This wasn't attraction.
This wasbiology—my body recognizing a predator and, instead of running, spreading its legs in surrender.
With his back still to me, Rook stopped painting and inhaled slowly through his nose.
I shivered.
His scentchanged—grew thicker, headier, almost edible.
His body was responding to me, his pheromones ramping up to match mine, creating a feedback loop that made my knees threaten to buckle.
"Dr. Lark." He didn’t turn around, and his voice was honey poured over broken glass. "You're early."
I forced my voice to remain steady. "I'm punctual."
"You're early by four minutes." He turned around, and the canvas came into view.
I stopped breathing.
On the canvas was me.
He'd painted me in a shimmering purple dress. My braids were loose and wild, honey blonde against my brown skin, and he'd rendered every strand with obsessive precision.
My eyes were closed, my head tipped back, my lips parted in an expression that looked like pleasure.
Surrender.
A woman in the grip of heat.
Lost to sensation.
And there, on my left wrist. . .a scar. The one I'd gotten at sixteen from a bicycle accident. The one I kept hidden under long sleeves and careful angles.
The one that had never appeared in any photograph.
A cold shiver ran through me.
I looked at his face and immediately understood that the photographs had never been enough. They’d all been mugshots, surveillance stills, and other grainy images reproduced in case files.
In person, he was devastatingly beautiful. High cheekbones cut sharp. A strong nose slightly crooked. His mouth was full and expressive.
Dark green eyes locked onto mine—too bright, too focused, and ringed with lashes that had no business being that long on a psychopath like him.
A pale scar cut through one eyebrow, giving his face a permanent edge.
Rook spoke, “How do you like my painting, Dr. Lark?”
I blinked. “How do you know about my scar?"
"I know everything about you. . .Willow." Rook set down his brush. Purple paint stained his fingers. "I've had two years to learn."
I tried to recover and go back to the mode of clinical detachment I'd built my career on. "You requested this interview to—"
"To meet you. Finally." He left the canvas and moved closer to the glass, and his scent intensified, andGod, the slick was dripping from my pussy, sliding down my inner thigh in a hot, wet trail, and I couldn't stop it.
He inhaled and then groaned. "D-do you know why I surrendered, Dr. Lark? You wrote an entire book theorizing about it. You got close, but you got one thing wrong."
"Enlighten me."
