We’re frozen.
My chest is flush against her back. Her ass presses against my hips. The heat of her body burns through the thin tank top. The sharp, sour spike of her sweat and the heavy soap from the suite blend in an intoxicating scent that’s uniquelyher.
It’s devastatingly familiar. Intimate. The exact position as the night in the corridor. The same as the night in the bedroom.
But this time, I’m not taking. I’m teaching.
“You overextended,” I murmur, my mouth next to her ear.
She shivers, a hard, involuntary spasm that rattles her ribs against my forearm.
“You aimed for the chest,” I say. “You’d hit the Kevlar plate and break your wrist.”
I slide my hand down her arm, covering her fingers on the knife handle. My palm swallows her.
“Aim lower,” I whisper. “The gut. Under the vest line.”
I guide her hand, pulling it back and pressing the rubber blade against my own stomach, below the ribs.
“Here,” I say. “Up and under. Into the diaphragm.”
She isn’t moving. She’s barely breathing.
I should let her go. The lesson is over.
Instead, I tighten my arm across her chest and pull her closer, eliminating the millimeter of space between us.
“Do you feel that?” I ask.
“Yes,” she whispers.
“That’s the kill zone. That’s where you end it.”
I rest my chin on the top of her head. Her hair tickles my jaw.
For a second, the looming threat outside ceases to exist. The Judge, the Syndicate, the blackmail files—it all fades into the background noise of the storm. There is only this. The heat of her. The weight of her against me.
I realize, with a sudden clarity, that my motivation has shifted. When I took her from the museum, she was a liability. When I locked her in the suite, she was an asset. When I slept with her, she was a release.
But now, as I hold her in the circle of my arms, teaching her how to kill so she can survive, I realize she’s none of those things.
She’s the light, and I’m the shadow trying to swallow her whole.
“Cassian,” she breathes.
She turns her head slightly, her cheek brushing against my mouth.
It would be so easy to turn this into something else. To drop the knife. To spin her around. To lift her onto the equipment and take her again. The hunger is there. It’s a constant, gnawing ache in my belly.
But I can’t. Not tonight.
Tonight, she needs a protector. Not a lover or a monster.
I step back and release her abruptly, putting distance between us before I do something stupid.
She stumbles slightly, catching her balance, and turns to face me. Her face is flushed, and her eyes are wide, searching mine.
She felt it too. The shift. The gravity.
