"We should get back to training."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only answer you're getting."
He stands and offers me his hand again. I take it knowing I shouldn't. Knowing that every touch makes it harder to maintain the boundaries we both keep insisting exist.
His fingers wrap around mine, warm and solid. For a moment neither of us moves. We just stand there in the clearing, hands clasped, the forest holding its breath around us.
"Vivian." My name sounds different in his voice. Rougher. More intimate.
"Yes?"
"We can't do this."
"Do what?"
"Whatever you're thinking about right now. Whatever I'm thinking about." He releases my hand and takes a deliberate step back. "You're a job. A responsibility. Nothing else can happen."
"I know." My voice comes out steadier than I feel. "You've made that very clear."
"Have I? Because the way you look at me sometimes makes me think the message isn't getting through."
Heat floods my cheeks. "The way I look at you?"
"Like you're trying to figure me out. Like I'm a puzzle you need to solve."
"You are a puzzle. A frustrating, contradictory, grumpy puzzle." I lift my chin, refusing to be embarrassed. "Is it a crime to be curious about the man who's keeping me alive?"
"Curiosity is fine. But what's happening between us is more than curiosity."
He's right. I know he's right. Every training session that requires him to touch me, every meal we share, every moment of unexpected vulnerability makes it harder to remember why maintaining distance matters.
"Then we'll be professional." I force myself to step back, matching his retreat. "You train me. You protect me. I testify when the time comes. Then I go back to my life and you go back to yours. Simple."
"Simple." He repeats the word like he doesn't believe it. "Right."
We make our way back to the cabin in loaded silence. I'm hyperaware of his presence beside me, the way he moves, the sound of his breathing.
This is insane. I've known this man for five days. Five days of forced proximity and trauma bonding and physical training that requires his hands on my body. Of course I'm attracted to him. It's practically a textbook case of situational attachment.
But it feels like more than that. It feels like something I haven't experienced in years. Maybe ever.
At the cabin, he excuses himself to check the perimeter sensors, and I use the time to shower and change. The hot water helps unknot my muscles but does nothing for the tangle of my thoughts.
I keep thinking about what he said. The way you look at me sometimes. Like he's been noticing me the way I've been noticing him. Like this impossible attraction isn't as one-sided as I assumed.
That should make things better. Instead, it makes everything worse.
When I emerge from the bathroom, he's in the kitchen starting dinner. Something with vegetables and rice, simple and nutritious. He's shed his jacket and pushed up the sleeves of his henley, revealing forearms corded with muscle and marked with scars.
"Knife skills tomorrow." He doesn't look up from the cutting board. "You should know how to handle a blade."
"Should I be worried that you keep finding new ways to arm me?"
"You should be grateful. The more options you have, the better your chances of survival."
I lean against the counter, watching him work. His hands are sure and efficient, the knife moving through vegetables with precise strokes. There's something almost meditative about theway he cooks, a focus that seems to quiet whatever demons usually haunt him.
