Close enough for her to feel his breath whisper across her jaw.
Close enough for her body to remember every inch he hadn’t touched yet.
Her pulse climbed.
The heat of him soaked through her skin like he belonged there.
His mouth brushed the shell of her ear, voice low enough to leave marks.
“Safety first.”
She didn’t breathe.
Didn’t dare.
And for one breathless second, he didn’t either.
He didn’t pull back. Didn’t look away.
His lips hovered just shy of her neck. His gaze locked on hers, watching her closely, not just for surrender, but for the moment she chose it.
Her voice? Gone.
Her composure? A lost cause.
Still, she didn’t move.
Couldn’t.
Thenfinallyhe eased back. Not far. Just enough to shift gears like nothing had happened.
The engine purred to life,low and smooth, a perfect echo of the tension in her blood. As the car rolled forward, city lights sliced through the windshield, gold and silver painting streaks across the dark.
But Arden wasn’t watching the road.
She was stuck on the way a seatbelt had ruined her composure.
On the way he’d used silence like a weapon.
On the ache coiling low in her belly, and the truth she wasn’t ready to admit:
He knew exactly what he was doing.
“So,” she said, voice casual but her pulse anything but. “Where are we going? Or is that classified?”
His mouth twitched. “You’ll see.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Let me guess—somewhere expensive and full of people who never blink?”
“Maybe.” He glanced at her, that insufferable smirk back in full force. “Maybe not.”
“You’re infuriating.”
“I’ve been told.”
His fingers brushed hers on the gearshift,subtle, but not accidental.
“You’ll forgive me.”
