That's what I told myself as I bent down, closing the distance between us.
Our lips met.
Soft. Tentative. Perfect.
And ohshitit took every single ounce of control I possessed to pull back after just a few seconds instead of deepening it like I desperately wanted to.
She tasted like coffee and something sweeter underneath. Her mouth opened slightly against mine—just enough, just barely—and want slammed through me like a freight train I had no hope of stopping.
Her hand came up instinctively, fingers curling slightly into my jacket, holding on.
I forced myself to step back before I did something profoundly stupid. Before I pushed her against the wall right here in the hallway and forgot entirely why we'd come. Before I stopped being helpful and started being completely fucking selfish.
Before I took what I wanted instead of what she needed.
"You felt that, too?" she whispered, eyes dark and slightly dazed, lips still parted.
Of course, I fucking felt it.
The lightning bolt that shot straight to my toes and my balls and every nerve ending in between. The way her mouth fit against mine like it had been specifically designed for exactlythat purpose. The soft, surprised sound she'd made when our lips first touched. The warmth of her breath. The taste of her.
All of it.
But I had to stay professional here. Had to be what she needed instead of what I wanted.
She needed a friend right now. A supporter. Someone solid and dependable who wouldn't make this complicated situation even more complicated.
Not a heavy-cocked prick who couldn't think past getting inside her at the earliest possible opportunity.
"Knock on the door," I said roughly, voice coming out harder and more strained than I'd intended. "Just get it over with."
She studied my face for another long second, like she was reading something there I didn't particularly want her to see. Something about want and restraint and how thin the line between them had become.
Then she turned back to the door and knocked.
No answer.
Just silence from inside the apartment.
"Again," I said quietly, encouragingly.
She knocked harder this time, more confident, knuckles rapping sharply against wood.
This time we heard someone respond in muffled French from inside. Movement. A chair scraping. Footsteps.
The footsteps approached the door.
A lock clicked.
Then another.
The door opened slowly, cautiously.
A man stood there in the doorway, backlit slightly by the apartment lights behind him.
Mid-thirties. Light brown hair cut professionally short but not severely. Wearing casual but clearly expensive clothes even at home—dark jeans that fit well, a button-down shirt inpale blue with the sleeves carefully rolled up to his elbows. Exactly like his file photo but somehow more real. More three-dimensional. More human than a surveillance image could ever capture.
Étienne Moreau.
