I don’t know what she’s thinking because I can’t see her.
Raw, familiar rage ignites.
Not at her.
At myself.
At the shudder in my chest. The breach of discipline. The way my own body just exposed me.
I meant to claim this moment as mine. A calculated show of dominance to maintain control. Instead, my armor slipped. I allowed her to see straight through to the tender meat beneath.
She didn’t have to work for it. Didn’t have to try.
Maybe she is dangerous.
After all, no one ever trained me to fight against someone like her.
Chapter 8
Kirill
I fucked up.
After leaving a plate full of sandwiches and fruit in Jordan’s room, I stalk the length of the office, restive in the dark room, my shoulders locked tight as my hands curl and uncurl.
The kiss replays in my head, over and over, in merciless slow motion.
The heat of her lips. That startled gasp. The way she yielded, for a heartbeat, without surrendering.
I rake my palm down rough stubble, as if I could drag the sensation out of my skin. Like touch can erase memory.
My mistake. Caught on video.
Falling into a trap that might snare someone younger and softer isn’t like me.
I know better.
Losing control gets you killed. Emotions are just liabilities dressed up in pretty clothes.
I don’t feel.
I eradicate.
My smudged reflection in the window is a blank-eyed husk. I hardly see the man who was here an hour ago, before I crossed the line.
A line I’d never even considered crossing before.
The blue-white glare of the monitors distracts my eyes, but not my mind. In the top right quadrant, Jordan paces beside the bed in the guest suite, her fingers ghosting over her lips.
She’s reliving the kiss too. The wrong but real surge of connection.
I’ve survived by being nothing, a bare black wall that swallows every threat and leaves no mark. But for a single, catastrophic second, she saw through me.
“Fuck.”
I can’t let this stand. Can’t let her keep probing and examining me like I’m some riddle to solve.
I have nothing inside me. Only the job. Only the logic of force and pressure.
