The words are flat. Procedural. They aren’t a challenge, and that somehow makes them heavier.
Sting pushes off the wall and takes a step closer. Not rushing. Not crowding. Just close enough that I feel the change in space, the subtle shift in how much room I have to breathe.
“Doesn’t look like it,” he says mildly.
Armen’s weight changes beside me, a small adjustment I wouldn’t have noticed an hour ago. Now, I feel it immediately. “This isn’t your call.”
Sting tilts his head slightly, eyes never leaving my face. “You’re funny, Armen.”
A pissing match. Lovely.
Before I can pipe up, before I even decide whether I should, Sting steps fully into my space.
His hand comes up fast, fingers closing around my chin, firm and sure, pressing just beneath my jaw. The touch isn’t rough, but it’s intimate in a way that makes my breath catch.
“Hey—” I start, ready to yank my head back.
I can’t let this guy turn me on. Armen is bad enough.
But his grip tightens, cutting me off. He holds me there, gaze searching mine like he’s looking for something.
Armen starts toward him.
“I’ve got her, brother,” Sting says evenly, his voice carrying just far enough to be heard beyond the passage. “You can fucking relax.”
Sting holds my face for another second, his gaze searching mine like he’s looking for a reaction he can use. I don’t give him one. I keep my expression neutral, my breathing shallow and controlled, even though my pulse is pounding and my skin tingles where he’s touching me.
He lets go.
Armen hasn’t moved either. But I feel his attention shift, not to Sting, not to the hand that was just on my face, but to me. To my stillness. To the fact that I didn’t immediately speak or flinch.
“That,” Armen says, “was a mistake.”
Sting finally looks at him. “C’mon man. Get over yourself.”
Armen steps forward, just enough to put his body between us again. Not aggressively. Not dramatically. Just enough to reclaim the space. “She didn’t consent to that,” he says.
Sting shrugs. “She didn’t consent to a lot of things that are going to happen here.”
I open my mouth to answer, but Armen cuts in before I can. “We’re done here,” he says.
Sting’s gaze slides back to me one last time. There’s no apology in it. No regret. Just a sharp, unsettling satisfaction, like he got what he came for. “See you around.”
Then he steps back, retreating the way he came, unhurried, his presence fading only when he’s fully out of sight.
The corridor returns to normal, as if it’s reacting to the strange tension between the guys.
Armen doesn’t speak right away. He crouches in front of me, blocking my view of the passage entirely, his mask level with my face.
“Did you want him to touch you?” he asks.
“No,” I say immediately.
“Did you feel threatened?”
I hesitate, then answer honestly. “Um. I guess.”
He nods once, like that confirms something he already suspected. “That’s what I needed to know.”
