Oh no.
Lacey Annabeth Vigil, you cannot.Do not. No, no, no. It’s dangerous to even entertain the thought. It would never work; it would just be a bad idea. It could never happen.
But my body’s getting a whole different memo. I can’t stop staring at the trail of thicker, darker hair leading down from his navel, carving an extremely tongue-able path down the center of his angular hipbones.
I take a step back, and fidget with the edge of my coat. Be professional. Walk back the obvious fascination with him, at least externally.
“So, you’re spying,” he says matter-of-factly, like he just remembered that I’m not supposed to be here.
Ok, I wasn’t fooling him at all. That’s a little disappointing, honestly. “I’m...yeah. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to give me a tour?”
“Mm, I do want to keep my job.” Ellis hums. “But, uh, I know a really great Vietnamese place just around the corner.”
“Yeah? You think getting some bánh mì isn’t fraternizing with the enemy?”
“Are you my enemy, Lacey Vigil?” he asks, his words growing soft and low. He flicks his tongue out at me and I’m a little shocked that it’s forked with little ridges down the center split. My mind takes a quick detour before I make eye contact with him again, heat rising in my cheeks, instantly hot under the collar and a little bit sweaty. I swallow.
Oh, he gives off fuckboy vibes. Of course, I’m getting instantly hot under the collar for a guy who spells bad-for-me. I have a type. My friends have spent the last few years just directly telling it to my face whenever a guy they didn’t like cheated onme or turned out to have a gambling problem or whatever. It’s fucking always, “I told you so.”
I’m disappointed in myself, I need to stop getting wet just because he looks at me. Don’t be so easy, girl.
He shifts his weight from one hip to another, tail flicking in a way that agitates the edge of his towel, and leans toward me. Suddenly I’m aware of just how close we are, that he’s brought himself down closer to my level. He gives me a goofy wink. “Arch enemies with benefits?”
He thinks he’s such a smooth operator. It’s not working on me. It’s not.
I lean back a little. “Hold on, arch? We don’t have the history.”
“Oh, but we could.” Ellis laughs with one of those dangerous smiles, his overlong canines snagging the majority of my attention and libido.
I’m too hot and bothered over this guy to clutch my pearls about it. “You don’t give up, do you?”
“You’re the one coming over here and dangling yourself in front of me.” He scoffs, rolling his eyes. Yeah, alright, that’s fair. He grumbles more to himself than me, “Man, the girl of my dreams breaks and enters into the secret lair, sees my dick, and doesn’t even buy me dinner first.”
“You’re really set on dinner.”
“Yeah, because no one ever invites me.” He sighs and takes a step away to press some of the buttons on the control panel, the capsule’s lights going out. “Alright, I’m going to escort you out of here. Don’t bother coming around here again, I’m gonna change the door code.”
“What? Oh, come on,” I scoff, partly disappointed that I’m not going to get more of a look around here. He was so agreeable a second ago. I just got here, and I haven’t really learned anything about Maestro’s plans. Maybe now’s the time to take him up on that bánh mì idea?
Ellis crosses his arms over his chest in a way that makes his arms look very bitable, and wow, there’s a first time for every thought. “How did you even get in here? Did no one lock the door behind them? Assholes. At least this one isn’t on me.”
He makes a gesture for me to turn around and head out the way that I came in, when the sound of a door swinging fast on creaky hinges splits the air, a loud bang as it slams closed again.
Ellis’s expression shifts to panic in an instant. He grabs my arm and tugs me further into the room, toward a darker corner.
“Shit, you can’t be in here. Vin is gonna freak,” he mutters, his grip communicating just how serious he is. He opens one of the grated metal panels lining the walls, and it’s small even for a storage closet, barely a few feet wide. I step inside, and it makes the tube he was just in seem spacious.
“Wait! Don’t just leave me in here,” I whisper, realizing that I could be stuck in this hiding spot for a while.
Footsteps echo down the hall, and he freezes, momentarily torn on what to do, before stepping into the little closet with me.
It becomes overwhelmingly apparent that that was not the best move to make. The cold metal wall presses at my back, but there isn’t any more time.
The door swings shut and leaves us in the darkness.
“Oh, you idiot,” he mutters under his breath, and I can only imagine he is talking to himself for closing us both in here.
“Yeah, I didn’t say get in here with me,” I whisper quickly, although in the heat of the moment I’m not sure what else I could have meant.
