Page 44
He smoothed the silk over my chest. His palm rested there a second too long, right over my heart.
My breath hitched. I hated him. I could still say it and mean it. He had thrown the drill to keep the rat out of the winner’s circle, and no quantity of warm hands changed that. I hated that he was the Director’s pet, except I had heard what the Director’s building did to him in his sleep, so even the hate had stopped sitting flat. It was turning into something I had to feed to keep alive, and watching him fix my clothes, watching his long fingers work the buttons, made me want to grab his wrists and pin him.
I fought the impulse to turn around and shove him into the glass. Ruining the suit would have been worth it just to see his composure shatter with the mirror.
“You fit,” Felix said softly, meeting my eyes in the reflection.
“What?”
“The suit.” He tightened the strap on the back of the vest. “It fits. The tailor is an idiot. You aren’t bulky. You’re solid.”
The compliment threw me. It was a small thing, but coming from him it landed heavy.
He stepped back. “Put the jacket on.”
I slid into the jacket. It was midnight blue, cut sharp to accentuate the width of my shoulders. I buttoned it.
In the mirror, I barely recognized myself. I didn’t look like a Sector 9 rat anymore. I looked dangerous. Expensive.
Felix nodded. “Good. Now sit down.”
He walked to the rack and pulled down his own garment bag.
He stripped off his uniform jacket. He gripped the hem of his compression shirt, lifted it smoothly up his torso, and pulled it over his head in one unbroken motion, the fabric briefly catching on his shoulders before he let it drop.
My mouth went dry.
The light traced the long line of his spine, the muscles of his back shifting as he reached for his dress shirt. He buttoned the shirt with practiced fingers and slid into a black tuxedo jacket with velvet lapels.
He turned around and the air left the room.
He looked devastating. The word was becoming a habit. The black and white formal wear sharpened his features, making his eyes look bluer, his hair whiter. He looked like a prince from a dark fairy tale, cold and utterly untouchable.
“Problem, Regillen?” he asked, catching me staring.
“You look like a waiter,” I lied.
“And you look like a bouncer.”
He walked over to the mirror and stood next to my reflection.
We stood side by side. Dark and Light. Fire and Ice. Two products from opposite ends, packaged for the same shelf.
“Tegula wants a show,” Felix said, fixing his tie. “Tomorrow night, we give him one. We walk in there, we smile, and we make them believe we are the perfect team.”
“And if I want to punch a general?”
“Then you punch me later instead,” Felix said. He turned to look at me, his eyes dropping to my lips for a fraction of a second before snapping back up. “Just get through the night, Leander. Don’t make me regret saving you.”
There it was again, his own body offered up in place of mine, for damage I hadn’t even done yet. Stolen gel for a rat’s ankle, now his jaw for a general’s, and I still couldn’t work out what a man like him got from any of it.
I sat there, gripping the arms of the leather chair until the material creaked. The longing burned in my chest, unwelcome. I wanted to own him.
And the worst part wasn’t the hunger; it was the memory. I knew exactly how he sounded when he unraveled, I had pulled that sound out of him against a tunnel wall. He wanted this as much as I did, no matter how many layers of silk and armor he hid behind. He could play the prince for the cameras, but we both knew who he belonged to in the dark.
CHAPTER 18
FELIX
