Prey (Prey #1)

Chapter 1

Grey

I take something from Cain every week.

Not anything he'd notice. A bent paperclip. A pen left on his desk. The cardboard sleeve from his coffee, still warm when I press it to my palm in the empty break room.

Tonight, I'm taking more.

The office is dead at 11 PM. His office is at the end of the hall.

The corner suite. The door always locks automatically at the end of the day.

I've had the override code for weeks, it's the same as his phone, same as his laptop.

Powerful men assume no one is watching. That's how they lose everything.

The lock clicks. I step inside.

His smell hits me first, the smell that always makes me want to crawl into his skin.

I close the door, and don't bother turning on the lights.

The city glows through floor-to-ceiling windows.

I pull out his middle desk drawer. There's a photograph: him and a woman I don't recognize.

I turn it face-down. I don't want to see her.

A watch. Heavy. Silver. He wears it on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I press it to my wrist, it’s cold metal, the band still holding the shape of him. Then I put it back exactly where it was. Same angle. Same position.

He can't know. Not yet.

I open the bottom drawer. Files. Contracts.

Beneath them: a keycard for the executive floor after hours.

I slip it into my pocket as I close the drawer.

Just borrowing. I make sure to straighten his pens, he likes them aligned with the edge of the desk pad and wipe down the corner where my sleeve might have brushed.

Then I walk to the window. Press my palm against the glass. The city blinks back at me.

He stood here this morning, coffee in hand, and phone pressed to his ear. He laughed at something, head tipped back, and throat bare. I wanted to put my mouth on it so badly I had to look away.

"I'm here," I whisper as my breath fogs the glass.

He looked at me today. Not a glance. A look. The kind that pins you in place and asks questions without words, and when he fixes them on me, I feel stripped. He asked me to stay late tomorrow.

"Grey," his voice low and unhurried, like he had all the time in the world and knew I'd wait. "I need you tomorrow night. Seven o'clock. We're reviewing the William file."

Not "I need the file." Not "have it on my desk."

We.

I said yes. Of course I said yes. I said it in that polite easy way I've perfected, the one that makes people think I'm innocent. The one that makes them forget I'm in the room. But I wasn't all so innocent when I walked back to my desk.

I was hard. And I let myself want it. I let myself imagine: his hands, his mouth, the sound he'd make if I got on my knees right there, and showed him exactly how well I've been paying attention.