Gio’s eyes sharpen. “Were you going to make her leave?”
The guard holds his ground. “I’m doing my job.”
Gio nods once, like he respects the concept while resenting the execution. “Cool. Do it somewhere else.”
A beat—long enough for the air to tighten.
Then the guard exhales hard and steps back toward the stairs, radio pressed to his chest like a shield. “Five minutes,” he mutters. “That’s it.”
“Appreciate you,” Gio says, and the politeness sounds like a threat because it’s too controlled.
He leaves.
Silence drops into the space he vacates—thick, private, wrong.
Gio turns fully to me. Up close, the heat coming off him is obscene against the cold concrete. Sweat, ice, clean soap, and something metallic like he bled without letting it show. My body reacts before my brain can file it under bad idea.
Pulse jumps. Skin goes alert. Attention narrows until the only thing in the tunnel is the distance between us and the fact that neither of us closes it.
His eyes track my face like he’s checking for damage he’d have to answer for.
“Don’t,” I say, sharp enough to cut. Because I want it. Because I do.
His mouth twitches like he almost smiles and refuses himself. “Don’t what?”
“Look at me like you’re about to—” I stop. Finishing it would be a confession.
His eyes darken anyway. He shifts his weight, boots scraping. The lace at his collar bounces with the movement, stupidly intimate.
“This corridor is dangerous for you.”
“I know.” My voice holds. My body doesn’t. “I chose it.”
That lands. I see it in the small pause he can’t hide. The way his shoulders drop a fraction like something unclenches. Choice. Growth.
He exhales. “You said tunnel.”
“I’m here.”
He steps in—one pace, controlled—and stops again like there’s an invisible line he won’t cross without permission. His hands hang at his sides, flexing once like they want a job.
The near-break is the way my fingers itch to fist his jersey and drag him into me like rules aren’t real. It’s the half-second his eyes drop to my mouth, then snap back up like he caught himself stealing.
“Sweat’s on me,” he says, like it’s a warning.
“I can take it,” I shoot back automatically.
“I know.” His voice turns lower. Rougher. “That’s beside my point.”
My throat tightens. Because if his point is you’ll make me forget myself, then we’re already standing on the wrong side of a rule neither of us wants to be first to break.
He holds my stare like he’s deciding whether he can say it without making it a weakness. Then he does what he always does when the room tries to manage him.
He chooses the terms.
“You want the meeting?” he asks.
“I came down here for the meeting,” I say.
