I didn’t need to move. The closet was a cage and I was every bar. The air was heavy with wool and starch and the heat coming off her skin.
“You were shaking,” I breathed, my voice rough stone.
“I was furious! At him. At you. This whole situation. I hate you, Alois.” Her dark eyes flashed, wet and vivid.
My jaw tightened. A muscle jumped in my cheek. My shoulders strained the jacket as I put a hand on the rack by her head, closing the last gap. The wood creaked.
“It doesn’t feel like hatred.”
She went still. The fight bled out, leaving something raw and open. Her throat fluttered. “No.”
It was all the invitation I needed. I took it.
“I think you like it. Pulling the strings of the puppet. Seeing how hard you can pull.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. This is a transaction. You need a pretty lie to clean up your mess. I need this job. We smile. We go home. That’s the deal.”
“The deal.” The word hung in the dark.
Outside, laughter and glass clinked and faded. In here, the silence breathed. I saw the flutter in her throat. The neckline of her gown plunged there, a shadow of warm skin. I’d noticed all night. Noticed the silk on her hips. Noticed her hair, dark and shifting.
Noticing was the problem. It led here—to following her, to pushing into this closet, to the hot, stupid anger in my gut.
“You’re in my way,” she said, but she didn’t move.
“Am I?”
“People will talk.”
“Let them.”
“Brute force. That’s your only move, Müller.” She lifted her chin. “It’s obvious.”
I leaned in. Just an inch. Her heat reached for me. Her perfume—jasmine, expensive—mixed with her skin. “You’re not scared.”
“No.”
“Then why is your breath shaking?”
She went still. I watched her eyes, the fight in them, and under it, a spark. Something that matched the current under my own skin.
“Adrenaline,” she snickered. “From a hostile kidnapping.”
“Hostile.” I almost smiled. It felt sharp. “You want hostile? I’ll show you hostile. This?” My thigh brushed the silk of her gown. A spark, a whisper. “This isn’t hostile.”
Her lips parted. She breathed through her mouth now.
The small space, her pinned defiance, her smell—it all became a single, pounding need. My cock strained against my trousers, a relentless ache. I didn’t adjust. Let her see.
Her gaze dropped. A flicker down my body, then back up. Color stained her cheeks.
“You’re disgusting,” she whispered.
“Yeah.” My voice dropped. “I am.”
I brought my other hand up, caging her completely. My sleeves were hiked, my forearms corded and inked. The dark patterns stood out. Her eyes tracked them, then found mine.
“Get out of my way,” she tried, but it was wisps of breath.