Horror slashes across his face—quick, sharp, blinding. He drops my wrist instantly, as if he touched fire instead of flesh.
His hand falls back to his side.
His jaw clamps tight.
His whole posture splinters around the edges.
“I said stay out of the restricted areas,” he growls.
But the sound betrays him.
It’s not authority.It’s not anger.It’s fear.
Fear of himself.Fear of me.Fear of what’s happening between us.
He’s not warning me about the corridors.
He’s warning me about him.
I know it.He knows it.Anyone standing near us would know it—
if anyone else were stupid enough to be in this hallway.
I lift my wrist slowly, inspecting the faint imprint of his fingers. It throbs—not with pain, but with something darker and far more intoxicating.
Power.
Not power over him.
Power between us.
It is the kind that changes things.The kind that tilts the ground.The kind I didn’t plan for but suddenly craving.
My gaze rises to meet his.
This time, I don’t hide.
His eyes—Christ, those eyes—are wild. Burning with restraint, he’s losing one breath at a time. His chest rises too fast. His hands still tremble.
He looks like a man at the edge of a cliff.
And I am the drop.
“You grabbed me,” I murmur, my voice barely above a whisper, every syllable sliding directly beneath his defenses.
He flinches.
“I didn’t—”
He stops.
Swallows hard.
“I wasn’t—”
His breath shudders.
His hand curls into a fist.
