Her forehead nearly brushed mine. My hand was still in her hair, the strands wrapped around my fingers, and her lips were parted in a way that made every decent instinct I possessed leave the vehicle.
Her cheeks were flushed, her breathing unsteady.
Beautiful.
Dangerous.
Mine, some primitive part of me thought at once, with a conviction so raw it almost made me recoil from myself.
Emily blinked up at me, dazed.
“Well,” she whispered.
I let out a breath that was meant to be a laugh but failed halfway through. “That was one way of saying goodbye.”
Her lips curved, still swollen from my mouth. “I wasn’t aiming for subtle.”
“No,” I said, my voice rougher now. “You really weren’t.”
Her gaze dropped then, and I followed it.
One of my hands had braced so hard against the seat that my knuckles had gone pale.
I forced myself to let her go.
The loss of contact was immediate and unwelcome.
“That,” I said after a moment, “has made leaving tomorrow significantly more difficult.”
A slow smile touched her mouth. “Good.”
Then I leaned in just enough to brush my mouth against hers again. A promise, not a loss of control. "You have no idea," I murmured. "Are you going home for the break?"
She leaned back slightly, her breathing steadier now, though the color was still high in her cheeks. “No. I’ve got too much work. My supervisor already thinks I’m behind, and if I disappear now I’ll never catch up.”
I nodded once. Too much work.
No trip home. No one to spend Thanksgiving with.
The thought settled into me with dangerous speed, and before I could stop it, a single instinct rose up so hard and clear it nearly made me speak.
Come with me.
The words stopped just short of my tongue.
I went still.
It was not the invitation itself that unsettled me. It was how natural and immediate it had felt. Men in my world did not bring women home lightly. If I took Emily into that world, it would not be casual. It would not be reversible. Once introduced, she would matter. And God help me, I already knew she did.
That was exactly the problem.
I glanced away, jaw tightening as the old rules closed back around me one by one, cold and familiar. Secrecy. Distance. Containment. The things that had kept my family standing for decades. The things I had never questioned before because they always made sense.
Now they felt like obstacles.
Emily tilted her head slightly. “What?”
I forced my expression into something more neutral. “Nothing.”