"Get in the van."
Not a question. Not a request. An order. I follow it.
The moment the doors close, the air changes. Becomes charged, electric, thick with everything we're not saying and everything we're about to do.
Medical supplies everywhere—gauze, instruments, things I don't want to know the purpose of. The smell of antiseptic and blood and underneath it, her—that sweet something I first noticed in the freezer, stronger now, mixed with sweat and adrenaline and exhaustion from two hours of trying to hold people's bodies together. And under all that, something deliberate—cedar and amber, cologne he definitely put on for our disaster of a date.
"We shouldn't do this," she says, but she's already moving closer, her exhausted body overriding whatever medical ethics and family loyalty her brain is screaming about.
"We're past shouldn't."
"Past shouldn't, closing in on catastrophic."
"Our sweet spot."
She laughs, sharp and slightly hysterical. "You think you know me."
"I know you save people you should let die. Know you come to my voice. Know you're Miguel Cruz's sister and you're here anyway."
"We're enemies.”
Her breath stutters as I step closer, the space between us charged and dangerous.
“You’re the Iron Talons’president.”
His lips curve, not quite a smile. “Yes.”
“You hurt people.”
He tilts his head, eyes glinting. “Yes.”
“You’ve probably hurt people I’ve saved.”
I take another slow step, close enough for her to feel my heat. “Probably.”
She swallows hard, her pulse thrumming. “We’re enemies.”
"We're everything," I nearly whisper.
That does it. Breaks whatever last wall she was maintaining.
She launches herself at me, and I catch her, and then we're kissing like the world's ending—which it might be, once Miguel finds out. Her hands are in my hair, mine are spanning her waist, and Christ, she tastes like terrible coffee and mint and something sweet, something that's just her.
I lift her easily—she weighs nothing, this woman who carries so much—and pin her against the medical cabinet. Supplies crash to the floor. Neither of us cares.
"Zane," she gasps against my mouth, and my name from her lips is better than any drug.
"Say it again."
"Zane."
I kiss her harder, deeper, five weeks of want condensed into this moment. Her legs wrap around my waist, and fuck, she fits against me perfectly, like we were designed for this specific destruction.
"I knew you'd be like this," she says, pulling back just enough to breathe. "Overwhelming."
"You haven't seen overwhelming yet."
"Promises, promises."
