distract me—to pull me out of my own head, away from the endless loop of guilt and what-ifs. Maybe that’s exactly what I need: to stop thinking, stop analyzing. Maybe if I let him, it will clear my head. Or maybe my mind will be so foggy from whatever he has in mind that I’ll stop worrying about the threat looming over my life, even if it’s for a minute.
“Don’t make me ask again,” he warns, the quiet authority in his voice sparking heat low in my belly. Deciding to play his game—to test him—I ignore his warning and keep my eyes on the papers, feigning focus, pretending his presence isn’t unraveling every ounce of resolve I have left.
The silence stretches. Then—his sigh. Long, sharp, full of restrained irritation. It slices through the quiet, and I can’t stop the small, defiant smile tugging at my lips.
It lasts all of two seconds.
The file is ripped from my hand and thrown across the room. I gasp, looking up just as his shadow falls over me, and before I can even process what is happening, his hand is at my throat, notsqueezing, just firm enough to startle me, to command my full attention as he hauls me off the couch.
“You’ll regret ignoring me, pretty girl,” he murmurs, his breath hot against my ear, voice low enough to crawl under my skin.
Before I can form a reply, the world tilts.
He lifts me like I weigh nothing, slinging me over his shoulder in one fluid motion. My hands press against his bare back, the heat of his skin seeping into my palms. A startled laugh escapes me—half protest, half disbelief—swallowed quickly by the sound of his footsteps thudding down the hallway.
“Emilio!” I squeal, somewhere between outrage and laughter.
He doesn’t answer. He only tightens his grip, his muscles shifting under my hands like coiled steel. My laughter dissolves into breathless protests, but even I can hear the lack of conviction in my voice.
“Put me down!”
“Oh, I plan to,” he rumbles, his tone dark and thick with promise.
His hand swats once against the curve of my ass. I yelp, my body jolting from the contact. My skin burns where his palm lands, the heat spreading like wildfire through me. The sound of his low chuckle follows, dark and satisfied.
By the time he reaches his room, I’ve stopped pretending to struggle.
He drops me onto the bed without warning, the mattress catching me in a bounce that sends a gasp tearing from my throat. I push myself up on my elbows, ready to throw some kind of comeback at him—but the look in his eyes stops me cold.
There’s a storm brewing in them, a quiet, intense warning that sends a thrill of anticipation and fear coursing through me.
He’s on me before I can think—knees braced on either side of my hips, his weight pressing me into the mattress. His fingers thread through my hair, the grip firm and controlling, as he tips my head back. His mouth crashes into mine, and everything else disappears.
The noise in my head. The fear. The guilt. Gone.
The kiss is rough, desperate, and consuming. His tongue finds mine, and I melt beneath him, answering with the same hunger. My hands find his shoulders, fingers digging into warm skin and the edge of the bandage. He winces when I squeeze, but he doesn’t stop. He kisses me like he’s drowning, like I’m the air he’s been denied.
