Chapter 6 Alexandra #2
He pushes off the wall, turning to face me fully, and the size of him hits me all over again. Six-two, six-three, shoulders wide enough to block out the light behind him. His eyes are dark and hard and burning with desire that makes my stomach drop.
"Careful," he says, low enough that I feel it more than hear it.
"Or what?"
He takes a step closer. Then another. I don't move. My heart is hammering so hard I can feel it in my throat, in my wrists, in the tips of my fingers, but I don't move.
He stops a foot away. Close enough that I can see the individual hairs in his stubble, the scar beneath his ear, the way his pulse jumps at the base of his throat. Close enough that if I reached out, my fingers would find his chest.
I want to reach out.
The realization makes my stomach do somersaults.
Not gradually, not gently, but all at once, a wave of want so strong my breath catches.
I want to touch him. I want to press my palms flat against his chest and feel his heart beating.
I want to know if he runs hot, if his skin is as rough as his hands, if the muscles beneath that suit feel like they look.
I want him.
It's insane. It's reckless. It's the worst idea I've had in a life full of terrible decisions. He's my captor, my keeper, a man who kills people for a living and sleeps with a gun under his pillow. Wanting him is like wanting a wildfire. Beautiful and warm from a distance, fatal up close.
But I'm already too close.
"You want to know why I sleep in the chair?" His voice is rough, stripped of its usual control. "Because if I get in that bed with you, I won't sleep. And neither will you."
The words hit me low in the belly. Heat floods through me, fast and unwelcome, pooling in places I'm trying very hard to ignore.
"That sounds like a threat," I manage.
"It's a fact."
We stare at each other. The corridor is empty. No soldiers, no guards. him and me and a sad little tree and the sound of my blood roaring in my ears.
His hand moves. Slowly, like he's fighting the motion even as he makes it, he reaches up and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear.
His fingers brush my temple, my cheekbone, the curve of my jaw.
The touch is so light it barely registers on my skin, but I feel it everywhere.
In my chest, my stomach, the backs of my knees.
My eyes flutter shut. His thumb traces my bottom lip, featherlight, and a sound comes out of me that I will deny to my grave. Small. Needy. The sound that says more without using the word.
His breathing changes. Heavier. Closer. I can feel the warmth of him, the sheer mass of him, hovering just inches away.
I tip my chin up. My lips part.
And he pulls back.
My eyes fly open. He's stepped away. One full stride, hands at his sides, jaw locked so tight the muscle jumps beneath his skin. He's breathing hard, chest rising and falling, and his eyes are wild. Not blank. Not controlled. Wild.
"Leone..."
"Don't." The word comes out wrecked. "Don't say my name like that."
"Like what?"
"Like you want me to stop thinking."
I stare at him. He stares back. The space between us feels charged, electric, a live wire sparking on wet ground.
"Maybe I do," I whisper.
His expression breaks. I see it happen, the exact moment his control fractures. His hand clenches. His body sways forward, a fraction, like gravity is pulling him toward me and he's fighting it with everything he has.
He fights. And he wins.
"Fifteen minutes is up," he says, and his voice is almost normal. Almost. "Let's go."
I stand on legs that feel like water. We walk back to his quarters in silence, close enough that our arms almost brush with every step.
Every near-touch sends sparks skittering across my skin.
I'm hyper-aware of him. His breathing, his footsteps, the way he holds himself like a man trying not to detonate.
At the door, he steps aside to let me pass. I stop in the doorway, turning to face him. We're inches apart. I can smell him. The soap, the musk, the lust underneath that’s becoming an addiction. Warm and dark and dangerous.
"You can't sleep in that chair forever," I say quietly.
"Watch me."
"Leone." I put my hand on his chest. Right over his heart. I feel it pounding. Fast, hard, completely at odds with the stone expression on his face. "You're going to break that chair. And then what?"
He looks down at my hand. Then up at my face.
"Then I'll find another chair," he says.
I laugh. I can't help it. It bubbles up out of me, soft and breathless, and his heartbeat stutters under my palm.
He wraps his fingers around my wrist. Not pulling my hand away, holding it there, his grip warm and firm. He holds me like that. My hand on his heart. His hand on my wrist. Both of us breathing too fast.
"Go inside," he says.
"Come with me."
His eyes close. His grip tightens on my wrist. I feel the war in him. The push and pull, the wanting and the refusing, the man fighting the soldier. His thumb presses against my pulse point, and I know he can feel how fast my heart is racing. I know he knows what that means.
"Alexandra." My name in his mouth sounds like a prayer. Or a curse. "Go. Inside."
I hold his gaze for one more second. Then I slip my hand free, step through the doorway, and let him close the door between us.
I press my back against it and slide to the floor, knees drawn to my chest, forehead against my arms.
My skin is on fire where he touched me. My lip still tingles from his thumb. My wrist aches with the phantom pressure of his grip, and I swear I can still feel his heartbeat against my palm like he branded it there.
I sit on the floor of his room and press my fingers to my mouth and try to convince myself that this is not happening. That I'm not falling for the man who kidnapped me. That the heat coiling in my belly is adrenaline, not desire. That the ache between my legs is ...
Fuck.
Fuck.
FUUUUUUUCK.
I tilt my head back against the door and stare at the ceiling.
On the other side of the wood, I hear him. Still standing there. Still breathing. He hasn't moved. He's right there, one inch of oak between us, and I know, I know with a certainty that scares me, that if I opened this door right now and pulled him inside, he wouldn't say no.
He'd hate himself for it. He'd punish himself later, retreat into that cold silence, rebuild every wall I've spent weeks chipping at. But in the moment? With my hands on his chest and his name in my mouth?
He wouldn't say no.
I press my palm flat against the door. Close my eyes.
On the other side, I hear a thud. Soft. Like a forehead resting against wood.
We stay like that. Wanting. Craving. Denying. Until his footsteps finally retreat down the corridor. Slow. Heavy. Like a man walking away from the only thing he wants.
I sit on the floor for a long time after he's gone.
Then I climb into his bed, pull his pillow against my chest, and press my face into the fabric that smells like him.
I don't sleep.
But I stop pretending I don't want to.