Lucien pressed his forehead briefly to hers, breathing hard.
“This is a mistake.”
“Yes.”
“You should push me away.”
“You first.”
Something like helpless hunger crossed his face.
Then he kissed her again.
Harder. Dirtier. Nothing ceremonial left in it. His hand on her thigh tightened, spreading heat higher, and Sabine’s head hit the wall again with a soft thud because there was nowhere for the sensation to go except through her. The bond pulsed with every breath now, with every shift of his mouth, with every drag of his hand over silk and stocking and skin not far enough, never far enough.
He moved his mouth down her throat again and Sabine’s hands clenched in his shoulders.
His hand slid higher.
Not enough to fully touch where she most wanted him. Enough to make her body already ready and desperate for more. Enough to make her realize with a flash of hot humiliation how easily he would know that if he kept going.
“Lucien,” she said again, this time warning and plea both.
He understood.
Of course he did.
His mouth lifted from her throat. His eyes met hers. Dark now. Burned open.
“If I keep going,” he said, voice wrecked, “I am not stopping in a corridor.”
The words hit her like a blow.
Sabine’s pulse was so hard she could feel it in her teeth. “Then don’t stop.”
For one terrible second it looked like he might not.
His hand flexed high on her thigh. His mouth parted. The whole corridor held its breath with them.
Then footsteps sounded beyond the turn.
Lucien tore himself back so fast the loss of him felt violent.
He steadied her immediately, hands gripping her waist, then let go like even that was too much. His breathing was shot. Hismouth swollen. His hair ruined. There was a faint mark where her nails had caught his neck.
“Go,” he said.
She stared at him.
“Now,” he said, lower. “Before I drag you somewhere with a door.”
Sabine’s entire body flashed hot at that.
He saw it happen.
His eyes closed once, briefly, like pain.
Then he stepped back into shadow and rebuilt himself by force. By the time the footsteps passed the corridor mouth, he was almost composed again.
