Adora toys with the handle, but doesn’t pick the cup up. A glance over her shoulder shows the desert outside the windows is still dark, almost pitch as the moon sets over the mountains further south.
“You okay?” I nod to her cup. “Sugar?”
She shakes her head. Interesting. That’s the firstnoI’ve gotten from her.
I try again. “Do you want food? It’s been hours since your performance, and it was a decent hike.” Adrenaline does that. I’m definitely snackish, but my needs are low on the list tonight. She comes first, always.
Another head shake. Her fingers tour the rim of her mug but she still doesn't pick it up.
“Alright, love. I don’t have the energy to play a guessing game with you before the sun rises. But I do need a way to work out what you need, because my crystal ball broke last week and it’s still at the shop.” It's a line that’s worked many times when my client has been a child. I throw it out now to see how she reacts.
A laugh—something between a wince and a cough—is startled from her. I grin, and sip my tea. Shuffling the books to her hip, as it looks like she’s sure not letting those go, Adora lifts her cup and mimics me.
And we’re back to communicating silently. We finish our tea together, then I collect her cup. Her fingers graze mine, her gaze shooting up. I’m already watching her face when her breath catches. Her reaction, unplanned and raw, sends blood surging south. I inhale low, controlling my own reaction to her as best I can.
This cannot happen.
Her gaze roams my face, cataloguing all the parts of me as she did in my library. Still clutching her prized books to her chest, she glances towards the darkened windows once more, then rounds the edge of the counter, and stops right in frontof me. I’m not sure if I’m a curiosity to her, or a rebound for someone I don’t know about, but what she’s about to do is a terrible idea. It’s the worst idea of my whole damn year, and worst?
I’m here for it. For her.
Light fingertips rise from her book stack to trail along my forearm, over skin banded with ink and scars, to reach my shoulder. My injured one. I study her as she explores me this time, rather than my house. That same hand travels over my chest. Her palm rests against my heart. I swear she' s counting the seconds between the beats, synchronizing her breaths to mine.
For a reason I don’t understand that simple action is hot as fuck. My cock rises to the occasion. I grip her wrist to find her pulse as slow as mine, and ache to pull her into me the moment I make my own discovery.
Instead, I push her gently away. "It's bedtime, love.”
Midnight eyes rise to meet mine, laced with the heady brand of desire I don't expect to find there. Clumsy, innocent, maybe? But the way she looks at me, like I’m everything she wants laid out to lick at her leisure?
Give me the fucking strength to tell her no.
Because I’m damn close to knocking the books from her arms and finding out exactly what mint tastes like on her soft pink lips.
“I mean, you need to sleep. Or your team will arrive tomorrow and find you passed out on the sofa. Your music is in the limo, and your harp?—”
Her eyes fly wide as alarm tenses her body all over. “H–Ha—” Her throat seems to close the moment she panics, which is every time she makes a sound.
The moment dissolves, which is a good thing. I lament the loss of her need but the clarity is a fresh slap in the face that I’ll berate myself for later.
I squeeze her wrist and stroke my thumb over her pulse point. “Love, I'll have it brought in tomorrow. But no one can carry that behemoth in over the rocks we traversed earlier. It will be destroyed. I don’t want that, and neither do you. Right?”
Her pretty lips turn down in a moue. A huff of air escapes her. Apparently, that is not the answer she wanted to hear.
I cough to disguise my laugh, still stroking her wrist where her pulse flutters a little faster. “Alright. So let’s get you into bed to sleep.” I make the direction clear as her eyes narrow.
Her head tips back, her chin rising. The books are set on the counter for the first time.
“Adora?” I have no idea what her end goal is here but she has a plan. I’m simply not party to it yet.
She pulls her hand from my hold and I let her, though I'm cursing fluently the moment those hands go to the buttons on my sort that she wears and start to undo them from the top, one at a time.
“Love—” My cock strains at my pants, completely on board with this new program. “I’m not saying I don’t want you, but,” —I gently reach between her hands and do the buttons back up, all the way to her neck. That's safest— “But this is a line we can’t cross.”Please. Because I won’t have the strength to step back from her if she doesn’t hear me now. I’m begging and I pray she hears me. And fuck knows what tomorrow and the day after will look like if we start screwing around tonight. How the hell I’ll keep her alive if I fall on her on day one. Because I’m the sort of man who loves with his whole heart, not just for one night between the sheets.
Too fucking late.
Those midnight and moonlight eyes narrow. Then, on a whirlwind of mint and the scent of old books she scoops up her prize and stalks from my kitchen, heading away from me.
A moment later, the door to one of the bedrooms slams. I hope to hell it’s hers, otherwise I’ll be sleeping on the sofa for the next few hours. Her team will enjoy gossiping about the man who got shot protecting one of their own and mismanaged their perfect performer in the space of a few hours.
