“We are.” His thumb strokes along the sensitive dip of my waist, just above the band of my jeans. Slow. Methodical. Like he’s memorizing me. “But I’m allowed one selfish thing.”
His mouth finally drops to my neck. Not gentle. Not tentative. His lips find the spot just under my jaw and drag, open, heat and the scrape of teeth in a single, devastating pull.
My whole body arches into him, a helpless reaction. A small sound escapes my throat before I can swallow it.
He presses closer, his chest hard against mine, pinning me between him and the wall. I feel every inch of him—solid, tense, wound too tight. He’s claiming this space. He’s claiming me in the middle of the wreckage we’re about to cause.
“We have four minutes,” I breathe, my fingers climbing from his shirt to his shoulders, then higher, threading into his hair. “This is not… a good idea.”
“It’s a spectacularly bad idea,” he agrees, and then his mouth is on mine.
This is a slow burn, a deliberate process of sensation. The kiss is an act of possession, each movement stripping away every polite mask I've ever seen him wear. He is raw, unhurried hunger made tangible.
When I instinctively part my lips, his tongue slams against mine—a slow, hot friction that burns a path down my spine. It's not just a touch; it's an immediate claiming that makes my knees buckle. His hand grips my bare waist, a tight, desperate anchor against the sudden, dizzying weakness.
The danger isn’t just outside. It’s here. Between us. In the room that smells like the man who wants to destroy us both.
A sharp, dangerous thrill spikes through my veins. We shouldn’t be doing this here.
I curl my hand around the back of his neck and pull him closer.
He makes a sound—low, wrecked—and breaks the kiss just enough to drag his mouth down my throat again. My head tips back against the wall, baring more skin without conscious permission.
His hand slides lower, splayed over my hip, fingers skimming the top of my jeans. The tiniest tug, and I feel the button strain.
“Declan,” I gasp, somewhere between plea and warning.
He stops. For half a second. His forehead drops to my collarbone, shoulders shaking with the effort it takes to hold himself back.
“Tell me no,” he rasps. “And I stop.”
He means it. I can feel the restraint in every tense line of him. Even here, even now, he gives me the choice his father never would.
I don’t say no.
Instead, my hand leaves his neck, slides down between us, over the hard line of his stomach, lower, brushing the waistband of his jeans. His breath hitches.
I don’t go further. I just hold my hand there, fingers curling into the fabric. A promise, not yet a touch.
“I’m not a distraction,” I whisper, the words digging up from somewhere deep and raw. “Say it.”
He lifts his head. His eyes are dark, blown wide, pupils swallowing up the gray. I’ve never seen him look less controlled, less careful, than he does right now.
“You’re the only thing that makes any of this make sense,” he says, voice low and wrecked. “You’re not a distraction, Talia. You’re the point.”
The air leaves my lungs in a rush.
His hand slides around to my lower back, pulling me flush against him. My hips bump his, and the friction is a jolt of pure, helpless want, made all the more potent by the hard ridge of his erection pressed against my belly. I bite down on a gasp, my fingers fisting in his shirt again. He shifts, and the hard, muscled length of his thigh slides between my legs. I can’t stop myself from shamelessly rubbing against him, seeking the heat and pressure.
We’re playing with fire. With explosives. In a room wired with secrets and consequences.
A tiny, treacherous part of me thrills at the risk. Alistair can threaten my dad all he wants. He doesn’t get to have this. He doesn’t get to have his son.
“Got it,” Genny’s voice cuts through the haze, sharp and breathless.
I freeze. Declan stiffens against me.
“We’re at ninety-nine percent,” she says, not looking at us, her fingers flying across the keyboard to close windows. “Disconnecting. We need to move. Now.”
