The awareness moved through me in a slow, terrible sweep, and suddenly the air between us was no longer only captivity and anger and barbs. There was something else there too, something I had been refusing to name because naming it would make it real.
Tobias wanted me.
Not only as his weird little captive aquarist.
Not only as the precious thing he had decided to keep.
He wanted me.Physically.
The realization should have made me step back.
It should have made me demand to return to the room, or yell, or use the cuff chain to hit him in the face if necessary. But instead, for one suspended, humiliating second, my body reacted before the rest of me could file a complaint.
My skin got too warm, and my breath hitched.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I said, but this time, my voice came out quieter than intended, and I hated that too.
Tobias’s Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. “I can assure you I am trying not to.”
“Well, try harder.”
I looked back at the tank because the alternative was looking at his mouth, and absolutely not. No. We were not doing that. I was not doing that. My brain had enough problems to deal with without adding “maybe attracted to my captor”to the list.
The wrasse slipped behind the rockwork and disappeared.
Lucky bastard.
“You should take notes,” I said, clearing my throat.
Tobias appeared confused. “On?”
“The fairy wrasse. What else would I mean?”
“Ah, yes.”
“Okay, then take notes.”
He reached into his pocket for his phone.
His phone.
His freedom. His ability to call anyone, text anyone, open any door in the house, and rearrange anyone’s life with a few precise taps.
The warmth vanished.
Good.
I needed it gone.
Tobias’s expression suddenly shifted, and the desire disappeared behind concern so quickly it almost made me dizzy. “Cove?”
“What?” I growled, turning away from him.
I heard him slide his phone back into his pocket.
“I was only going to record the note.”
“I know.”
