Chapter 3 #2
With a sudden twist she freed her hand. The loss of contact seared more than the Brand itself. She smoothed her skirt, chin high. “Believe what you like. My references are clean. My record is spotless. I’m here because I want this job. Because you need someone who won’t crumble under pressure.”
Leif circled her slowly, a predator savoring the kill. “You expect me to believe you came here for a paycheck? For résumé padding?” His laugh was harsh. “Bullshit.”
Her gaze tracked him, unblinking. “Maybe I don’t run. Maybe some things you face head-on.”
The words landed with a force that unsettled him.
Most people bent under his scrutiny, scrambled to appease or retreat.
She didn’t. And for a heartbeat he wondered if that defiance, coupled with her denial of being a Dante, meant she truly belonged to some other legacy.
Could the Brand cross bloodlines? Could destiny reach beyond the rules he’d always assumed?
The thought scraped at him, dangerous, before he shoved it back down, unwilling to show so much as a flicker of doubt.
“Like what?” he asked, his tone sharp. Commanding.
Her lips curved faintly, but her gaze didn’t waver. “Like the truth of who I am. Like the power I carry that has nothing to do with being a Dante, because I’m not one. Like the kind of danger you can’t leash with rules or threats.”
The words struck. He heard the truth coiled in them, though not the whole truth.
Never the whole truth. He stepped in again, overwhelming her space, close enough that her breath warmed his jaw.
“You knew me at The Alabaster. You knew who I was when you came to my bed. And you knew what it meant to walk into this office today.”
She didn’t deny it. Her silence was an admission more damning than words.
His mouth curved, dangerous. He reached up, grabbed the back of her neck, and pulled her mouth to his.
Not tender. Not sweet. A brutal, punishing kiss that demanded and took.
Her lips parted in shock, then anger, then heat, and when she kissed him back, it was with fire.
Teeth clashed. Tongues warred. Her nails dug into his shoulders.
For a moment, the office was nothing but heat and possession and the sound of ragged breathing.
He broke the kiss, his breath harsh against her lips.
“This isn’t yours or mine—it’s the Brand binding us both.
You can call yourself anything you want, deny being a Dante, deny me—but the mark doesn’t lie.
It’s proof we’re connected. You react to it every time it burns, same as I do. Don’t forget that.”
The words weren’t just a taunt. They were a confession, one that unsettled him as much as it threatened her.
Because if she wasn’t a Dante, then the Brand had broken every rule he thought he understood.
And that meant whatever force had marked them didn’t care about bloodlines or family.
It cared about the two of them. That truth carved through his certainty, dangerous and undeniable.
She glared, lips swollen, chest heaving. “You can’t own me.”
He smiled, dangerous and dark. “Watch me.”
Then he pressed her harder against the desk, his hand spanning her throat, not choking, just reminding.
His thumb stroked the frantic beat of her pulse.
He bent low, his voice a harsh whisper. “I will know why you’re here.
I’ll strip every layer of your lies until there’s nothing left but truth.
And when I have it, you’ll beg me for what comes next. ”
Her breath hitched, but she met his stare. “You’ll break yourself before you break me.”
That defiance only sharpened his hunger. He released her throat slowly, then smoothed a strand of hair back behind her ear with a touch that contradicted the violence of the moment. “You think survival makes you strong. You’re wrong. Strength is choosing to stay when every impulse screams to run.”
“Or maybe strength,” she shot back, her voice trembling with fury and something else, “is choosing to walk away from you, when every nerve in my body is screaming to stay. Strength is knowing the danger is addictive and refusing to let it own me.”
His laugh was quiet and deadly. “Addicted? You think you’re the one addicted here?” He leaned closer, his lips brushing hers again without taking. “You’re wrong. The addiction goes both ways.”
The admission shocked her enough to widen her eyes, and he used that to claim her mouth again, this time slower, darker, a kiss that promised ruin. He devoured the little sound she made, one caught between fury and want, and felt her tremble while she dug her nails into his chest.
When he pulled back, he was breathing hard. “You should have stayed gone, Mariah. Because now that you’re here, I’ll never let you go.”
She planted her hands on his chest and pushed. Not that he moved. “Maybe I came back to watch you destroy yourself.”
He snarled softly, dragging her body tight against his. “Then stay close. Because I destroy everything I touch.”
He kissed her again, this time rough and fast, lifting her onto the desk, forcing her legs apart so he could stand between them. His mouth claimed hers, his hands braced on her thighs. She shoved at him, half-hearted, her body betraying her as much as his betrayed him.
Her breath broke against his mouth, a sharp mix of fury and want. Every tremor, every denial, came as another confession she couldn’t voice. And when her nails dug in again, he knew she hated the way her body answered him.
He let the kiss deepen a moment longer, savoring the war inside her, before he tore his mouth from hers. He stared down at her, chest heaving, forcing her to see how much he recognized the truth she fought to bury.
“Say it,” he insisted. “Say you feel this.”
She shook her head, breathless. “I feel nothing.”
He growled low. “Liar.” His hand slid up her thigh, stopping just short of indecency. “This burns you the same way it burns me. Admit it.”
She pushed at his chest, nails raking through his shirt. “I’ll never give you that satisfaction.”
He smiled, feral. “Then I’ll take it instead.”
He pinned her wrists above her head, flattening her to the desk.
Their Brands burned in unison, the heat unbearable, like fire crawling through his veins.
His mouth crashed to hers in another endless kiss, and this time she arched against him despite herself.
The sound that tore from her throat was muffled by his mouth, and it nearly broke him apart.
He pulled back just enough to rasp, “Mine.”
“Never,” she whispered, though her trembling betrayed her.
He released her wrists, pacing away to keep from taking her on the spot.
He raked a hand through his hair, his chest heaving.
“You work for me now. Every day. Every night. Under my eyes until I decide otherwise. If you run—” He turned, eyes lethal.
“I will burn Dallas to the ground to drag you back.”
Mariah smoothed her blouse, her mask firmly back in place. But her eyes glinted with something sharper than fear. Something secret. Something dangerous.
She met his stare and didn’t flinch. “Then I suppose we’ll see who survives first.”
Leif’s pulse thundered. The Brand flared hotter in his palm, alive, a bond neither of them could deny. He knew, with a certainty that clenched his gut, that this was only the beginning. And he would not lose this hunt.
She didn’t move to leave. Instead, she leaned one hip against the desk, her eyes locked on his as though she wanted him to see every thought she dared not voice.
The air between them thickened, a heaviness pressing down.
The urge to close it again consumed him, to take her mouth and her breath and her will, but he forced himself to hold.
Control wasn’t just about taking. It was about waiting for the exact moment when waiting broke the other first.
“You think I’m here just for you,” she said finally, voice quiet but sharp. “You’re wrong. I’m here because of everything tied to you. Your empire. Your enemies. Your shadow.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Then tell me whose game you’re playing.”
Her lips curved in something almost like a dare. “Maybe I’ll let you figure it out. You’re good at hunting, aren’t you? Despite not being able to find me.”
The challenge dug deep, fed the furnace already roaring inside him. He stepped closer, close enough that his breath brushed her ear. “I don’t hunt puzzles, Mariah. I hunt prey. And I always catch it.”
Her laugh was low, wild around the edges. “Then maybe I’m not prey. Maybe I’m the trap.”