“I see someone who brought me food when I forgot to eat, who stood outside my door at night without entering.” She stops close enough every instinct screams to close the remaining distance and take what the contract says is already mine. “I see someone who noticed I use three shades of yellow.”
The ache spreading through my chest has no name I'm willing to give it.
“Those are small things. I'm made to see everything. How else do you think I control those in my organization?”
“Small things matter.” Her voice softens, and the sound does damage I wasn't prepared for, slipping past defenses that hold against far more direct assaults.
I see things, but so does she. I can't allow this to go any further. Control won’t be taken away from me.
“Someone else will watch you from now on.” The words force themselves past the constriction in my throat. “Your proximity is compromising my judgment.”
“Don't blame me for your lack of control,” she says.
If I kiss her, I'll prove she's ordinary. I'll taste her once and the mystery will dissolve, the obsession will break, and I'll remember that she's just another female in a galaxy full of females I've never wanted like this.
One kiss, and I'll take back my control.
The thought surfaces before I can drown it: she cannot refuse me. Not truly. Syndicate law names her property, and property does not stand to deny what its owner desires. Her scent screams wanting, her body leans toward mine, but the imbalance remains beneath every signal she sends.
I am not my father. I do not take what is not given.
But how can she give freely when she has no power to withhold?
The question should stop me. It doesn't. Her arousal is real. I taste it on the air. Her wanting matches mine. I can see it in the darkness of her eyes. I tell myself that is enough. I tell myself she would choose this even without the contract between us.
The lie is thin. I hear how thin it is.
“I have the utmost control, female.” My fingers thread through her hair to grip the back of her skull, tilting her face up toward mine, while my other arm hauls her against me until her breasts crush against my chest and her hips press to mine. Now she can feel exactly what she’s been doing to me, the hard length of my cock trapped between our bodies. A gasp escapes her, and I swallow the sound with my mouth, claiming her lips with the hunger I’ve denied. Coffee and something sweeter, uniquely hers, and for one frozen heartbeat she’s rigid against me, shocked into stillness. Then her hands fist in my shirt and she’skissing me back, her tongue meeting mine, her body softening into my grip.
The taste of her drowns out everything else until I can't think, can't reason, can't do anything but take and take and take. I angle her head back and deepen the kiss, licking into her mouth, drinking her down like I've been dying of thirst and she's the only relief that exists. My fangs ache behind my gums, threatening to extend. My cock throbs against her belly, aching for friction, for heat, for the tight wet grip of her body that I can smell she'd give me if I pushed. She wants me. Her arousal is unmistakable, drenching the air between us, and a growl rumbles up from my chest as I grip her harder, pull her closer, lose myself in the slick slide of her tongue against mine.
This was supposed to prove she meant nothing.
Instead, my reality shatters with her mouth under mine. She’s not ordinary, not a curiosity I can satisfy once and forget. She’s a knife that slipped past my guard, and I’ve shown her exactly where to cut.
I release her like her skin has turned to plasma. The distance I force between us costs more than I expected, but I shove myself backward, drop my hands to my sides, and drag the cold mask back into place over features that want to show her everything. She stares at me, breathing hard, her lips swollen and wet from my mouth, her hair wrecked from my fingers, her nipples peaked against her shirt. She looks like a female who has been thoroughly kissed by someone who wanted to devour her, and the sight of her like that—because of me—sends a spike of possessive satisfaction through my blood.
“That was a mistake.”
The words come out flat, controlled, empty. The voice I use for those who beg and receive nothing.
“A mistake.” Her expression flickers. Hurt first, visible for a moment before she buries it. Then anger rises to replace the wound, her jaw tightening, her eyes going hard.
Good. Anger is safer than whatever was blooming in her eyes when she kissed me back.
“You're property, female. A debt contract with useful skills.” Each word cuts into both of us, and I keep my face stone even as I bleed. “Whatever you think this is—” I gesture at the air between us, still thick with her scent and mine, still electric with the kiss neither of us can take back, “—forget it.”
“Get back to work.” I turn toward the door because looking at her for another second will break what's left of my resolve. “This investigation won't solve itself, and I want answers.”
I'm through the door, walking fast enough that anyone watching would call it retreat, and I don't slow until I've put three corridors and two security checkpoints between us.
Chapter Nine
MAEVE
Dark circles shadow the skin beneath my eyes, reflected at me in the mirror. Evidence of a night spent replaying moments I should have the sense to forget. My shoulders hold rigid from hours of telling myself that what happened in the pharmaceutical storage meant nothing. The blankness I've practiced since the pre-dawn darkness stares back at me, a mask I built to hide the ghost of his mouth on mine.
He kissed me. Fisted his hand in my hair and hauled me against him and kissed me until my knees buckled and I forgot every reason this was a terrible idea.
