He took a step closer. The floorboard gave a faint creak beneath his boot, a sound that felt unnecessarily loud in the vacuum the leopard had left behind. “I’m exactly as relaxed as I need to be to keep you alive.”
“Is that the professional term for looming?”
“I call it a job. One that’s getting complicated.”
Nick studied me in the dim canvas-filtered light. “You marked it first.”
“Attorney. I pay attention to things that might eat me.”
A faint laugh escaped him. My throat went dry. The adrenaline was still crackling, but the quality of it had shifted.
“Well,” I said, my pulse still sprinting long after the threat had disappeared. “That was exhilarating.”
Nick tilted his head. “You have an unusual definition of exhilarating.”
“I wasn't mauled. Low bar, but it feels appropriate.”
His eyes dropped, then lifted back to mine. “You're impossible.”
I stepped closer. The two feet of air between us was an inefficiency I didn't want to tolerate.
Nick’s hand moved. He tucked a loose strand of my hair behind my ear, his knuckles grazing the sensitive skin of my temple. It was restrained enough to be professional and slow enough to ruin me. My pulse spiked. I didn’t pull away. Retreat would have been sensible. Unfortunately, every sensible part of me had stayed outside with the leopard.
“You’re welcome,” I said.
“For what?”
“Providing the evening entertainment.”
Nick’s hand stilled. “You think that was entertainment?”
“I think you enjoy the part where you get to be the calm professional in the dark. And I think”—I leaned in just enough to catch the scent of him, mint, smoked wood, and the clean heat of his skin—“you’re very good at it.”
The canvas held the night close. A breeze lifted a strand of my hair and carried it across his wrist. His hand tightened. The warmth radiating off his body was a physical pull.
Nick’s attention dipped to my mouth again. This time, he didn't look away.
My brain submitted a formal objection. I overruled it and stepped closer.
He didn't lean in. He just waited, his thumb tracing the line of my jaw, measuring exactly how much trouble I was worth.
Nick’s mouth came down on mine a second later. Adrenaline and salt.
Gravity.
My fingers curled into the front of his shirt, pulling him closer, needing the solid weight of him to ground the surge. The kiss deepened, hungry and stripped of the professional veneers we both wore like armor.
Nick pulled back a fraction. Barely. “This,” he said, his voice a rough rasp, “is a mistake.”
“Probably.”
His thumb brushed my jaw again, possessive and firm. “Away from the entrance.”
“Is that an order?”
“Yes.”
I closed the last inch between us, chest to chest, my ribs vibrating against his. “Then you should probably enforce it.”
