My jaw tightens. The answer is immediate. Reflexive.
Yes.
She doesn’t run from the silence. She waits for me to speak like she expects a real response, not an evasion.
“You handled yourself well,” I say finally.
Her lips part slightly. Her pulse jumps in her throat.
My chest warms in a way I don’t allow.
She shifts closer without realizing it, her shoulder brushing my arm. A small contact. Barely anything. After the night we just had, it feels like a spark catching dry tinder.
The air thickens. Heat rolls through the space between us.
Her breath stutters. Her eyes flick to my mouth for a fraction of a second—tiny, unintentional, explosive.
I take half a step closer.
Eden inhales sharply.
The air between us goes tight, so tight it feels like a single breath could snap it.
She’s the first to move.
There’s a small, instinctive shift that brings her fully into my space. Her shoulder brushes my chest. Her breathing hitches. Her hand—trembling just slightly from adrenaline—lifts and rests against the car behind her, anchoring her.
She looks at me like she’s finally stopped trying to talk herself out of wanting this.
Her eyes flick to my mouth again, quick as a spark. Then she whispers, barely audible, “Are you going to kiss me, or do you want me to beg?”
My control fractures. I don’t grab her. I don’t shove her against the car. I move slow—slow enough that she can stop me, slow enough that she knows the choice is hers.
My hand comes up and skims her jaw with the back of my knuckles. Her eyelids flutter. Heat flushes across her cheeks. When my thumb catches her lower lip, she breathes a soft, helpless sound that goes straight to my spine.
“That’s not how begging works,” I murmur.
She shivers, and then she rises onto her toes and kisses me.
She fists her hands in my shirt instantly, dragging me down to her. I catch her waist, pressing her body flush to mine. Her lips part beneath mine, hot and hungry, and the taste of her hits me like I’ve been starving without knowing it.
Her mouth opens. She moans—quiet, breathy—and the sound rips through me. I slide one hand into her hair, grab a handful, and tilt her head back just enough to deepen the kiss. She gasps and presses closer, hips brushing mine.
Dangerous. This woman is dangerous.
I lift her—hands under her thighs—and she wraps her legs around my waist without hesitation. Her breath stutters against my mouth as her spine arches, pressing her chest to me. I carry her to the elevator wall and pin her there, bodies crushed together, heat grinding between us.
Her fingers claw at my jaw, then down my throat, then hook into my collar. I feel her pulse hammer under her skin. I kiss her harder. Her nails drag down my chest, and she gasps as my hips press into hers, slow and deliberate.
“Simon—” Her voice breaks, soft and frantic.
“What? Use your words.”
She swallows, eyes dark, lips swollen. “Simon, I need you.”
My restraint snaps like thread.
I kiss down her throat, open-mouthed, hungry. She tilts her head back and lets out a soft, startled cry when my teeth catch lightly at her pulse. Her thighs tighten around me, rolling her hips against mine.
