"Don't." The word comes out wrecked. "Don't say my name like that."
"Like what?"
"Like you want me to stop thinking."
I stare at him. He stares back. The space between us feels charged, electric, a live wire sparking on wet ground.
"Maybe I do," I whisper.
His expression breaks. I see it happen, the exact moment his control fractures. His hand clenches. His body sways forward, a fraction, like gravity is pulling him toward me and he's fighting it with everything he has.
He fights. And he wins.
"Fifteen minutes is up," he says, and his voice is almost normal. Almost. "Let's go."
I stand on legs that feel like water. We walk back to his quarters in silence, close enough that our arms almost brush with every step. Every near-touch sends sparks skittering across my skin. I'm hyper-aware of him. His breathing, his footsteps, the way he holds himself like a man trying not to detonate.
At the door, he steps aside to let me pass. I stop in the doorway, turning to face him. We're inches apart. I can smellhim. The soap, the musk, the lust underneath that’s becoming an addiction. Warm and dark and dangerous.
"You can't sleep in that chair forever," I say quietly.
"Watch me."
"Leone." I put my hand on his chest. Right over his heart. I feel it pounding. Fast, hard, completely at odds with the stone expression on his face. "You're going to break that chair. And then what?"
He looks down at my hand. Then up at my face.
"Then I'll find another chair," he says.
I laugh. I can't help it. It bubbles up out of me, soft and breathless, and his heartbeat stutters under my palm.
He wraps his fingers around my wrist. Not pulling my hand away, holding it there, his grip warm and firm. He holds me like that. My hand on his heart. His hand on my wrist. Both of us breathing too fast.
"Go inside," he says.
"Come with me."
His eyes close. His grip tightens on my wrist. I feel the war in him. The push and pull, the wanting and the refusing, the manfighting the soldier. His thumb presses against my pulse point, and I know he can feel how fast my heart is racing. I know he knows what that means.
"Alexandra." My name in his mouth sounds like a prayer. Or a curse. "Go. Inside."
I hold his gaze for one more second. Then I slip my hand free, step through the doorway, and let him close the door between us.
I press my back against it and slide to the floor, knees drawn to my chest, forehead against my arms.
My skin is on fire where he touched me. My lip still tingles from his thumb. My wrist aches with the phantom pressure of his grip, and I swear I can still feel his heartbeat against my palm like he branded it there.
I sit on the floor of his room and press my fingers to my mouth and try to convince myself that this is not happening. That I'm not falling for the man who kidnapped me. That the heat coiling in my belly is adrenaline, not desire. That the ache between my legs is ...
Fuck.
Fuck.
FUUUUUUUCK.
I tilt my head back against the door and stare at the ceiling.
On the other side of the wood, I hear him. Still standing there. Still breathing. He hasn't moved. He's right there, one inch of oak between us, and I know, I know with a certainty that scares me, that if I opened this door right now and pulled him inside, he wouldn't say no.
