Chapter 4 #2
Reed stepped forward slowly, each step deliberate, letting the silence stretch between them like a drawn wire.
He enjoyed watching people unravel in those moments—liked the power of quiet anticipation.
Most couldn’t take the weight of it. But Harper?
She didn’t squirm. Didn’t shift. She just sat there, poised and unnervingly still, her eyes locked on his with a look that dared him to blink first. There was no fear in her gaze, only fire.
He’d walked into that room with the upper hand.
And damn if she didn’t make him feel like she was handing it back piece by piece, just to watch what he’d do with it.
“Only if it comes with handcuffs,” he said.
Her smile was slow and dry. “You offering or threatening?”
“Depends on your answer.”
He stepped closer, drawn by something he didn’t bother to name.
Close enough to smell the faint trace of her perfume—jasmine and steel, a combination that shouldn’t have worked but somehow embodied her perfectly.
Sharp and soft. Lethal and lush. His body moved before his mind caught up, a low burn gathering in his spine and heat settling in his gut.
She didn’t flinch, didn’t lean away. She just arched an eyebrow, daring him to come closer, to cross the line she clearly didn’t fear.
The air between them crackled—danger and desire dressed up as silence.
“I have footage,” he said. “You in a restricted wing. Palming walls like you’re looking for a latch.”
She blinked, just once. “I wasn’t stealing anything.”
“No. But you were hunting.”
“I needed confirmation,” she said tightly.
“Of what?”
“That something very dangerous passed through this place.”
Reed stared at her, eyes searching for cracks, any hint of retreat or hesitation—but there were none.
She didn’t break. Didn’t even bend. Not even a flicker of guilt or panic crossed her face.
Just that same feral pride, sharp and wild and unapologetic.
The kind of pride that didn’t ask for mercy because it would offer none in return.
It was bold. Defiant. And God help him, it turned him on.
“My name is Harper Langston. I'm a thief—or at least, I used to be.” Her voice was steady, but there was a flicker in her eyes, a shadow of old regrets and hard-earned lines. “Now, I use my skills to help people who have been robbed and can’t go to the police. Art collectors, galleries, even private citizens. People who’ve had something stolen but are too embarrassed or too compromised to report it.
” She held his gaze. “I get it back. Quietly. Efficiently. And I don’t leave a trace.
” Her jaw tightened. “I didn’t take the artifact. ”
He believed her. Damn it all, he did.
“Then who did?” he asked.
Harper’s mouth twitched. “That’s complicated.”
“Try me.”
She hesitated, then shook her head. “You wouldn’t believe me.”
Reed leaned in, bracing one hand on the chair’s armrest beside her thigh.
The movement boxed her in, brought their faces within inches.
Her breath hitched just slightly—more reflex than fear—and it lit a fuse in his blood.
He could feel the heat radiating from her, tension thrumming in the air like a live wire between them.
He wasn’t just caging her in. He was daring her to push, to challenge, to submit.
And deep down, some part of him wanted her to do all three at once.
“Harper,” he said, voice dark and quiet, “I’ve cleaned up bodies for billionaires, dismantled sex rings in four countries, and dragged senators out of dungeons before the media caught wind. Try me.”
Something flickered in her eyes—relief? Respect? He couldn’t tell. But she didn’t argue.
Still, she didn’t answer either.
He pushed the folder into her lap.
“Here’s how this works,” he said. “You stay with me—my home, here in the office or out at the club. You will be under my supervision. You don’t lie. You don’t run. You follow my rules. I find out who set you up, if you’re telling the truth.”
“And if I’m not?” she asked, her voice just shy of mocking.
“Then I call in a favor and make sure you land in a federal holding cell with no exit plan. And not some cushy white-collar wing either—I’m talking about a black site where names go to vanish and rules are optional.
I know people who would lock you up just to watch what you'd do when the lights don’t come back on. ”
Her lips parted, sass rising—but he leaned in again, dropped his voice to a whisper:
“Choose, Harper. I'm not offering you mercy or some kind of partnership. You have a choice between two, and only two options: submit to me or end up in a place darker than any prison, where no one’s going to care how pretty or clever you are.”
She stared at him, breath hitching just enough to give her away—but not in fear.
It was something else. A rush of anticipation, or maybe arousal, as if the power rolling off him in waves brushed against something raw and ready inside her.
Her eyes darkened, and for one brief second, Reed swore she was imagining exactly what it would feel like to give in to everything he’d just threatened—and craving it.
Then she smiled. Not sweet. Not safe. A slow, sinful grin that curled at the corners like a dare and promised chaos with a kiss.
It struck him low and hard, the heat pooling in his gut and surging straight to his cock.
His control strained under the pressure of it—of her.
Of what she was offering without saying a word.
Not surrender. Not yet. But the potential of it.
The possibility that she might kneel... if he earned it.
And God help him, he wanted to earn every damn inch.
“Well,” she said. “When you put it like that… how could a girl resist?”