Chapter 25 #2
He presses closer, his chest hard against mine, pinning me between him and the wall. I feel every inch of him—solid, tense, wound too tight. He’s claiming this space. He’s claiming me in the middle of the wreckage we’re about to cause.
“We have four minutes,” I breathe, my fingers climbing from his shirt to his shoulders, then higher, threading into his hair. “This is not… a good idea.”
“It’s a spectacularly bad idea,” he agrees, and then his mouth is on mine.
This is a slow burn, a deliberate process of sensation. The kiss is an act of possession, each movement stripping away every polite mask I've ever seen him wear. He is raw, unhurried hunger made tangible.
When I instinctively part my lips, his tongue slams against mine—a slow, hot friction that burns a path down my spine. It's not just a touch; it's an immediate claiming that makes my knees buckle. His hand grips my bare waist, a tight, desperate anchor against the sudden, dizzying weakness.
The danger isn’t just outside. It’s here. Between us. In the room that smells like the man who wants to destroy us both.
A sharp, dangerous thrill spikes through my veins. We shouldn’t be doing this here.
I curl my hand around the back of his neck and pull him closer.
He makes a sound—low, wrecked—and breaks the kiss just enough to drag his mouth down my throat again. My head tips back against the wall, baring more skin without conscious permission.
His hand slides lower, splayed over my hip, fingers skimming the top of my jeans. The tiniest tug, and I feel the button strain.
“Declan,” I gasp, somewhere between plea and warning.
He stops. For half a second. His forehead drops to my collarbone, shoulders shaking with the effort it takes to hold himself back.
“Tell me no,” he rasps. “And I stop.”
He means it. I can feel the restraint in every tense line of him. Even here, even now, he gives me the choice his father never would.
I don’t say no.
Instead, my hand leaves his neck, slides down between us, over the hard line of his stomach, lower, brushing the waistband of his jeans. His breath hitches.
I don’t go further. I just hold my hand there, fingers curling into the fabric. A promise, not yet a touch.
“I’m not a distraction,” I whisper, the words digging up from somewhere deep and raw. “Say it.”
He lifts his head. His eyes are dark, blown wide, pupils swallowing up the gray. I’ve never seen him look less controlled, less careful, than he does right now.
“You’re the only thing that makes any of this make sense,” he says, voice low and wrecked. “You’re not a distraction, Talia. You’re the point.”
The air leaves my lungs in a rush.
His hand slides around to my lower back, pulling me flush against him.
My hips bump his, and the friction is a jolt of pure, helpless want, made all the more potent by the hard ridge of his erection pressed against my belly.
I bite down on a gasp, my fingers fisting in his shirt again.
He shifts, and the hard, muscled length of his thigh slides between my legs.
I can’t stop myself from shamelessly rubbing against him, seeking the heat and pressure.
We’re playing with fire. With explosives. In a room wired with secrets and consequences.
A tiny, treacherous part of me thrills at the risk. Alistair can threaten my dad all he wants. He doesn’t get to have this. He doesn’t get to have his son.
“Got it,” Genny’s voice cuts through the haze, sharp and breathless.
I freeze. Declan stiffens against me.
“We’re at ninety-nine percent,” she says, not looking at us, her fingers flying across the keyboard to close windows. “Disconnecting. We need to move. Now.”
Declan’s forehead rests against mine for one second longer, breathing hard. “Later,” he says, the word a rough promise. “I swear to God, later.”
“Later,” I echo, tasting the word like sugar and blood.
We untangle in careful, reluctant movements. He steps back first, dragging in a breath so deep his chest heaves. I smooth my hoodie down with shaky hands, trying to erase the evidence of his mouth on my neck. It’s useless. I feel branded.
Genny rips the drive from the computer and shoves it into her bra. She finally looks at us, her face flushed with stress. “If you two are done violating the sanctity of the workplace, let’s go. Security will circle back any second.”
“Go,” Declan orders, moving to check the door. He cracks it open, scanning the hall. “Clear.”
He holds the door. Genny slips out first, hugging herself like she’s cold.
I follow. As I pass Declan, our shoulders brush. The contact is small, almost nothing, but my whole body notices.
“You okay?” he murmurs, eyes still on the far end of the hall.
I straighten, lift my chin. “I just broke into your father’s office and almost let you talk me into round two behind the door,” I say quietly. “I’m… better than okay.”
His lips curve, the barest hint of a smile, dark and fierce. “That’s my girl.”
Footsteps. Voices echoing from the stairwell.
We split.
I move toward the elevator bank, casual, bored student leaving a meeting. Declan walks the opposite way, shoulders squared, the picture of a goalie heading back to the locker room.
Security brushes past me, breathless and irritated. Behind them, the assistant’s heels clack a nervous staccato as she rushes back toward her desk. I keep my head down, letting my hair curtain my face. She doesn’t stop. She doesn’t recognize me.
No alarm goes off. No one shouts.
We did it.
By the time I reach the stairwell where Clara and Adrian are waiting, my legs are shaking so hard I have to grip the rail.
Later, we’ll pick apart every second of this. Later, we’ll see what Genny pulled. Later, I’ll have to sit with what I just let myself do in the dark with Declan Reid.
Right now, all I know is this:
I am not a distraction.
I just helped light the fuse on the man who tried to make me one. And I did it with shaking hands, Declan’s mouth still hot on my throat, and my heart beating a war drum in my chest.