Chapter 3 #2
I drop into a crouch next to his left leg, the one closest to me, and immediately realize I've made a catastrophic error in judgment because his thigh is genuinely the size of my entire torso, thick with muscle and radiating heat through the dark denim of his jeans like he's running several degrees hotter than baseline human temperature.
I wrap the fabric tie around my right ankle first, my fingers fumbling slightly with the buckle mechanism because my hands are shaking and I'm trying very hard not to think about the fact that I'm kneeling next to a man who could crush my skull with one hand and barely notice the effort.
"You need to lower your leg," I say without looking up, focusing all my attention on the tie and definitely not on the way his presence feels presses down on the air around me. "I can't reach high enough to secure this properly unless you cooperate."
There's a pause, long enough that I think he might actually refuse just to make this more difficult, and then he shifts his weight and bends his knee slightly, bringing his ankle down to a height I can actually work with.
I loop the fabric around his ankle, and my knuckles brush against his skin where his jeans have ridden up slightly, and the contact sends an electric jolt straight up my arm that I absolutely refuse to acknowledge because this is a professional team-building exercise and I am not going to let my traitorous nervous system turn it into something it's not.
His leg is enormous. I know this objectively because I have eyes and basic spatial reasoning skills, but having it tied directly to mine drives the reality home in a way that makes my brain short-circuit momentarily because the circumference of his calf is genuinely larger than my thigh and his leg against mine feels like I've chained myself to a tree trunk that happens to be warm and alive and capable of movement.
I finish securing the tie and straighten up, immediately regretting every life choice that led me to this exact moment because standing this close to Thrall means I have to tilt my head back at an almost ninety-degree angle just to see his face, and the sheer scale difference makes me feel like I'm trying to have a conversation with a building that decided to grow legs and develop opinions about corporate team dynamics.
"Ready?" I ask, proud of how steady my voice sounds despite the fact that my heart is doing something complicated and arrhythmic behind my ribs.
"No," Thrall says bluntly, looking down at me as if communicating he thinks this is the stupidest thing he's ever been forced to participate in and he's including the time his investors made him do a motivational fire walk.
"This is a waste of time. You're half my size.
The second we try to move, you're going to fall, I'm going to catch you, and we're going to accomplish absolutely nothing except proving that gravity exists and humans are fragile. "
"Then don't let me fall," I snap back, annoyed despite myself because his complete lack of faith in my coordination is frankly insulting and I ran a half-marathon last year without tripping once.
"The entire point of this exercise is synchronized movement and communication.
You call the pace, I match it, we move together.
It's not complicated unless you make it complicated. "
His eyebrow raises slightly, a skeptical arch that suggests he has significant doubts about my assessment but he's willing to humor me long enough to watch me fail spectacularly.
"Fine," he says, and without any warning whatsoever, he takes a step forward.
It's not even a particularly fast step by his standards, just a normal walking pace for someone with legs approximately the length of my body, but the fabric tie yanks my ankle forward with enough force that I genuinely don't have time to react before my center of gravity shifts and the ground rushes up to meet me with the kind of inevitability usually reserved for natural disasters and tax deadlines.
I don't hit the ground.
Two massive hands wrap around my waist, fingers spanning from my ribs to my hips with room to spare, and suddenly I'm airborne, lifted completely off the grass with the same casual ease someone might use to pick up a briefcase or a small household pet.
Thrall hauls me upright and holds me suspended in mid-air for a breathless moment, and I'm suddenly, viscerally aware of exactly how strong he is because he's not straining or struggling or even breathing hard, just holding my body weight at arm's length like I'm made of foam and empty air.
The heat of his hands burns through my blazer and blouse, and I can feel the individual pressure points of each finger against my skin, the way his thumbs rest just below my ribcage and his other fingers curl around my sides with a possessive firmness that makes something low in my stomach clench involuntarily.
He smells like ozone and black pepper and expensive leather, sharp and electric and overwhelmingly male, and my brain completely flatlines because this is too much sensory input happening simultaneously and I don't have the processing power to handle all of it at once.
"See? Told you this was pointless."
He's still holding me. Still has me suspended in the air with my feet dangling uselessly above the grass and my face level with his collarbones, I see the pale scars crossing his throat and the way his pulse beats steadily beneath his green skin.
The air between us feels thick and heavy, charged with something I don't have a name for and absolutely cannot afford to examine too closely because I am working and he is a client and this entire situation is careening toward a professional disaster of epic proportions.
"Put me down," I manage, and my voice comes out breathless and strange, missing all the crisp authority I've spent the entire morning carefully projecting.
His eyes drop to mine, amber and predatory and far too knowing, and his mouth curves into something that's not quite a smile but definitely isn't neutral.
"Say please," he says.