Chapter 8 #2
Her cheeks flare again, embarrassment burning through her anger. She snatches her hand back and folds both under her thighs to hide the tremble, chin up, daring me to say something about it.
So I do.
“Does that happen when you’re scared,” I ask softly, “or when you’re turned on?”
Her breath catches like I just reached into her chest and squeezed. “Fuck you,” she whispers.
I smile slow. “Not yet, Red.”
Her thighs press together. Heat hits her face and this time she can’t hide it fast enough. She looks away, jaw flexing, breathing sharply through her nose, trying to wrestle herself back under control.
And I — God bless me — am a gentleman.
I let her.
Because I like her angry. I like her weaponized. I like her walking into a den of five men who eat London for breakfast and saying put it in writing or you don’t get what you stole.
But like this?
Red-faced, pulse high, eyes blown, thighs tightening under my words?
This is mine.
I take my mug back up, swallow a mouthful of cooling coffee, and watch her in the quiet that follows.
Let the air thicken and hum. Let her notice how close we are.
Let her feel that there are no witnesses today.
No Caelum to cut in. No Wraith to hover.
No Saint to put soft words over sharp teeth. No Ash to log the data for later.
Just me. And her. “So,” I say after a beat, casual, like we haven’t just dragged her right to the edge of something she doesn’t know how to name, “tell me where you hid it.”
Her head snaps back to me. “Are you serious?”
“Completely.”
“No.”
“Ember,” I say, because she jumps every time I use her name and I like the way it sounds in my mouth, “we did our part. We signed. We gave you your pretty little contract. You’re breathing, you’re upright, you’re eating our food. Time to hold up your end.”
She shakes her head immediately. “No.”
I let out a low hum and set the mug down. “Explain that answer to me.”
Her jaw locks. “Your contract said you wouldn’t kill me. That you wouldn’t hand me over. That you’d return me alive. It did not say I have to hand you anything on your timeline.”
Well, well. I grin. “Look at you. Reading the fine print.”
Her chin tips up, proud. “You’re not the only one who gets to use a pen.”
My stomach goes tight with something that has nothing to do with irritation.
God, Caelum, you have no idea what you dragged into this house.
I lick my lower lip, slow, deliberate. Her eyes do exactly what I want them to do — track the movement.
Stop there. Stay. “You know what I like about you?” I ask softly.
Her voice is strained. “Nothing, I hope.”
I laugh, low in my throat. “You’re going to be so easy to ruin.”
Her breath hitches. I lean in again, close enough that she can feel the warmth of me down her side, close enough that if she turned her face a fraction she’d brush my mouth.
I let my voice drop for her and her only.
“You think you’re protecting yourself. You think you’re protecting Owen’s ghost. That’s almost sweet.
But we both know that’s not why you’re hoarding it. ”
Her lips part. “Excuse me?”
“You’re holding it,” I murmur, “because you like the way it feels when the five worst men in London have to sit around this table and treat you like you’re real.”
Her eyes flicker, her posture wavering slightly.
She doesn’t answer. And I know that’s the same as yes.
Her breathing goes shallow. I can feel it from here. Little quick pulls, like she’s trying not to show she’s shaking and shaking anyway. Her tongue darts out to wet her lips. My gaze drops. I make sure she sees that. Her pulse kicks.
“Tell me I’m wrong,” I whisper.
Her voice comes out ragged. “You are.”
I smile. “Liar.”
Her whole body tightens. That’s when I finally touch her. Not her mouth. Not her thigh. Not her throat.
Her wrist.
I reach down, slowly, and take her right wrist in my hand where she’s got it hidden under her leg. My fingers circle the thin bones — and yeah, there’s a tremor. Fine. Fast. She stills instantly, like the contact shorted something out in her nervous system.
Her skin is warm. Small pulse drumming against my thumb. I stroke over the ink there — the trailing vines and flowers curling up her forearm — with the pad of my thumb, lazy, like I’m reading scripture off her skin.
Her body shivers.
“You want to know what I think?” I murmur.
“No,” she says, which in Ember means yes.
“I think,” I say, “you want to be wanted. But you don’t want to be owned.”
Her lips part, breath shallow and quick.
“I think you want to be watched,” I continue, “but not handled. I think you want to be chased, but not caged. I think you want a mouth on your throat and a knife in your hand at the same time. I think you want to be pinned down and told you’re safe by someone who absolutely isn’t.”
Her eyes flutter shut. There. That. That little broken exhale.
I lean in. My mouth is almost at her ear now.
I can feel the heat coming off her skin.
I can smell that faint, sweet note under the soap.
I could take her right now, right here, on this table, and she’d let me.
She’d scratch. She’d hiss. She’d say no with her mouth and yes with her body and I’d eat that contradiction until she forgot her own name.
But not yet.
I want her hungry.
So I exhale slow against the side of her throat, not a kiss — not contact — just breath.
Her whole body jolts like current. And then I let her wrist go. I lean back like nothing happened. Pick up my mug. Take a drink. Smile.
Her eyes fly open like I slapped her.
Her chest is rising too fast, too shallow. Her cheeks are flushed, lips parted, pupils wide. Her thighs are pressed tight together under the table like she’s holding herself in place.
Beautiful. Fucking… beautiful.
“Eat your toast, Red,” I say, casual, like I didn’t just wind her tight around her own nerves. “King will want to talk to you again when he gets back.”
It takes her a beat to find her voice. When she does, it’s wrecked.
“That’s it?” she demands. “You’re just going to— you’re not—?”
I grin, all teeth. “Mmm,” I say. “Not yet.”
Frustration explodes across her face. Pure, molten, furious want. She looks like she could throw the mug at my head and then climb into my lap and devour me for withholding. It’s perfect. It’s art. I want to frame it and hang it in Caelum’s office.
“Mateo,” she hisses.
My name in her mouth hits like heat. I lean back in my chair, spread my knees a little wider, make a show of looking her over slow, hungry, unhurried. “Yes, carino?”
She swallows. “I hate you.”
I laugh, soft and delighted. “You’re going to sound so pretty when you stop saying that.”
Her jaw clenches. “You’re disgusting.”
“And you,” I say, letting my gaze drop to her mouth one last time, “are going to beg.”
Color floods her throat. She shoots to her feet so fast her chair scrapes. Her voice comes out tight, shaking with anger and… something else. “You’re not getting that drive.”
I look up at her, lazy. Pleased. “Oh, I will,” I purr. “But I’m not going to take it from you.”
Her breath stalls. I smile. “I’m going to have you give it to me.”
Her whole body stutters.
And then — because I’m merciful when I want to be — I lean back and wave a hand, easy. “Go on. Take five. Breathe. Splash water on your face. Tell yourself you still hate me. It’ll help. For now.”
She glares at me like she wants to stick a fork in my throat. And she’s blushing. She’s trembling. Then she leaves. Not running, though she might as well be.
I watch her go, appreciative.
When she’s gone, I let the grin drop. Just for a second.
I scrub a hand over my mouth and exhale through my nose, low. Because here’s the very inconvenient, very dangerous truth…
She’s going to be a problem.
Not because of her mouth. Or even because of her brother. Not even because of that damn drive. Because that girl just sat in my kitchen, shaking and furious and starving for something she doesn’t have the language for yet — and she still told me no.
That kind of spine? That kind of hunger wrapped around defiance? That’s the kind of thing men kill for.
That’s the kind of thing men start wars over.
And that, I think, finishing my coffee and licking her taste off my thumb where I touched her skin, is going to be fucking fun.