God, she’s pretty like this. Choking on pride and adrenaline with her chin tipped up in my hand.
I drop my voice to something low, almost kind. “But this? This is you. Tired. Hungry. Still angry but not sure where to put it. Trying to convince yourself you don’t want to lean into the only warmth in the room.” I tilt my head. “That’s honest.”
Her mouth trembles. She tries to pull back. I let her, slow, like it was my idea. She jerks her chin free on the last inch and glares at me like she just won a war.
Fucking adorable. She thinks she has won. I lean back in my chair again, grinning.
“You’redisgusting,” she mutters.
“And you’re shaking,” I counter.
She slams her palm flat on the table. “I amnotshaking.”
I look at her hand. The fine tremor in her fingers.
Her cheeks flare again, embarrassment burning through her anger. She snatches her hand back and folds both under her thighs to hide the tremble, chin up, daring me to say something about it.
So I do.
“Does that happen when you’re scared,” I ask softly, “or when you’re turned on?”
Her breath catches like I just reached into her chest and squeezed. “Fuck you,” she whispers.
I smile slow. “Not yet, Red.”
Her thighs press together. Heat hits her face and this time she can’t hide it fast enough. She looks away, jaw flexing, breathing sharply through her nose, trying to wrestle herself back under control.
And I — God bless me — am a gentleman.
I let her.
Because I like her angry. I like her weaponized. I like her walking into a den of five men who eat London for breakfast and saying put it in writing or you don’t get what you stole.
But like this?
Red-faced, pulse high, eyes blown, thighs tightening under my words?
This ismine.
I take my mug back up, swallow a mouthful of cooling coffee, and watch her in the quiet that follows. Let the air thicken and hum. Let her notice how close we are. Let her feel that there are no witnesses today. No Caelum to cut in. No Wraith to hover. No Saint to put soft words over sharp teeth. No Ash to log the data for later.
Just me. And her. “So,” I say after a beat, casual, like we haven’t just dragged her right to the edge of something she doesn’t know how to name, “tell me where you hid it.”
Her head snaps back to me. “Are youserious?”
“Completely.”
“No.”
“Ember,” I say, because she jumps every time I use her name and I like the way it sounds in my mouth, “we did our part. We signed. We gave you your pretty little contract. You’re breathing, you’re upright, you’re eating our food. Time to hold up your end.”
She shakes her head immediately. “No.”
I let out a low hum and set the mug down. “Explain that answer to me.”
Her jaw locks. “Your contract said you wouldn’t kill me. That you wouldn’t hand me over. That you’d return me alive. It did not say I have to hand you anything on your timeline.”
Well, well. I grin. “Look at you. Reading the fine print.”
